Golden-Biddle & Locke, Ch. 1

After reading the intro and chapter one, I think that the Composing Qualitative Research book is going to be very helpful and educational in my learning how to write qualitatively. The authors main point in the intro was to give a framework for the book, being mostly that their purpose is to inform the reader on qualitative writing. While that sounds simple, I think the books purpose is to get qualitative writers to think differently about how they go about writing. Their intro also does a good job of citing other authors who have written on qualitative writing and how their insights contribute to the writings of this book. Within this literature review, the authors also convey how their ideas and suggestions differ in certain ways from previous qualitative writing studies. Further, the authors provide their opinions on what qualitative writing is and is not, being not writing that reports facts, but writing that connects and illuminates. In concluding the introductory chapter they draw an analogy of a "story" as how qualitative writing can be developed while also discussing how the books chapters are organized.

Chapter one begins the journey on what qualitative writing is and how it can be approached in regards to style and practice. It gives a blunt assessment of the profession of writing, basically stating that writing is the cornerstone or foundation for everything we as researchers do. They contextualize this claim by noting that even though quality writing is so important, it is largely ignored, dismissed, or oversimplified by most in the field.

They continue the chapter by debunking the myths that scholarly writing must be totally "scientific" and devoid of personal expression, stating that all writing, no matter how scientific, incorporates the authors personal influence, personality and emotional fingerprints. They counter that good writing uses personal rhetoric and influence to enhance the data, even arguing that the obtuse scientific style of writing discourages other audiences from engaging the findings. The remainder of the chapter is dedicated to answering the what, for whom, and under what terms porting of writing up the collected field data. The chapter concludes by giving light to how data and research becomes knowledge, basically saying that it is not knowledge until it is submitted for peer review, accepted into a journal in the relative field, and cited by other scholars in their writing.

In reflecting on the introductory chapter and chapter one of the book, I really liked the content and style in which they present their thoughts. The authors write in a simple, but complete, manner which makes it easy to read as well as informative. There were a number of points that stood out to me, a few being the idea that writing should be for a particular audience, that writing should be consistent with a good conversation, the manner in which qualitative research becomes knowledge, the usage of the "storyline" metaphor, the irony of claims that scientific writing is straightforward, and the breakdown of the injunction to "just write it up." Each of these helped illuminate the qualitative writing process and provided greater understanding of what it means to write. I am looking forward to getting in to the meat of this book.