Writing the Qualitative Dissertation: Understanding by Doing

Takes readers through the process of writing the qualitative dissertation. Shares the author's and many correspondents' understandings of and reflections on how it feels and what it means to do qualitative research for the doctoral dissertation.


Review
A fine update and expansion of the original volume….All inquirers struggle with common questions. What am I writing? Who am I writing for? How am I supposed to write this? Why should I do it anyhow? This book reveals the experiences of novice researchers as they grapple with these questions on their journeys through particular inquiries….In this second edition novices concerns are conceptual as well as logistical. Meloy demonstrates how research is political, social, cultural, and personal, as well as theoretical and practical. Her participants provide insights into both the challenges and the satisfactions of qualitative inquiry….In addition to being an empathetic representation of novice inquiry, it is also a fine instructional guide. Its organization and focus convey the crucial decision points in research with examples of how people have made those decisions. It is a fine supplement to those textbooks that discuss decision alternatives but offer less guidance to threading a way through them.

—Judith Preissle
University of Georgia

For graduate students seeking advice on the art and science of preparing a dissertation, this book offers a medley of testimonials to the process as part rite of passage, part finding ones voice, part bildungs roman, part socio-political act, part intellectual adventure.
—Thomas A. Schwandt
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign