Seminar in Qualitative Communication Research

Com 473 —Baldwin—Communication—Illinois State University

 

Qualitative Research: Write Up

 

Lindlof & Taylor [Note: Notes based on 1st edition. I will later update them as necessary]

AUTHORITY

Science versus rhetoric?

Credibilty/authority versus tentative explanation, sharing experise?

            Ethnographic authority

            How do you establish credibility in your writing?

Narrative presence?

            What are authorial stance and status?

            Voice: Tension b/t experiencing self & analytic self

            Ethnographic realism/subtle realism (A&H)

            Tone: When and Where do Values belong? How might they slip in? Danger of this?

            Verisimilitude

 

Pushing the envelope?

            How? Why? (disperse authority; PM view of reality)

            Pros & cons?

 

READER-GENRE NEXUS

            What are some different levels of readers?

            Who will your audience be for this chapter?

           

Writing

TEXTUAL ORGANIZATION

q       Thematic

q       Narrowing & Expanding the Focus

q       Puzzle-Explication

q       Narration and Analysis

q       Chronology

q       Natural History

 

CONSTRUCTING ACTORS

q       How much detail, and when? Bio profiles?

q       How often did it occur (naïve quantification)

q       Types?

 

EVENTFULNESS

q       Exemplars (as signs): Relevance, clarity

q       Evocative writing

q       “Distortions of Descriptive Effect” (decontextualized categories)

q       Hypotyposis

q       Metonymy

 

Please read one of the 2 chapters by W. J. Potter (1996) on future directions of qualitative/quantitative research, or both.

 

POTTER CHAPTER 16: Why some people don’t like qualitative research (and implications for your write up):

  • Mischaracterizing methodologies (clarity in use of terms)
    • Ethnographic
    • Naturalistic
    • Focus group, etc.
  • Underlying assumptions
    • Failure to articulate (as important as conclusions!)
    • Inconsistency (e.g., claiming “constructivist” but treating as “realist”)
  • Lack of detail in methods section
    • Sampling
    • Balanced v. focused evidence
    • Primary v. secondary source (e.g., interp of claims: Can you make claims about a “primary” object if you have collected “secondary” data?)
    • Methods (e.g., length of data collection; selection criteria of texts, etc.)
    • Analytic procedures (role of prior concepts? Types of claims that can be made, e.g., generalizability? Transferability? Context?

 

A SET OF CHOICES  (gleaned from all readings)

  • Theory-driven or inductive (Is all research essentially theory laden?)
  • Objective/Subjective (reality? Whose reality?): Ql Res is a tool…
  • Consistent or fragmented account? (PM)
  • Presentation of respondents: Case study ßà Themes
  • Level of detail from quotations?
  • Reporting ßà Interpreting ßà Critiquing?
  • Level of context(s) provided to scene, participants, texts [Lindlof: “constructing actors” or to add to that, constructing texts
  • Voice (self-reflexivity)—related to “subjectivity” above.
  • Potter’s 2 tensions:
    • Fluidity-order (can we “crystallize” qualitative methods?)
    • Reflection-transformation (e.g., humanistic or critical)?

 

TOWARDS INTEGRATION:  (Potter, Ch. 17)

Questions: Can one use both methods without being “methodologically schizophrenic”?

            Does the “question drive the method”—or is there a different answer?

Three possible stances of the relationship b/t qualitative & quantitative (yea, verily, 4)

  • [opposition]
  • co-existence
  • complementary (e.g., “triangulation”):
    • Using qualitative to validate quantative
    • Using quantitative to validate qualitative
  • Integration: Two paral   lel views of the same thing

 

Potter’s thesis:  (e.g., p. 313, 314, 325-326).

 

[The following notes are not in our readings this year, but I will provide some class notes based on these that may be relevant for you]

 

Miller & Crabtree, 1998

 

“Most qualitative clinical research is published in a language and in places that benefit researchers and not the patients and practitioners” (p. 295).

 

What does it mean “coming to the walls”?

 

4 designs that blend qualitative and quantitative

q       Concurrent

q       Nested

q       Sequential

q       Combination

 

Data Analysis

q       Immersion/crystallization

q       Editing

q       Template

q       Quasi-statistical

 

Where to tell the stories?

 

How to tell the stories?

q       What to include

q       Convincing

o       Methodologically

o       Rhetorically

o       Clinically (parallel to our work?)

 

Richardson, 1998 (in Denzin & Lincoln reader), Ch. 12

What are poststructuralism and subjectivity? (pp. 348-349)?

What are the conventions of traditional writing? (p. 353)?

What are evocative representations and what are some different forms they can take? Be able to describe:

  • Narrative of the self
  • Ethnographic fictional representations
  • Poetic representation
  • Ethnographic drama
  • Mixed genres

In what ways does PM influence Richardson’s approach?

pp. 348-349

p. 354: experimental writing

pp. 357-358

Don’t miss the practical suggestions at the end!