Unravelling the Web of Qualitative Dissertation Writing!

This chapter, written in the first person, uses the research method of autoethnography to identify, explore, and discuss six key elements essential for writing a qualitative dissertation in a social science discipline. The author bases her autoethnographic account of reflections, dialogue, and theory within a conceptual framework of critical literacy and a grounded theory analytical approach to detail six foundational elements of qualitative dissertation writing which must be present in the doctoral student's arsenal before beginning to write the dissertation and/or draft. The chapter attempts to solve a dilemma of paucity of empirical research by doctoral students/candidates about how to write qualitative dissertations. The purpose of the chapter is to showcase and unravel the dissertation writing web from a doctoral student/candidate's active learning experience and perspective.

Writing Qualitative Dissertations

Writing qualitative dissertations represents an internationally recognized pinnacle for students of higher education. The pressures and incentives for students approaching the dissertation writing landscape are undeniable. Unfortunately, too many doctoral students are offered limited strategies to begin navigating it. Moreover, doctoral students seeking maps from Education and other social science literature to guide them will find limited peer-reviewed scholarship that addresses the complexity of writing defensible qualitative dissertations. Too many doctoral students instead turn to some of the most popular qualitative dissertation textbooks that tend to provide limited representations of the writing landscape, albeit unintentional. These students may begin writing only to find that such landscape representations prepare them inadequately for the complexity of the territory. It is a territory filled with a variety of evolving writing tasks and possibilities. Doctoral students may consider at least seven evolving sets of tasks (ESTs) as strategies for navigating the messy terrain of the qualitative dissertation writing territory.

Essentials of a Qualitative Doctorate as Seen from Two Frames

Immy Holloway and Lorraine Brown, the authors of Essentials of a Qualitative Doctorate, explicitly identify their intended audience as “doctoral candidates who write their dissertations in English….” This review looks at the book from two frames, a professor who mentors doctoral students, and, imaginatively, as a student who is trying to write my first qualitative dissertation. I found the book has a number of strengths, most especially its broader focus than solely on a US Ph.D. However, the broad focus left many important details in the background. Essentials of a Qualitative Doctorate is probably best seen as a helpful reminder to a student in the writing phase of the dissertation of what the student should already have learned and mastered in prior course work.