Reviewing your findings

1. Re/writing discussion of
findings and concluding
and preparing for
submission
„They feared that what they wrote would be „wrong‟ and
unspecified people would laugh at them‟
Howard Becker

3. Discussion section
 Different concerns for different genres of paper
 Some tips for empirical studies
 Make sure themes logical and build on each other
 Make sure themes answer the key questions/speak to the key
arguments made
 Unpack quotes/narratives/data clearly
 If qualitative not too many quotes – at least two to three
paragraphs for each quote/s
 Ensure speaking back to the literature (unless separating out
results and discussion of findings sections and depending on
the journal)
 Logical flow

4. Sexual shame
Teenage motherhood and pregnancy are framed as moral problems playing on the
broad anxieties around young peoples‟ sexualities. Schools are expected to be spaces
of sexual innocence and many teachers were unhappy with the challenge of dealing with
a policy that brought to an end the illusion of schools as sanitised sexual spaces.
Pregnant teenagers incited anger and hostility, were framed as sexually immoral and
were censured:
I think that they should not be in school. It encourages the other girls to do the same
– if she can get away with it, why can‟t I do it? Although the education department is
saying that we must accept them etc., . . . [they] should not be allowed in school.
(MrsNaidoo, Nehru High, a formerly Indian school in KZN)
Teenage pregnancy is thus objectified, shamed and punished and the spectacle of more
women becoming pregnant elicits repulsion and sexual defilement. MrsNaidoo, for
example, describes a situation where the presence of a pregnant teenager could lead to
sexual anarchy among other young women in schools. The policy to allow girls back
permits a situation without punishment for sexual defilement. As MrsNaidoo says, a girl
becoming pregnant „can get away with it‟.
Against the backdrop of the policy, is a strong appeal by teachers to protect the school
as a site of sexual purity:
They come to school, have their baby, leave it home, come back to school, and carry on.
And they don‟t feel at all ashamed! I mean, when I was at school and someone fell
pregnant it was: „Oh my word! Biggest secret!‟ But today they flaunt it. (Mrs Parker,

5. At the end of the paper
 Reassess: identify strengths and weaknesses
 Key questions to ask:
 Do I have enough literature
 Am I making „knowledge claims‟ or just reporting?
 Is this an argument or it it just „a rave‟?
 Is my data sufficient to the claims I am making?
 Are my conclusions based on my findings/arguments?
 Am I making a „new‟ contribution: what kind?
 Conclusion

6. Final alignment
assessment
 Overview of sections:
 Introduction
 Methodology
 Discussion of findings
 Conclusions

7. Editing
rule of thumb „can I live without this sentence, this word,
this paragraph‟
be ruthless
 Obvious copy edit – language, spelling, typoes,
referencing conventions
 Edit systematically: 3 levels: start with largest level to
minutae of articulation – each will impact on the next
as problems at sentence and word level will tend to
disappear as you edit at paragraph level
 Effective paragraphs that flow logically
 Improve long and complicated sentences
 Words – choose carefully (cut unnecessary, VARIETY,
delete some of your favourites!)

8. Finalising document for
submission
 Check Journal conventions
 Referencing conventions
 Layout and design conventions
 Additional requirements e.gbionotes, keywords,
cover page layout etc.
 Submission requirements

9. Submitting to journals and
responding to reviews
 Submission as a draft – not the end but often the
beginning of major reworking
 A review is an act of scholarship within a normative
framework of critique that is frequently harsh and
destructive & about self posturing & competition
 Prepare yourself emotionally for critique and more
work

10. Kate Chanock‟s 7 stages of
rejection/negative feedback
http://www.slideshare.net/ingermewburn/write-that-journal-article-in-7-days-12742195
1. Outrage, noise, unladylike (sic) rejoinder
2. Incomprehension
3. More outrage
4. One or two of the comments might make sense
5. There‟s a bit of truth in that one
6. I‟ll just have a go at doing what they say to do here
7. Actually, the paper is a whole lot better with those revisions

11. Response to reviewers
 Emotional
 Distance feedback from yourself & put in perspective
 Even though you feel like throwing it all in or submitting to a new journal
it is always more pragmatic to try to rework and resubmit
 Intellectual
 Read and re-read the reviews: focus on the recommendations
 Thematic analysis: draw out commonalities across reviewers
 Paradigmatic differences: differentiate between critiques that are
coming from an alternative theoretical or methodological perspective
(eg an empiricist response to a qualitative paper is usually problematic)
 Assess which recommendations are pointing to a different paper and
which will enrich the paper

12. Implementation
 Summarise key changes you will make
 Order by sections in paper e.g. introduction/literature review; methodology;
findings; conclusions
 Take each change one by one (suggest keep tracked to illustrate to editor)
 Write response to reviewer‟s report [again this is a knowledge production
activity – you are making an argument!]
 Acknowledge value of reviewers (even if caustic!)
 Elaborate on your responses
 Changes you made and how
 Changes you DID NOT make and why
 Avoid defensive responses and rather attempt to show constructive engagement
with reviewers

