‘Methods in Practice’ reports: guidelines and timetable

Click here to go back to the call for contributions.

Email me for more details or to discuss this project.

The goals

These guidelines are to assist drafting of contributions to the set of online reports on projects for the Sage Publications website associated with the next edition of Handling Qualitative Data. As outlined in the call for contributions, these are planned as a body of succinct, specific, detailed, lively and live reports from real research projects about the working of methods in practice. Their emphasis will be on how the researchers actually conducted the tasks of handling and analysing data, what worked and what didn’t, and the strategies and techniques developed.

These accounts, unlike the conventional published paper or thesis chapter, will tell the process of what was done and the story of how it was done and what was learned. So they will be reports not about the content and conclusions of the project but about key details of how researchers went about handling that content and how they arrived at those conclusions.

Length and structure of reports

The only uniformity will be that each report is presented under the same five headings – this is to help readers compare across the reports to find different experiences of each research stage or process. The headings are:

	1. Setting up the project - research design processes and entry to the field
	2. Your data – ways of making data, processes of handling the data records
	3. Working with data -coding, writing, exploring, making sense
	4. Seeking and justifying theory, explanations, accounts of the data
	5. Reporting the project – and challenges in writing, experience of justifying conclusions.

Each report will have a ‘home’ page on the website, summarizing the project under those five headings. Using these summaries, the reader can get an overview of the set of projects before diving in.

A project’s front page will then link from each heading to a fuller account of that topic ‘behind’ it. There’s no word limit for these pages but it’s hoped that they’ll be succinct. There's no attempt to cover all the detail of any process, rather to highlight the aspects most relevant to your experience. It’s suggested you aim for a full page of text (around 750 words) under each heading. So the full report will probably be less than 4,000 words. It can of course link from these pages to much more detailed content (see below) if you wish.

Variety of style and content

There will be no attempt to standardize style of writing or contents of contributions (apart from the obvious editorial requirements of grammar, comprehensibility and ethics). We aim for reports that are live, informal and giving a sense that you, the researcher, are talking to the reader, conveying the adventure and hard labour and the journey and arrival of a project.

In selecting contributions, we are seeking variety – of method, research area and experience. There is absolutely no requirement that your project followed advice or used techniques in Handling Qualitative Data. Text of the book will not critique the live project reports, just point to them. There’s also no requirement that you used software, or, of course, any particular software.

Live projects: linking from the website

Materials that go up for each project report will be limited to six website pages (see above). But it is hoped that each report will use the online medium fully, linking to other resources and sites, so researchers, teachers and students can find more about your work.

If you have your own website, your report can point to it, and you can change the material there as new publications appear or new stages of the research unfold. If you used interview schedules or other materials, you can provide these in pdf files and link to them.

Here, on my personal website, there will be a news page for these live project reports, to alert readers to new material. If you don’t have your own site, I’ll post your references to new publications or upcoming presentations etc. about the project – or new ways a technique has been trialled in a subsequent project. If it is appropriate for your report, (and so long as you have ethical clearance), you might provide real data samples to help readers see the sort of material you are analysing.

Timelines

Now! If you are interested to submit a contribution, please send me as soon as possible an outline of the project you would report and importantly, any accessible publications from it. There are no formal requirements for this submission, and you’re welcome to send documentation you already have if that’s easiest (e.g. research grant submission or conference presentation). I need enough detail to assess whether the project is an appropriate subject for a report, and where it fits. These materials will be used to select which authors go on to prepare online materials. I'll respond as quickly as possible, always within two weeks.

By November 1st, 2008, contributors are asked to send a draft of the text of the ‘front’ page for their project, and at least one of the detail pages, so I can give any feedback.

By December 1st, 2008, contributors are asked to send a draft of all pages. It's needed then so that I can refer to your study as I revise my book.

There will be plenty of opportunity to revise and enrich your contribution before the final deadline for material to go up on the website, which is May 1^st 2009.

The Methods in Practice site goes up on the Sage website end of May 2009. The earlier deadline for reports is so that I can build references to them into the revision of the textbook.