Toolbox of Techniques to Aid the Writing Process

In her book chapter, Lee (2011, pp. 112-113) provided a toolkit to assist with the writing process. These items have been collated from multiple sources and are highlighted here:

Use a formal academic style, which includes these components:

• Has a clear structure. It is evident to readers from the introduction that the writer has organized his or her thoughts and knows what he or she wants to communicate.
• Has fewer clauses per sentence than spoken English but more words per phrase.
• Has more nouns (often abstract ones) than spoken English and fewer verbs. Uses the passive voice, for example, ‘Many things can be done in order to…’.
• Makes less use of coordination (joining clauses with and or but) and greater use of subordination (joining clauses with words such as while, because, subsequently) than spoken English.
• Almost always uses the third person *(he, she, it, they), rarely uses first person (I, we), and never uses second person (you).
• Avoids direct questions; contractions (do not is used rather than don’t); phrasal verbs (for example, look into, preferring single-word, often polysyllabic verbs, such as investigate); and cliches, redundant words, or colloquialisms.
• Uses linguistic hedges (probably, in most cases, seems, might be, appears to) to qualify generalizations.
• Avoids always and every, replacing them with often and many or much.
• Use formal vocabulary, for example, discuss rather than talk about, and uses there, it, or one as a subject (‘There is a serious risk of…,’ ‘It is very difficult to…,’ ‘One may ask whether…’.
• Ensures that grammar is accurate, ideas link together smoothly, and a full range of grammatical structures is employed, such as relative clauses.
• Employs correct referencing in both in-text references and bibliographical lists.

Conducting and writing about research with utmost honesty and a desire to learn and convey the truth-and nothing bu the truth-about a topic of investigation.

(Leedy & Ormrod, 2016, p. 335)

• Maintaining confidentiality and protecting participants’ right to privacy (in some cases, this may require using pseudonyms or altering a few basic facts for certain participants, in which case you should specifically state that you have made these changes).

• Describing the limitations of your measurement instruments-for instance, by reporting any evidence of poor validity or reliability.

Explicitly identifying any potential confounding variables that may cast doubt on conclusions about cause-and-effect relationships.

Basic Overview of Research Content

Specific Reasons for Rejection

The five basic reasons for rejection listed typically reject a submitted article without review. If an article is accepted for review, then the reviewers comment on the article’s content, format, and structure. Some of the more common reasons for rejection from reviewers could include the following:

1. Poor or confused narrative, with poor grammar, spelling, or organization.
2. Weak data and analysis.
3. Results that do not seem to be grounded in the author’s actual research.
4. Pure (abstract) theory or theory for theory’s sake.
5. Descriptive literature review.
6. Analyses that seem to have no real purpose.
7. Unduly descriptive analysis.
8. Unduly technical papers.
9. Unduly micro or managerial orientation.
10. More suited to a discipline-based journal.

(Godard, 2016, pp. 681-683)

Evaluating Contribution

Three tests:

Applying these tests can help authors (and reviewers) determine whether the type of contribution a particular journal tends to publish is present and if the contribution will meet readers’ expectations.

1. Is the contribution valuable?

By value, I mean adding an insight that is important and relevant for other researchers and/or practiioners.

1. Is the content of the contribution imitable?

Are all reasonable competing explanations of the proposed advance controlled for, either through the logical consistency of the theoretical model or through controlling for rival theories in the research method?

1. Is the contribution rare, surprising, or unexpected?

Is the contribution more of a common sense derivation, or does it represent a novel and unique insight? Orignality is a critical concern.

Summary

Keep two strategic points in mind when crafting a manuscript: (1) ensure that its contribution is aligned with a receptive journal and (2) identify and evaluate the content of the contribution so that you can present and argue for it most effectively.

(Bergh, p. 136)

1. Your article adds nothing new to the literature.

Qualitative researchers do not replcate, qualitative researchers do not investigate phenomena that are well investigated (unless they are convinced that there is something new to be uncovered), and qualitative researchers do not study phenomena that are obvious. It is the responsibility of the researchers to present their topic as interesting and fascinating… in the introduction of their article, to argue their stance in the literature review, and to discuss the contribution of their research clearly in the discussion.

(p. 1163)

3. Quotations have not been edited.

It is the responsibility of the author to edit any quotations useed with as much care and accuracy as is given the actual words, with the participants’ expression maintained…. The quotations do not usually stand on their own: They must be accompanied with the researcher’s interpretation and summary of the text.

(p. 1163)

5. Ethical violations.

Quantitative researchers present information about their sample so that their sample may be evaluated for representativeness with respect to the population and their study may be replicated in the future.

(p. 1164)