13. Example of response challenging perspective of reviewer (in this case necessary but avoid defence)
Reviewer(s)' Comments to Author: Responses from authors
The reviewers have clearly engaged deeply with our paper and have raised a range of issues in their
assessment of it. After careful consideration of their reports we detail our responses below after the
comments from reviewers.
Overall Comments
The main argument of the paper is weak and this is the main limitation of the paper. The paper is largely a
description of „narratives of transactional sex‟ at a university campus and does not add much new to what is
already known about the phenomenon. Much has been written on transactional sex in Africa, and although the
authors allude to some of the debates that have been raised on the phenomenon, especially concerning women‟s
vulnerability and coercion, they do not critically engage with these debates. As a result, the paper is still too
descriptive.
Author’s response: We agree that the paper is descriptive and we believe that to be a strength. The narratives
foreground a range of rich dynamics relating to the particularities of transactional sex, how it is understood and
constructed by a particular group of SA students on a local campus thus providing insight into the complexity and
diversity of these interactions in this particular context. Examples raised highlight the link with xenophobia, the
significance of university status, academic assistance etc). Such data is important for local interventions and
policy but also for the larger imperative of understanding sexualities in cultural and sub-cultural contexts. Here we
show that there are particular dynamics peculiar to this campus life – both the life of students but also of SA
disadvantaged universities in current context. We also believe that the paper adds some valuable ethnographic
data to the larger literatures on transactional sex and also offers a critical engagement with dominant Northern
positions on transactional sex at both a popular and scholarly level. The paper makes a further argument that we
believe has not been well documented; that is, over the last few years much of the research on transactional sex,
while critical and non-moralising, has tended to assume a materiality of sexuality and love that is framed around
economic materiality (and we show that this is not the only axis of power that transactions hinge around) which
arguably inadvertently „others‟ African sexuality. Indeed feminist literature has long argued the materiality of
heterosexual relationships over history and across all patriarchal societies.

14. Example of requests for a different kind of paper and responding by acknowledging the
value of this, illustrating what was possible and what was deemed not possible:
The authors state that they conducted 20 focus group discussions and that some were with men
only and others with women only and yet others were mixed. Twenty focus groups, of 60-90
minutes each, translate to A LOT of data. I therefore encourage the authors to re-examine their
data and perhaps analyse it according to what the men said and what women said etc, so that they
can provide a more nuanced 'narrative' of transactional sex.
Authors response: This is a useful suggestion, and a paper focused on examining in more detail
differences between men and women would be a very interesting paper. It is not the focus of
this current paper however although where it was possible and of significance we have now
attempted in the analysis to acknowledge any gender differences or similarities that may be
present in the findings reported on . While we are engaged with a gendered analysis we are not
in this paper attempting to unpack the gender differences in responses. That would be a further
paper that we will certainly look into working on in the future.
The authors allude to issues of gender-based violence and coercive sex but these issues are not adequately
addressed in the rest of the paper.
Author’s response: There is a great deal of literature that focuses on this although more work is
required on Gender-Based Violence and coercive sexuality at SA campuses (and the Department
of Education and the Gender Commission of SA are currently engaged in such a research and
intervention programme). However this is not the main focus of this particular paper as we are
teasing out a specific emerging finding from the study. We have elsewhere published a paper that is
more focused on violence and coercive sex on campus as emerges from this particular study.
However where GBV overlaps with the narratives on transactional sex we will of course elaborate
on that finding as we have done. We do not feel that the paper would be strengthened by diluting

15. Example of reviewer with paradigm conflict (epistemological and methodological)
I finditdisconcertingthat the FGDsseem to recountotherpeople‟sexperiences to the degreethey do,
not „ownexperiences‟. It is all about „they‟ and „them‟. The data appears to be second-hand
ratherthan original narratives of ownexperience. I reallywonder about the value of FGD research in
thiskind of study. I have yet to seeityieldmuch of interest. Why not indepth interviews about
„ownexperience‟?
…..
I regret to saythat I don‟tfeelthisstudymakesany new headway in understanding the challenges of
reducing new infections in student populations.
It needsmuch more work and I amconcernedthat the quality of data availablemay not sustain a
deeperanalysis. It seemsthat the authorsbroughttoomanyassumptions to the table, theydid not
getdeep conversations going, and the respondentsspoke in terms of the categoriespresented to
them for discussion. When are wegoing to hearpersonal stories about how people have responded
to HIV risk ; and what has made themsucceed and fail ? There are manyways in which one
mightresearchthis, and in myview focus group discussions will have relativelylittle place,
besidesperhapsexploring the viability of recommendationsthatmay arise. HIV behaviourresearchers
must step out of the box.
…..
"It isalsoevidentthatracialised and classeddiscourses on AIDS facilitate a sense of immunity, practices of
„othering‟, and denial of riskamongsomestudents." How about the authorsacknowledging the realities of HIV in
South Africa, whichreallydoes put Africans at risk to a hugelygreaterextentthan white people (to use the extremes
for illustration). There issoundempirical data to suggestthat white studentshavingsexwith white students are
engaging in verylowriskbehaviour, at least wrt HIV infection. White students are technically not in an HIV epidemic
and black students are, althoughtechnically not in a generalisedepidemicliketheir non-studentcounterparts. This
bearssome recognition doesit not, whenitcomes to othering ? This is a case of imposing „discourse‟ on a
situation ; a purelydeductiveexercise, whichis not acceptable in rigorous qualitative research.

16. The constructive experience
of reworking in response to
reviewers
 Paper is always better = forced to express yourself clearly,
clarify areas that were hazy, often read more literature that
deepens, achieve more complex, nuanced arguments etc.
 Attempt to hold onto your academic integrity and
confidence: enjoy the positive constructive responses and
avoid devastation by the negative, destructive ones “what
doesn‟t kill you makes you strong!”
 See Barbara Kamler „Revise and Resubmit: The role of
Publication Brokers in Aitchison, Kamler& Lee (2008)
Publishing Pedagogies for the Doctorate and Beyond.
Routledge