Thank You, Reviewer 2: Revising as an Underappreciated Process of Data Analysis

Stefan Timmermans; Iddo Tavory

doi:10.6092/issn.1971-8853/14665

Authors

Stefan Timmermans Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4751-2893

Stefan Timmermans is Professor at the UCLA, Department of Sociology, as well as a Professor at ISG. His research draws from medical sociology and science studies and uses ethnographic and historical methods to address key issues in the for-profit U.S. health care system. He has conducted research on medical technologies, health professions, death and dying, and population health, and is the medical sociology editor of the journal Social Science & Medicine.
Iddo Tavory Department of Sociology, New York University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4603-8958

Iddo Tavory is an Associate Professor of Sociology at New York University (USA), and editor of Sociological Theory. He has published Abductive Analysis: Theorizing Qualitative Research (Chicago University Press, 2014) and Data Analysis in Qualitative Research: Theorizing with Abductive Analysis (Chicago University Press, 2022) (both with Stefan Timmermans), Summoned: Identification and Religious Life in a Jewish Neighborhood (Chicago University Press, 2016), and Tangled Goods: The Practical Life of Pro Bono Advertising (Chicago University Press, 2022). Iddo has received the Lewis A. Coser Award for theoretical agenda setting in Sociology.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/14665

Keywords:

qualitative data analysis, coding, scientific writing

Abstract

Qualitative data-analysis is considered finished after the researcher writes up the analysis for publication. However, if we compare the text as initially submitted to a journal with what has been published, we often find great discrepancies because of the way reviewers push authors to revise their article during the review process. We show how reviewers may initiate a new round of data analysis by focusing their comments on three areas: the fit between observations and theoretical claims, the plausibility of the theoretical framing or explanation compared to other possible explanations, and the issue or relevance or the contribution to scholarships. The result is that reviewers as representatives of a community of inquiry help shape data analysis.

References

Atkinson, P. (1990). The Ethnographic Imagination: Textual Constructions of Reality. New York, NY: Routledge.

Burawoy, M. (2009). The Extended Case Method: Four Countries, Four Decades, Four Great Transformations, and One Theoretical Tradition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520943384

Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing Grounded Theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Clarke, A. (2005). Situational Analysis: Grounded Theory After the Postmodern Turn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412985833

Corbin, J., & Strauss, A.L. (2008). Basics of Qualitative Research (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Demortain, D. (2011). Scientists and the Regulation of Risk: Standardising Control. Cheltenham: Elgar. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781849809443

Fleck, L. (1935). Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache. Basel: Schwabe.

Foster, J. G., Rzhetsky, A., & Evans, J.A. (2015). Tradition and Innovation in Scientists’ Research Strategies. American Sociological Review, 80(5), 875–908. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122415601618

Glaser, B. (1992). Basic of Grounded Theory Analysis. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.

Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory. New York, NY: Aldine.

Healy, K. (2017). Fuck Nuance. Sociological Theory, 35(2), 118-127. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275117709046

Hirschauer, S. (2010). Editorial Judgments: A Praxeology of “Voting” in Peer Review. Social Studies of Science, 40(1), 71–103. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312709335405

Holloway, K., Miller, F. A., & Simms, N. (2021). Industry, Experts and the Role of the Invisible College in the Dissemination of Non-invasive Prenatal Testing in the US. Social Science & Medicine, 270, 113635. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113635

Katz, J. (2001). From How to Why: On Luminous Description and Causal Inference in Ethnography (Part 1). Ethnography, 2(4), 443–473. https://doi.org/10.1177/146613801002004001

Knorr-Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674039681

Lamont, M. (2009). How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674054158

McDonnell, T.E., Bail, C.A., & Tavory, I. (2017). A Theory of Resonance. Sociological Theory, 35(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275117692837

Perrotta, M., & Geampana, A. (2020). The Trouble with IVF and Randomised Control Trials: Professional Legitimation Narratives on Time-Lapse Imaging and Evidence-Informed Care. Social Science & Medicine, 258, 113115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113115

Singh, S. (2022). Can Habitus Explain Individual Particularities? Critically Appreciating the Operationalization of Relational Logic in Field Theory. Sociological Theory, 40(1), 28–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751221075645

Small, M.L. (2009). “How Many Cases Do I Need?” On Science and the Logic of Case Selection in Field-Based Research. Ethnography, 10(1), 5–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138108099586

Tavory, I., & Timmermans, S. (2013). A Pragmatist Approach to Causality in Ethnography. American Journal of Sociology, 119(3), 682–714. https://doi.org/10.1086/675891

Tavory, I., & Timmermans, S. (2014). Abductive Analysis: Theorizing Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226180458.001.0001

Teplitskiy, M. (2015). Frame Search and Re-Search: How Quantitative Sociological Articles Change During Peer Review. American Sociologist, 47(2), 264–288. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2634766

Timmermans, S., & Tavory, I. (2022). Data Analysis in Qualitative Research: Theorizing with Abductive Analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226817729.001.0001

Thank You, Reviewer 2: Revising as an Underappreciated Process of Data Analysis

Authors

DOI:

Keywords:

Abstract

References

Downloads

Published

How to Cite

Issue

Section

License

Information

Make a Submission

Keywords

Current Issue