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.

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

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