The document discusses various approaches to organizing the middle section of a qualitative research paper. It describes how the middle section is typically divided into an introductory chapter, data/methodology chapter, and conclusion chapter. It then discusses different methods for organizing these chapters, including thematically, chronologically, through classification schemes, or by qualitative method (e.g. case study, ethnography). Key considerations for chapter organization include telling the research story, showcasing the data effectively, and the type of data collected.

1. Organizing the Middle Section
of the Research Paper

2. The middle section is where the bulk of your work
really lies,
It is divided into:
a) The introductory chapter,
b) The Data Vs. methodology chapter,
c) The conclusion chapter,

3.  The middle section organization varies from
qualitative to quantitative research paper;
 What is qualitative research paper?
 Qualitative research is used to help us understand
how people feel and why they feel as they do;
 It is concerned with collecting in-depth
information, asking questions such as why, how,
what, and who;
 A qualitative research paper is not based on facts
alone; It is also based on the interpretation of facts;
Qualitative Vs. Quantitative Research Paper

4.  It is seen as a document that has five chapters:
 The introductory chapter;
 The three data chapters;
 The conclusion chapter;
 It is interpretive;
 It contains a project that is posed as an open- ended
question;
 The goal is to explore the perspectives of of a particular
set of informants;

5. • What strategies do African American women develop
to successfully complete college at a predominantly
White campus?
• 9/ 11,
• The blackout that hit the Northeast in 2003;
• The SARS epidemic;
• How did graduate students from Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia, and Jordan experience life on an American
campus after 9/11?

6. • Origins: the Chicago School approach;
• A group of sociologists under the leadership of Robert Park, a former
journalist, formed the sociology department at the University of Chicago
during the 1920s and 1930s, and they studied different aspects of community
life;
• They studied the work of real estate agents, waitresses, homeless people—
the perspectives of people in all walks of life;
• They studied different communities, including richer and poorer areas, and
tried to examine the relationship between the perspectives of individual
people and the environments or contexts in which they lived;
• From this approach to qualitative research, many wider and differently
named ways of doing this sort of scholarship have developed;

7.  To create this type of document, a person will be required to use many of
the same skills;
 Successful completion of a qualitative document usually also requires
employing a variety of research and investigative methods;
 The assigning of research papers can be done with many goals:
 To educate the writer on a topic;
 To strengthen his writing skills;
 To evaluate his research skills;
 A qualitative research paper is generally assigned with the aim of
requiring broader, more in- depth thought;
 The writer is generally required to ask new questions, arrive at a common
conclusion using unique methods, or to develop new theories;

8. A person who has to write this type of research
paper should expect to spend more time composing
it;
A qualitative research paper can accomplish several
things:
It can provide new insight on a topic that is viewed
as thoroughly covered.
It can expose errors and provide truths to common
misconceptions.

9. The introductory chapter:
You provide all of the basic information that the reader will
need to understand;
Such things are aspects of what you will cover in the
introduction chapter;
The background of your research;
How you came to research your topic,
What your topic is and how it relates to the world around it,
What kind of general principles and methodology you will
be using to research your topic and evaluate your
hypothesis,
The Middle Section of a Qualitative Research Paper

10. • Atkinson and Curtis (1998): The thesis/ or dissertation is
shaped like an hourglass: open at both top and bottom;
• The Introduction sits in the upper open end of the hourglass
bowl;
• It indicates that the researcher clearly signals the relationship
between the specific topic of the thesis and the field of work;
What is the role of the introduction?

12.  The Introduction a research paper needs to achieve :
 The motivation for your research:
 You need to explain why you decided to embark on your research project;
 Your motivation could be an observation you have made directly during the
course of your professional life, a ‘knowledge gap’ which you have noticed
in the literature of your subject, or some other source of inspiration;
 The introduction, then, is that part of the report where you indicate the
provenance of your research,
 The nature of the investigation:
 This is where you should define clearly the research questions you intend to
address in your investigation, the key constructs underpinning them, the
variables that will be influential in your investigation, and a statement of
your hypotheses;

13. A brief description of how you approached your
research questions:
This component should be a concise account of how
you carried out your investigation;
It should serve as a preface to the main methodology
section;
The level of detail included should not go beyond what
is necessary to give the reader a broad but clear
overview of the approach you adopted in addressing
your research questions;

