The “Smile” of Your Qualitative Health Research
Hello Qualitative Mind,
“Maternal health perceptions and experiences of pregnant and postpartum women facing difficult life circumstances” was the title of my PhD thesis for many years until I realized how dull it was. At one point, less than three months before my defense, I told my supervisory committee how my PhD research was way more interesting than my thesis title. I ended up changing it to “Women’s realities shape their experiences of health during pregnancy and postpartum” which, in my opinion, is way more lively! I wrote about “Boosting Your Qualitative Research Title” a while ago, and the points I raised there are invaluable.
The reason why I’m revisiting that blog post is because it’s, to this date, the most visited one on the Quali Q blog, and recently someone asked me why I thought that was the case. Well, it so happens that I have a few possible explanations and think you might find them interesting.
First, I think we don’t pay enough time and attention to titles. We don’t see it as the “smile” or vital “first impression” of our work, and are more focused on the content rather than the superficial stuff. In a way, this is all good and true yet, with the amount of information available online, yours and mine won’t stand out without creating a good first impression. Moreover, health researchers, academics and practitioners have little to no training in marketing and, as a result, struggle to package research, services and products in a way that attracts the target audience. I’ll go even further and say we struggle to identify and stick to our target audience. I certainly struggled with this, and had to become a business owner and delve into branding to better understand the importance of knowing your target audience.
The second point relates to the first, and is possibly its root cause. As health researchers, academics and clinicians, we feel uncomfortable with the idea of marketing our messaging and services. I ask myself the reason for this, and am unsure about it. Is it because we don’t want to sound salesy? Is it because we think it’s unethical? Is it because we feel marketing our work makes us lose our credibility? Or is it because we believe our credentials should speak for themselves?
As I said, I don’t have one straight answer. However, I do believe many factors make health folks and academics lean towards uninteresting titles and packages for their research and services. And, guess what? It doesn’t need to be this way. Your health research – whether quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods – deserves a title that draws people, and invites them to learn more. Not only is it your work, but also your contribution to society. I invite you to boldly package your research and messaging…starting with an interesting title. So go back to “Boosting Your Qualitative Research Title” and recapture how you can do it by:
1. Appropriately reflecting the qualitative paradigm
2. Knowing your audience
3. Being ethical while honouring your participants’ stories, strengths and uniqueness
As always, we look forward to hearing how you implement the ideas we share here.
Talk soon,
Maira