The cliché I used for my title is one of those things that is floating around in my head without any specific reference or example. The prototypical scenario involves someone who has acquired or is considering, a work of modern art or other non-traditional creative endeavor - dance, music, etc. - and is generally someone who is both wealthy and has poor taste. In an alternate or comparative scenario, the person has already acquired some stereotypical representation of "low brow" culture - like a velvet Elvis picture, or print of dogs playing poker - and this phrase is offered in defense of their selection.
I started thinking about this when I was looking at checklists to assess qualitative research, which I was doing yesterday when I looked at potential journals for submitting a qualitative research report for publication. This particular report leans toward health science - versus social science or health behavior or methods - which are the other areas I typically focus on. Health science and related areas like healthcare research - are the types of areas in my experience where it is more common to encounter checklist requirements. The Lancet, for example, requires authors to use a standard checklist for any submitted research report. I am not against research checklists in general - and they definitely have utility in meta-studies where the quality of integrated results depends on quality of source articles - but I find some of the specific items concerning
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I've long been aware of and interested in the informal way people communicate research guidance. A great many of the informal standards also begin with "You must," "Always...", "Never...", and other absolutes although there are some that incorporate dichotomous guidance ("You must always do either X or Y..." I encountered a somewhat serendipitous example this week - "serendipitous" because one of the co-authors offered one of these rules while we were writing - while a peer reviewer offered the opposing view. Specifically the co-author shared guidance provided by their graduate mentor that the discussion section of a paper could only consider/re-consider the research described in the introductory or background (AKA initial review of literature) section.
In contrast, included in a list of reviewer criticisms was some of the same papers were described in both the introduction and the discussion. So, which is right? Clearly not both. My ownresponse is "neither. I believe both of these guidelines are arbitrary and do not take into account the aims of the particular sections of a research article. I was just looking at the Sage Methodspace, https://www.methodspace.com/for something unrelated to this blog, and I signed up for their newsletter because the current topic of focus - matching purpose to design - is something I'm especially interested in.
Also note I still cannot get links to work properly here, so the link follows rather than being aligned with the text. As I signed up, I was given a choice of roles. I selected "higher education," (see upper photograph) which I think most precisely describes what I do and where I do it, although I admit - one alternative option "further education" (see the lower picture) was a lot more appealing. I modeled my first efforts at peer review on peer review responses I had previously seen. I suspect this is how most people learn.
Later I had dedicated instruction during a qualitative methods course offered at Nova Southeastern University. I also obtained some great resources including this paper (LINK) and the reviewer guide provided by the online journal TQR: The Qualitative Report. One of the things I have long been curious about is the way reviewers address authors. TQR's ready reviewer comments are typically written like a dialogue with the authors, e.g., "I suggest you consider...." although there are also probably some phrased more like "I suggest the authors consider...." - this is more formal but still feels like there is an information exchange. The style I saw more frequently as a new reviewer used phrasing to make it sound (look) as if the reviewer was speaking to someone else (editor, presumably) about the author and their work. I'm not referring to the "confidential comments to editor" space provided by a lot of journal but instead to the peer review comments themselves. In writing, reviewing, and editing, I find myself continually considering and commenting about words and voice or tone. I tend to write complex and run on sentences and my awareness of this may make me more attuned to it in the work of others. Also, as my confidence in my own knowledge has increased, I am more likely to make comments when things do not make sense to me, rather than assuming authors know what they are talking (writing) about.
I'll be honest and say 2023 was not a great year and this is evidenced by very low activity in this blog, although by that measure 2021 was not very good either. I'm happy to say farewell to 2023 and entering 2024 with some enthusiasm, which will no doubt increase when the weather warms up! I'm planning something different for this blog during this year - instead of blogging about things that strike me as interesting, I hope to devote most of the space to posts about words, language, and precision. Unfortunately some of my peers consider language use, and maybe writing in general, as bothersome tasks to be delegated to (subordinate - students or junior faculty) others. I do not believe this is because their competence is so great that they can afford to pass along practice opportunities to others. Somewhere in something I read the author Ray Bradbury suggested writers should write daily, and I think that is excellent advice for writers of any type, at any level. But over and over again I've heard things like "we don't have time for wordsmithing," "we'll clean up the details later," or even with regard to style and formatting "that is for the copyeditor to deal with." These things all to me suggest that the actual act of putting words on paper is not highly valued by all. In contrast I tend to think, with regard to research, an article written for publication is probably the most important output, most of the time. But if it is hard to understand, poorly organized, unclear, includes errors, even is tedious or boring, the consumption and appreciation potential of the work declines. On the other hand, I will, and have happily read things outside of my interest area (or use) that were engagingly written. I'm following this introductory post with one about peer reviewing and hopefully that sets the tone for a productive blog in 2024. The title of this post is a lyric from the song "Words" written by Terry Bozzio and Warren Cuccurullo and recorded by the band they were in at the time Missing Persons. The rest of that line is: "What are words for when no one listens anymore?" I cannot get the usual link process to work so the link to the song is below. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IasCZL072fQ |
AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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