14.  The literature review is a part of the introduction;
 It provides an overview and critical analysis of relevant published
scholarly articles, research reports, books, theses etc on the topic or
issue to be investigated;
 It is an extensive search of the information available on a topic which
results in a list of references to books, periodicals, and other materials
on the topic;
 A well-structured literature review is characterized by:
 Logical flow of ideas;
 Current and relevant references with consistent, appropriate
referencing style;
 Proper use of terminology;
 Unbiased and comprehensive view of the previous research on the
topic;
The Literature review:

15.  It is where you present other works and the content of which relates in
some way to your own research;
 The purpose:
 How it connects with the existing body of knowledge on the subject or
on other related issues;
 It also shows how your own research is original and promises to
contribute to that pool of knowledge;
 To help you locate information that may be relevant to your own
research;
 To increase and display your knowledge of the subject and to convince
your peers of the need, relevance, importance of your research, and the
suitability of the methodology you have adopted;
 To identify seminal works in your area of study;
 To identify methods, approaches and techniques that could be relevant to
your own research;
 To familiarize yourself with different and/or opposing views and to
demonstrate your ability to critique and evaluate the work of other
scholars;

16. A literature review needs to focus on the major
findings of the studies that are reported on: when
they were carried out and who they were carried out
by;
The literature review also needs to include critical
comment on these studies: telling the reader which
are the best studies, and why, rather than just
presenting factual information about the studies that
are being reviewed;
What needs to be included in a review of the literature?

17. The literature review may be arranged:
according to the various questions to be asked;
according to the various topics and sub-topics
that are central to the study;
according to the specific variables in the study;
chronologically from oldest to more recent
research;
according to different point of views;

18. Swales (1990, 2004): There are two ways a student can
report on previous research:
 An author is directly reported as being responsible for a
particular finding or argument and placed in subject
position in the sentence (central reporting);
 An author is reported as being responsible for a particular
finding or argument but with their name being given less
focus by being placed in brackets at the end of the
relevant statement (non-central reporting);
Reporting on previous research

19. Central reporting (strong author focus):
‘Burke (1986) discovered that many students would
like to become integrated into Australian society.’
Non-central reporting (weak author focus):
‘It has been shown that students have often performed
successfully in their own education system before they seek
entry to the particular university (Ballard, 1991).’

20. Many different verbs can be used to report on previous
research;
 verbs which make a statement, such as ‘report’;
 verbs which express, in a very general way, a writer’s
personal judgment, such as ‘explain’;
 verbs which express a writer’s opinion, such as ‘argue’;
 verbs which present a writer’s suggestion, such as
‘propose’;
 verbs which express some kind of disagreement, such as
‘doubt’.
Reporting verbs

21. There is no doubt that your data chapters are central
to your dissertation,
There should usually be three data chapters, each of
which examines a different theme, or takes up a
different aspect of the narrative you construct about
your research,
Each of the chapters in a dissertation has a different
and specific purpose,
The reader needs to be nurtured as well, not to “have
a good time,” as the guest at a dinner,
Organizing your data chapters

22. Qualitative dissertations are evidence-based
texts;
Central to your decision about how to organize
the data chapters must be how to showcase
your data and use them to the best effect for
your argument;
When you are trying to decide what to put in
these chapters:
you want to make sure that you make good use
of your data;
you make them look good;

23. The first question you ask yourself when it comes to
organizing your data chapters should be: What is the
story you want to tell?
Your work on data analysis both helps you to get to
the story and aids in dividing the material into
chapters;
Other issues influence your choices about how to
divide up the chapters, and offer resources for
organization:
The kind of data you have;
The way you want to tell your story;
The contribution you want to make;
Organizing Your Data

24. Qualitative researchers talk about their findings
in terms of themes: ideas around which data
cluster that have emerged from work with
informants;
A common strategy is to organize each chapter
around a different theme;
Thematic Organization

25. Introduction
Chapter One: What is Globalization?
A) Definition and Concepts
1) What is Globalization?
2) Terminology:
B) The Character of Globalization
1) Political:
2) Economic:
3) Social:
4) Cultural:
Chapter Two: The impacts of globalization on language teaching:
A) Globalization, diaspora and language education:
B) Globalization and the commodification of bilingualism
C) Globalization and the teaching of ‘communication skills’:
D) Foreign language learning as global communicative practice:
E) Local literacies and global literacy:
Chapter Three: Methods and materials:
A) Globalization, methods, and practice in periphery classrooms:
B) The global coursebook in English Language Teaching:
Conclusion
References

26. If your dissertation employs an eclectic approach,
another choice is to organize your chapters
according to the kind of data you write about;
Casella (1997) took this approach, dividing up his
chapters according to whether the data were
historical, notes from participant observation and
interviews, or textual analysis;
Data-Type Organization

27. Case study over time: chronological organization;
Emphasis: the beginning, middle, and end of the
particular narrative you want to construct;
Defined by Howard Becker (1970): the series of
steps that people take for participation in a
particular way of life;
It documents the stages of involvement;
This approach is chronological because it depends
on the idea of stages to divide up experience;
This approach uses a kind of before-during-and-
after method of organization;
Chronological Organization

33. • A classification scheme: dividing your data into categories;
• In this approach, you show the reader how the topic is
composed of multiple categories;
• There are multiple forms of classification;
• Different chapters can be devoted to the specific categories you
discuss;
• E. g.; Forms of educational;
• The categorizing, or classifying, approach works well when
breaking down a whole into its parts in order to provide insight
into the story you want to tell;
Classificatory Organization

34. Qualitative Methods
• A method is about the big picture;
• It answers such questions such as:
 How does this approach frame a question?
 How does it understand a problem?
 How does it lead you, guide you, and shape the work that
you did?
• “Methods”: a term that refers to how qualitative methods
approach research;
• Case study;
• Ethnography;
• Interviewing;

35. The case study method
• Research method originated in clinical medicine
(the case history, i.e. the patient’s personal
history);
• Description of the symptoms, the diagnosis, the
treatment and eventual outcome (descriptive
method);
• Uses the person’s own memories, the memories of
friends and relatives, or records of various types;
• In- depth investigation of experiences that allow
to identify interactions and influences on
psychological processes;

36. What is a case?
• A single case doesn’t have to mean just one
single person.
• It might be a family, a social group, or even a
single organisation.
• A case study can involve dealing with quite a
number of individuals.

37. A case study is an empirical enquiry that:
• Investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its
real-life context;
• Multiple sources of evidence are used (Yin 2003:13-
14).
• The case study method often involves simply
observing what happens to, or reconstructing ‘the
case history’ of a single participant or group of
individuals;
• Case studies allow a researcher to investigate a topic
in far more detail;

38. Why case study research?
• Emphasis on (societal, historical) context;
• Trying to reach a full explanation of a phenomenon
within a unit of analysis;
• Interpret events, uncovering processes (Mohr 1982)
• ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions;
• Problem solving;

39. Why case study research?
 Three important uses:
1. Motivation
2. Inspiration
3. Illustration

40. Case Study Research

41. Case Study Research
A Diamond Model for Case Analysis
(Van de Ven 2007)
Problem/Question
Case
Reality
Conceptual
Model
Solution
1. Ground the problem & question in reality.
2. Develop a conceptual model to address the question.
3. Evaluate how well the model applies to the case.
4. Implement a solution that solves the problem/question.

42. Narrowly focused:
Typically a case study offers a
description of only a single
individual, and sometimes about
groups.

43. Combines objective and subjective data:
The researcher may combine objective and
subjective data: All are regarded as valid data for
analysis, and as a basis for inferences within the
case study;
The objective description of behaviour and its
context;
Details of the subjective aspect, such as feelings,
beliefs, impressions or interpretation;
A case study is uniquely able to offer a means of
achieving an in-depth understanding of the
behaviour and experience of a single individual;

44. Process-oriented:
The case study method enables the researcher
to explore and describe the nature of processes,
which occur over time;

45. Ethnography
Ethno – refers to human culture;
Graphy – means description of;

46. What is Ethnography?
 Ethnography: a branch of anthropological studies;
 The essential study of a particular cultural group or phenomen;
 Lutz, (1986), ‘… ethnography centers on the participant
observation of a society or culture through a complete cycle of
events that regularly occur as that society interacts with its
environment’;
 Brewer, (2000), ‘The study of people in naturally occurring
settings or ‘fields’ by methods of data collection which capture
their social meanings and ordinary activities, involving the
researcher participating directly in the setting … in order to
collect data …’;
 In conclusion, ethnography is a systematic study of a particular
cultural group or phenomenon, based upon extensive fieldwork,
participant observation, and focuses on cultural interpretation,
for the purposes of description of social theory;

48.  Fieldwork:
Ethnographic fieldwork involves documenting people’s beliefs
and practices from the people’s own perspectives;
It provides the opportunity to take into account individuals’
beliefs and actions, or what anthropologists call their everyday
practices, within the context in which they are enacted;
 Cultural interpretation:
“… involves the ability to describe what the researcher has heard
and seen within the framework of the social group’s view of
reality” (Fetterman, 1989, p. 28);
 Participant observation:
Participant observation refers to a form of anthropological
technique in which the researcher takes on a role in the
social situation under observation;

49. Hammersley and Atkinson: "[I]t involves participating in the
social world . . . ";
Mac Mairtin & Ghaill (1994): "The approach is close to
everyday interaction, involving conversations to discover
participants' interpretations of situations they are involved in"
(Geertz, 1973; Burgess, 1984): "The aim of participant
observation is to produce a 'description' of social interaction
within natural settings" ;
McCall and Simmons (1969: 1): "....participant observation is
not a single method but rather a characteristic style of research
which makes use of a number of methods and techniques -
observation, informant interviewing, document analysis,
respondent interviewing and participation with self-analysis";

50.  Purposes of ethnography:
Focuses on discovering behaviors, roles, and thinking of
participants within a cultural context;
Seeks to understand how people are, what do they do, or the
group practices;
Focuses on daily life activities;
Describe tacit knowledge within a group;
 Margaret Mead (1928) went to the Pacific for nine months to
document the ways adolescence is negotiated by Samoan
islanders;
 Clifford Geertz (1965) studied religious practices in Bali;
 Sherry Ortner (1978) traveled to Tibet to study the
relationships among cultural symbols in the organization of a
society;

51. The Process
 A question or concern is identified for study;
 A group to study is identified: (Typically and purposively selected);
 Permission to study the group is obtained;
 The researcher observes the group:
– Privileged observer: just observes;
– Participant observer: functions as part of the group;
 Researcher watches and listens attentively and records (naturalistic
observation);
 Large amounts of notes are generated (This process may last for weeks,
months, or years);
 The researcher analyzes the notes, identifies themes, looks for answers to
research questions, and makes logical inferences;
 The final step is to write the research paper describing the process,
observations, findings, and conclusion;
 Often rich descriptions are provided so that the readers can make their
own interpretations;

52. Ethnographic Research
Strengths:
– Looks at the situation holistically;
– May arrive at greater understanding of the problem than
other research processes;
Limitations:
– Time consuming;
– Possible bias on the part of the observer (which leads to
validity concerns);
– Generalizability is a controversial issue (how
generalizable are the findings from a small, purposely
selected group);

53. Interview as method for qualitative research
The qualitative research interview seeks to describe
the meanings of central themes in the life world of
the subjects;
The main task in interviewing is to understand the
meaning of what the interviewees say (Kvale,1996);
The interviewer can pursue in-depth information
around the topic;
Interviews may be useful as follow-up to certain
respondents to questionnaires. e.g., to further
investigate their responses (McNamara,1999);

54. Aspects of Qualitative Research Interviews:
Interviews are completed by the interviewer
based on what the respondent says;
It is a more personal form of research;
The interviewer works directly with the
respondent;
The interviewer has the opportunity to probe
or ask follow up questions;

55. Types of interviews

56. Types of interview
 Structured interview (standardized):
 questionnaires based on a predetermined and standardised, or identical
set of questions;
 Semi-structured interview (Non-standarized):
 researcher has a list of themes and questions to be covered;
 Unstructured or in-depth interview (Non-standarized):
 No pre-determined list of questions to work through, but researcher
has clear ideas about the aspects that he want to explore;
 informant interview: interviewee’s perceptions that guide the conduct
of the interview;
 respond interview：interviewer directs the interview and interviewee
responds to the the questions of researcher;

57. Preparation for Interview
Choose a setting with the least distraction;
Explain the purpose of the interview;
Address terms of confidentiality;
Explain the format of the interview;
Indicate how long the interview usually takes;
Provide contact information of the interviewer;
Allow interviewee to clarify any doubts about the
interview;
Prepare a method for recording data, e.g., take notes;

58. Stages of conducting the interview
Thematizing: the why and what of the investigation;
Designing: plan the design of the study;
Interviewing: conduct the interview based on a guide;
Transcribing: prepare the interview material for
analysis;
Analyzing: decide on the purpose, the topic, the nature
and methods of analysis that are appropriate;
Reporting: communicate findings of the study based
on scientific criteria;

59. Questions, problems, inquiries, or
comments
………………..…??

60. Thank you