Qualitative Research in Practice : Stories From the Field - Blogs Unpad

Presenting and writing up
difficult at first, after all the time spent working on the great labour
of love that is a thesis. It is probably a good idea to leave it a while
anyway—to get some distance from it. Consider writing some
journal articles in the meantime—this is often easier, as they tend to
be chunks that can be pulled out without disturbing ‘the thesis’
itself.
In writing a book based on a thesis, you may find that some
prominent sections of the thesis take up only a small part of the book
and new sections may have to be written. The literature will always
need to be updated. While it is difficult to generalise, the book will
tend to be shorter overall, the literature review will be less exhaustive,
and the methodology will occupy a less prominent position.
Depending on the audience, the methodology may best be included
as an appendix. As a general rule, the more scholarly the intended
audience the more extensive the methodology will need to be.
Yvonne Darlington rewrote her PhD thesis on women’s experiences
of childhood sexual abuse (1993) as a book for a practitioner
audience (1996). This required considerable restructuring of the
original material: the book is less than half the size of the thesis;
the methodology is placed as an appendix, and greatly summarised;
the literature review is shorter and more targeted to the central
content of the book; and one major section of findings—the
women’s remembered experiences of abuse and its impact in childhood—does
not appear, as the book is focused on longer-term
impact, experiences of counselling and processes of healing and
recovery.
Alternative forms of presentation
Research need not be disseminated only in written form. Paget had
excerpts of her research on mis-communications between doctor
and patient adapted and presented as a piece of formal theatre,
staged and performed by theatre students. The performance text
was drawn from a written report on the research, including the
doctor–patient exchanges as well as Paget’s analysis. Paget says of
this work:
Performance promises a far richer and more subtle science of culture
than the analytic text can establish. But it makes different demands.
It requires a narrative, drama, action, and a point of view. This work
succeeded as theater because the original text had a narrator who
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