What's New?
Hello Qualitative Mind,
Writing qualitative findings is something many of us find challenging. Qualitative data is rich and nuanced which usually means a higher word count when we write our results. Additionally, we love our quotes way too much to leave so many good ones out of our results section. Yet, in most journals we don’t get extra words for our results or are discouraged to submit manuscripts that are long and wordy. [I bet most of you are nodding your heads as you read this paragraph.]
“As a result, when writing qualitative findings it’s worth asking the question, ‘what’s new here (i.e., in my results)’?”
Probably the biggest challenge when it comes to writing the results section of qualitative research lies in organizing themes, categories, sub-themes, sub-categories. The decision of what gets included in a piece of writing and what is saved for something else often delays and/or even paralyzes qualitative researchers. If you’ve struggled with this, I want you to hear the latest reminder I got in one of my consulting projects.
The qualitative project that taught me this lesson is part of a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) that started in 2020. With projects like this that take time to be concluded because recruitment is slow paced, a lot can happen in two years. There might be emerging evidence, new publications, new technology or hot topics related to world events (such as a pandemic). As a result, when writing qualitative findings it’s worth asking the question, “what’s new here (i.e., in my results)”?
Dr. Maria Mayan (my mentor and PhD supervisor) always encouraged me to steer away from common places and overly reported (and discussed) topics, e.g., having translators in prenatal appointments as the pathway to better prenatal health among immigrants and refugees. Still, the importance of the question “what’s new?” became, once again, evident to me in a meeting with clinicians where they learned our preliminary findings, and told us what was “old news” in the field in contrast to the “juicy/novel” findings we got. Don’t get me/us wrong, “old news” are often super important but they’re widely spread in the area of research. Therefore, it’s a smart idea to focus the writing on the themes that can really add something novel to the literature and practice.
The question “What’s new?” won’t solve all of your qualitative writing challenges BUT it might guide you in organizing the results you want to share with your audience in your next paper. It was helpful to gain that insight from a clinician, and be reminded that we can strive to write about the new in our data with the hope that it might help those most affected by research and practice: the participants/patients whose lived experiences informed the findings.
Talk soon,
Maira
Ps. In personal news, “what’s new” is that Baby Q joined our family this September! He and I are both doing well, and we are all enjoying this new season as a family of 5.