This document summarizes and discusses several perspectives on writing qualitative research papers and ethnographies from authors Wolcott, Emmerson, Richardson, and Lincoln. It discusses challenges in writing up fieldwork, identifying cultural themes, dealing with feedback, narrative structures, and strategies for shaping work for publication. Overall, the document provides guidance on organizing, structuring, and framing qualitative work for writing and sharing results.

1. Writing the
Ethnography
By Gisela Martiz
Qualitative Research II

2. Wolcott the (Un)Natural Writer
• You are a “natural writer”
if things come easily to
you…Well, not really.
You have just completed
the fieldwork , now it is
time to write it up…
• Once you have gathered
all your data, how do you
know what to exclude or
include in your
manuscript? Images source: Google Images

3. Spindler-Wolcott…Again
• In this article Wolcott tells his experiences when writing
his manuscript on the principal he
observed…experiences also presented in a chapter read
earlier this semester (Wolcott, 2010)
• Spindler plays a pivotal role in Wolcott’s transition to
becoming a “natural writer”:
• “How do you justify studying one principal in order to
understand principals? “ (p. 326)
• “Questions to answer in 1st part: What did you want to find out?
Why do you call it an ethnography? Why couldn't you find out
other ways?”
• Would these type of questions be useful to you in writing
your paper?
• How would you answer them?

4. Cultural Themes
• “Like culture itself, cultural themes are ‘attributed’,
and it is the ethnographer who does the
attributing”
• “Something observed must prompt the themes
proposed; they don’t just grow out of the thin air,
nor are they handed down from on high.”
• Spindler suggests: “find the particular, and draw on
it to establish some broader themes that cover
more cases and begin to form patterns” (p.330)
• Have you identified the cultural themes that
circumscribe your research study? If so, how?

5. A friendly hand in the writing process
• Wolcott remarks the role
colleagues and friends
played in his writing
process, but
acknowledges some
drawbacks of having
others read drafts.
• “ Reviewers have their
own styles and agendas
and may confuse where I
want to go with where
they want to go” (p. 336)
• How can we deal with
accepting feedback on our
work, without losing
authority on it?
Images source: Google Images

6. Lincoln…on becoming a natural writer
• Writing is an activity that always involves a community…a
community of those whom one hopes to persuade, a reading
audience or audiences… including the reviewers.
• Understand why a comment has been made before “fixing” the
document…regardless who the reviewer is.
• Accept when a reviewer or critic has a legitimate point, and
know intuitively when a reviewer has missed the point.
• Understand your own message.
• Select which elements will be presented.
• Arrange them so that they address the needs of a particular.
audience.

7. • Main points:
Wolcott: Writing Up… • Lit Review: formal lit
review not necessary-
interweave it into
dissertation
• Method: all research
begins with observation
• “Method is not the forte
of qualitative research.”
• What do you think he
means by this?
• Perspective of
qualitative research has
changed over time to be
represented as a tree- Is
this a good
representation? Where
do you fit within this
framework?
Images source: Google Images

8. Emmerson: Writing Ethnography
• “Rather than composing a tightly organized analytic
argument in which each idea leads logically and
exclusively to the next, we advocate writing
ethnographies as narrative “tales”.
• “Writing a thematic narrative differs fundamentally from
writing an analytic argument, both in the process of
putting that text together and in the structure of the
final text.” (p. 170)
• Thematic narrative:
• is it an argumentative narrative?
• Or a novel with evidence?

9. The How To’s
• Wait to write explicit thesis
• Look for themes- write phrases stating possible themes
• “I will show that parents become involved in court
decisions.” (p. 172)
• Focus on one topic
• Tie themes identified to the topic; themes that don’t go
with the topic, drop
• Integrative strategy vs. excerpt strategy (p. 179-182)
• Excerpt- Commentary Units – ”formula” (p. 182- 183)
• Analytic point
• Orienting information
• Excerpt
• Analytic commentary

10. Completing the Picture
• Introduce story through a theme and a colon
• “Waiting to Die: An Ethnographic Study of a Convalescent
Home
• Link to other research
• careful selection of other research to provide context for the
upcoming findings (not a review of literature)
• Introduce setting & methods
• Provides background information to comprehend the findings
• Conclusion
• Elaborate on thesis; summarize major themes & findings

