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Tag Archives: research story

The importance of narrative

27 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by doctoralwriting in 1. The Thesis/Dissertation, All Posts

≈ 5 Comments

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narrative, research story

by Cally Guerin

It seems that everywhere I look, people are becoming more and more focused on narrative in all sorts of academic and research writing. Whether it is an application for a research grant, a report on completed research or when applying for a teaching award, the constant refrain is: ‘Try to tell more of a story about this’. It is particularly common to be encouraged to write literature reviews – and even entire theses – as if they are a ‘story’.

What is this about? I suspect that these demands for storytelling refer to a need to add value to what might otherwise simply be a list of ideas. The writer needs to interpret and join up the bare facts of the case, not just present that information and wait for the reader to infer what it all means. Perhaps narrativising is also a way of engaging the reader with some kind of emotional tug – the story can attract readers’ attention and make them care about the topic.

So, if we want to write research with more of a story, it is useful to consider the various elements of storytelling in order to see how they could be harnessed. (A caveat: I’m thinking about rather conventional storytelling. Those working in experimental literary studies will have much more adventurous notions of what constitutes ‘narrative’ – my apologies to you in advance!)

To start with, stories require a setting, so it is necessary to describe the context for the research. Readers may be familiar with some aspects of the setting, but it is useful to state the explicit details. To some extent, the setting can be a way of putting parameters around the project, pointing to the specifics of the context that are relevant for the rest of the research.

‘Characters’ might refer to the main players as the researchers, or might refer to the study population. The characters involved in a study does not always mean people, of course – it could be a gene or a building material under investigation, or a set of policy documents that are being examined.

Plot is where we start to see structure emerge. The stages of plot can help the research writer draw the reader into wanting to know ‘and then what happened?’, inviting them to turn the page or scroll down the screen to see how this story evolves. Readers need to start with an orientation to the original topic to be explored and a sense of the current state of affairs. Next, the complication can be described – what is it that we need to find out more about? What is the problem/gap to be explored? And eventually (importantly for reader satisfaction), a plot requires resolution – what were the findings or outcome of the research, and how does this change our knowledge of the world?

Storytelling also takes into account content and form. For research writers, this refers to collecting and collating the relevant information and ensuring details (and any resulting conclusions) are accurate. That content must be expressed in a form that meets reader expectations, which will always depend on disciplinary expectations of the particular genre being written.

Once we know who did it, what happens, when and where it occurred, narrative also demands that we can see the relationship between different elements; readers need to understand why this bit comes before that section, and how those parts inform each other. The chronology needs to be clear, even if it is not an exact replica of the order of events in the lived research – artful construction to make sense of the work is sometimes required (DoctoralWriting has written more about this here and here). The why is important here just as it is in other stories – why did this happen and why is it important or interesting?

The storyboarding approach can be helpful for choosing what order things should go in. One way of doing this is to use PowerPoint to plan the writing. One slide for each idea or paragraph provides a graphic split between the chunks of content, and they are easily moved around using the ‘slide sorter’ view. The thesis story may then be seen with different plot scenarios, helping the writer to choose the right story line according to where the significant parts of the content are, and what order will make them most accessible to the reader.

I spent a goodly portion of my summer holiday reading page-turning thrillers – now I look forward to reading some doctoral theses that have similarly satisfying narratives! How about you? What does ‘tell more of a story’ mean in your research world and how can doctoral writers use this to their advantage?

Leave it in or delete it? Dilemmas in writing the research story

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by doctoralwriting in All Posts

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

delete from thesis, research story, thesis by publication

by Cally Guerin

Increasingly I find myself reminding students that a thesis doesn’t have to report on every single thought the researcher has had for the past 3 or 4 (or more) years of candidature. Sure, it is very valuable to include descriptions of null responses or negative results from experiments – this is certainly interesting to those working in that particular field and provides helpful information for other researchers in the area, sometimes closing off possible paths that are now known to be unfruitful. It can also be very useful to report on problems that arose during the project which changed the direction of the research. Such insights can demonstrate critical thinking on the part of the candidate who not only encountered problems along the way, but who also found innovative solutions.

What gets left out is sometimes as important as what is left in the thesis, however. Not everything that has been read needs to be included in the literature review; indeed, critical thinking is demonstrated in part by being discerning, by choosing what is relevant and important to the discussion, rather than offering up a grab-bag of all that vaguely touches on an area. Staying focused on one central line of argument, maintaining a strong sense of direction and not going off onto irrelevant tangents, makes for good research writing, as does the capacity to delete sentences that, however beautifully written, move off in a different direction. Likewise, a scholar must choose what is usefully included in the final telling of the story of the thesis.

I use the word ‘story’ deliberately to imply that this is one version of events that has been carefully constructed and crafted to present a coherent account of the research process. I like Rudestam and Newton’s (2001) description of a well-written thesis containing many of the elements of detective fiction: a mystery in terms of a research question that requires answering; clues that take the form of data collection; the elimination of incorrect answers or red herrings encountered along the way. The thesis doesn’t necessarily have to follow the chronology of events as experienced by the researcher – just because delays were experienced in starting one part of the project doesn’t mean that the story must follow precisely the same sequence of events. Readers need a coherent story about those events that adheres to its own internal logic in order to understand the value and integrity of the research itself.

Perhaps this is as good a place as any to make a plug for the thesis by publication. This form is often rather leaner than traditional format theses (though not necessarily meaner!). I think that thesis by publication offers one way to help students stay focused on what is interesting and useful to the reader. Writing with the audience of journal reviewers in mind can be a valuable aid towards being a little more objective about one’s own writing; having a strict word or page limit can also focus the mind on what really needs to be included. Using the format of a journal article encourages researchers to hone in on what’s new and important, and to recognise what is assumed knowledge at this level.

Does this resonate with your own experience? As examiners, what do you want to see left out of theses? As supervisors and writing teachers, what do you find yourselves saying to students on this topic? And as PhD candidates, where do the struggles occur over what to leave out?

Rudestam, K.E. and Newton, R.R. (2001) Surviving your dissertation: A comprehensive guide to content and process. 2nd Edn. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

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