Final paper
The final paper should present an argument grounded on your data analysis. You need to conceptualize based on your observations in the field. The first part of the paper (about 20 pages) presents your study. The second part of your paper (3-5 pages) is a reflective section. All field notes and interview transcripts, coding schemes, and conceptual memos should be posted.
It should include:
- An introduction presenting your research question
- You can include a short literature review to frame your research question. This is not mandatory and should be brief.
- Your methodology: data collection and data analysis
- Your analysis (Present a category scheme to interpret the data you collected)
- Make sure that you clearly define and elaborate the categories
- Make sure that your claims are grounded on the evidence available (i.e. make clear references to your data).
- A reflective section: what have you learned during the course. The ability of subtle introspection and reflection is important in any social science endeavor, and especially in qualitative work
- Points to focus on in this section:
(1) the process of data collection and data analysis;
(2) the choices you made when writing the paper (what data to report, what quotes to keep, etc.). Make sure you explain why you made those decisions and the specific dilemmas you were confronted with;
(3). How this experience might influence your future research even if you don’t plan to do a qualitative study in the future.