11. Writing Strategies: Richardson
• Writing a trade book…five major devices to
achieve it:
• Encoding
• Narrative stance
• Tone
• Quotations and biographical narratives
• Synecdoche

12. Encoding :
• how to present the text to the audience:
• Trade encoding: dominates the format structure of
the book (the look of the book) (p. 32)
• Academic encoding: use of rhetorical devices,
organization of the book, appeal to sociological
legitimacy
• Moral/political perspective: words according to the
author’s moral or activist “credentials”

13. Narrative stance:
• Narrative stance:
• What type of narrative should we choose?
• “It will depend upon ones’ skills, dispositions,
aesthetic preferences, and personal and
political goals” p. 35.

14. Quotations and biographical narratives
• “Qualitative books are often critiqued as bad science, not because
they necessarily are, but because the literary decisions regarding
presentation of lives are busily undermining the work’s credibility”
p. 39.
• The use of quotations can help to meet the literary and science
criteria:
• Short quotations and biographical events
• Embedded quotations
• Longer quotations- thematic biographical narratives
• According to Richardson, the length of quotations will help transmit
different types messages to the reader. For the purpose of your research,
what kind of quotations would be more suitable when writing your
paper?

15. Tone:
• “Tone reveals the implicit moral attitude of the writer
toward the material” p. 39
• It can be shown through metaphors, material organization,
or how the author treats and frame quotations or a
person’s experience.
• “Tone…becomes a way for the omniscient writers of
qualitative research to accomplish two interlocking tasks:
reduction of their authority over writing of others, and
amplification of their credibility as writers of interpretive
social science” p. 39.
• In what ways can we use tone in our own research to
accomplish these two tasks?

16. Writing academic papers
• “One of the most important things for qualitative
researchers to bear in mind is that they can write
up the same material in different ways. The
material is malleable” p. 49
• Progress papers can help you find your frame,
tone, narrative stance, metaphors, and audience.
• Say no to “exploratory research”…. “the
exploratory stance is toxic to the novice
researcher because exploratory papers often end
up being un-publishable, boring or both” (p.50)

17. Typology
• Typology’s purpose is:
• a) find something in your material worthy of
classification
• b) provide some of the categories
• Typologies are excellent rhetorical devices for
framing qualitative work, for they can be written
with an open-endedness, help the researcher sift
through ethnographic materials in a focused way
and permit the writing to be about something in
the project. P. 51

18. Getting qualitative research
• “Shaping qualitative
published material for mainline
journals requires telling
your research story in a
way that meets the
expectations of the
editors/reviewers of
those journals” p. 53
Images source: Google Images

19. From Richardson’s experience…
• Treat editor’s and reviewers’ comments as
questions generated by the audience rather than
attacks upon the value of the work and use their
readings to reshape your article.
• Narrative stance…Identify yourself with a
theoretical tradition and methodological
approach.
• Introduction: Speak as a disembodied authority in
the omniscient voice of science (there is no “I”)
• Write in passive voice to eliminate human agency.

20. • Convince readers that there is something of
general (sociological) interest in the paper.
• Methods: Find ways to write within the logico-
empiricist discursive space: talk to the audience as
respectfully as you would to the people you were
studying.
• Findings: Tie the voices to the theory and the
theory to the voices. Integrate quotations within
the paragraphs and include other literary devices
(images, metaphors, etc)

21. A couple of final questions…
• What are the similarities and differences
among Richardson’s, Emmerson’s and
Wolcott’s perspectives in writing qualitative
papers?
• Which one do you think goes along with your
research approach?

22. References
Emmerson, R, et al., (1995). Processing Fieldnotes. In Writing Ethnographic Field Notes (pp.142-
168). Illinois; University of Chicago Press
Wolcott, H.(2003). On Being a Natural Writer. In Anthropology & Education Quarterly Vol. 34 (3)
pp. 324-338.
Wolcott, H.(2002). Writing Up Qualitative Research. In Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 12, No. 1,
pp. 91-103.
Richardson, L. (1990). Writing Strategies: Reaching Diverse Audiences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications.