Beginners guide to dissertation writing: recommended resources

Today I decided to share ideas and resources to help you conceptualize your dissertation study.

One of the areas that I find students struggle with is the use of a conceptual framework. So far, I have found two great resources to help with this area. The first, which I am using in a dissertation proposal seminar for the first time this May, is a book by Upenn professor Sharon Ravitch and her co-author Matthew Riggan. As Ravitch and Riggan state in the preface, they, like me, have watched students struggle with articulating a rationale for choice of topics and methods, provide a theoretical or conceptual framework for studies, and or fail to connect conceptual frameworks to existing literature. Their book "presents conceptual frameworks as a mechanism - process and product - for resolving much of this confusion and lack of coherence". I highly recommend this text.



The trusty text that I was using prior to coming across Reason and Rigor is John Maxwell's Qualitative Research Design, now in its third edition. Maxwell provides an excellent overview of the process of conceptualizing qualitative studies in chapter 3 titled 'conceptual framework: what do you think is going on?" I highly recommend this book, even for folks using quantitative methods this chapter would be very useful.

The other area where students struggle is in setting up the research design for the dissertation studies. My favorite resource for this is Creswell's Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches. In this text, Creswell provides detailed instructions on how to write a research proposal using qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. Chapters 2 and 3 are on literature review and using theory respectively, which both help with conceptualization of research and can be used along with the two resources discussed above. Creswell dedicates an entire chapter to how to construct a purpose statement, and provides excellent ten examples for studies using various research methods. I have used the 3rd edition shown below, though the 4th edition has just been published by Sage.


Another excellent resource that goes beyond proposal writing, to data analysis and interpretation for qualitative methods is also by Creswell, Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing amongst five approaches. In this text, now in the 3rd edition, Creswell provides indepth coverage of phenomenology, ethnography, grounded theory, case study and narrative approaches to qualitative inquiry. Students often struggle to understand and articulate the philosophical assumptions behind their research studies. In the chapter on 'philosophical assumptions and interpretive frameworks' Creswell makes difficult terms such as ontology, ephistemology, axiology and methodology understandable. The text goes into sufficient explanation for each of the approaches as to enable a researcher to determine the best choice for her research study. By showing how one study can be explored using each of the 5 approaches, Creswell helps to unpack both the comparisons and the uniqueness of each approach.



The first resource discussed here, Reason and Rigor, is excellent whether you are using qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods for undertaking your research. The other three are specific to qualitative methods. Next time, I will focus on recommending resources for quantitative methods.

What other resources would you recommend for social science dissertation writers? Do not hesitate to comment or email me.

The Relational Nature of Research

This week I spent several hours working on a manuscript with a colleague, constructing a paper on relationships and communities in research. In the process of writing, I also ended up doing a lot of reading, trying to get clarity on issues such as power differentials between researchers and participants, vulnerability, reflexivity, and other topics related to autoethnography/qualitative research design. I came to the realization that, some of the issues where researchers use their authorial power to represent participants the way they want to, without caring how such participants would feel about how they are represented, is perhaps a failure to recognize the human dignity of 'others', and perhaps not a very good use of researchers power.

Reflecting on this failure - of recognizing the human dignity of others - whether marginalized or not, made me realize that, part of what I enjoyed doing in my own dissertation work, was choosing to keep the confidence of my participants. This was a dialogic process, where I was open to hearing about anything and everything, but also told them that, they were free to tell me what they would rather I kept just between us (Ngunjiri, 2007, 2010). I endeavored to give [most of] them transcripts of our interviews, so they'd add/subtract whatever they saw fit. For a few, it was logistically impossible since I transcribed the interviews after my return to the States.

You see, even though I haven't seen most of those women since I collected my data in the summer of 2005, I believed then (and now) that "brief encounters do not necessarily mean superficial connections...[I] see relationships as more than vehicles for data gathering, more than points of access. [I] see then as central to the empirical, ethical, and humanistic dimensions of research design, as evolving and changing processes of human encounters" (Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis, 1997, p138, 139). Obviously, this is mostly true of qualitative research designs, where relationships are/ought to be king.

Authentic relationships that engender reciprocity and symmetry, that encourage skepticism and appreciation, and that are built on trust  (Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis) can help us in achieving our research goals, while also building/rebuilding the communities we purport to represent. I may not have seen the participants from my study in the seven years since, I may never meet with them again; however, I hope that when they read what I said about them, how I interpreted their life stories, the way I constructed their narratives, and celebrated their achievement as women, leaders, Africans, and human beings, they will always feel affirmed and will recognize the essence of who they are in my work. They do not have to agree with all my interpretations, but I do hope they see themselves even more clearly through my portraits. That is what it means for me to engage in research, while keeping "relational concerns as high as research" ( Ellis, 2007, p. 25). Think about that as you engage in designing or undertaking your own research. What is your relational responsibility - or, what do the relationships developed through your research require of you?


Ellis, C. (2007). Telling Secrets, Revealing Lives: Relational Ethics in Research With Intimate Others Qualitative Inquiry, 13(1), 3-29. doi: 10.1177/1077800406294947

Lawrence-Lightfoot, S., & Davis, J. H. (1997). The art and science of portraiture. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ngunjiri, F. W. (2010). Women's spiritual leadership in Africa : Tempered radicals and critical servant leaders. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Ngunjiri, F. W. (2007). Painting a counter-narrative of African womanhood: Reflections on how my research transformed me. Journal of Research Practice, 3(1), article m4. Retrieved from http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/53/76