Research memos

From GSLISWiki

The general notion is that somewhere between the research per se and the writing of a dissertation or book about it, there's a need for short writings (500-1000 words) on specific topics. This is a way to begin shaping the overall argument. It also ensures that you don't lose good thoughts and it helps with collaboration (as between a doctoral student and committee). They're widely used in ethnographic and case study approaches.

You should choose the categories that make sense for your study. A typical set might be

[TM] Theoretical memo--thoughts on the theories you're using; new questions; ideas for linking theories
[MM] Methodological memo--comments on the methodology, e.g., why you choose to shorten/lengthen the interviews
[DM] Data memo--notes about what data you have, where it's located and in what format
[AM] Analytic memo--analysis of (usually) one aspect of the data, e.g., an interesting connection you make between two interviews
[IM] Implications memo--thoughts for the introduction & conclusion
[WM] Writing memo--general idea about the text per se, i.e., some overall metaphor you want to develop, or ideas about tone and voice

Notice that these can correspond to the chapters you want to write.

It's helpful if the memos are tied to the data in some systematic way, e.g., "pertains to Interviewee #7, second interview, part 3".

You could send email messages with these in the subject line, e..g.,

     "[TM] why the suggestion about Bildung doesn't make any sense"

or, you could create a Community Inquiry Lab and in the doc center have folders for each category. One thing this does is make it easy for others to respond to specific ideas without getting lost in a lot of text.