What Is to Be Done in Interview Research Method?

Peter Elbow (1981) offers an approach to writing that I think can be useful in such cases. He suggests that trying both to create with the audience in mind and to make writing perfect from the start imposes an undue burden on the writing process. He suggests making writing and editing two separate aspects of the writing process. And he urges defer­ring thoughts of the audience until the editing part of the process.

To facilitate that separation, Elbow suggests what has come to be known as free-writing and focused free-writing. Focused free-writing is a process that allows the writer to concentrate on the topic and forget the audience. It advises writers to start writing on their topics and to continue for a specified period of time without stopping. If they get stuck, they should repeat their last word or write the word stuck until they get going again. A person new to the process might begin with 5 minutes of focused free-writing, gradually increasing the length of time.

After free-writing sections of the proposal, writers can then select from these the most cogent, refashioning from them a first draft. Elbow suggests other methods to help writers overcome blocks due to anxiety about audience. Near the end of the writing process, rather than at the beginning, writers can edit their drafts with the audience and the form of dissertation proposal in mind. I recommend Elbow’s Writing With Power (1981); Locke, Spirduso, and Silverman’s Proposals That Work (2000); Maxwell’s Qualitative Research Design (1996); and Schram’s Conceptualizing Qualitative Inquiry (2003) as important resources for anyone about to write a dissertation proposal.

Source: Seidman Irving (2006), Interviewing As Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education And the Social Sciences, Teachers College Press; 3rd edition.

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