The following papers (Derwing, Dobrovolsky, Guilfoyle, and Prideaux) began as a panel discussion at the annual Alberta Conference on Language (ACOL) held in Banff on November 7th, 1992. The general theme of the panel was Research Paradigms and linguistic Research, and the original panel consisted of Bruce Derwing (U of A), John Archibald (U of C), John Ohala (U of A; Berkley), Eithne Guilfoyle (U of C), Gary Prideaux (U of A), and Michael Dobrovolsky (U of C). Each original talk was about fifteen minutes long. In this paper, I would like to combine the very brief opening remarks that I made, as well as my contribution: research paradigms and language acquisition research.