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Tips for writing up a grounded theory:
What follows is grounded in the data of many, many theories I have
reviewed over the years. I have seen many instances of each of them.
•Be careful not to apply more than one theoretical code to a given
substantive concept/code.
•All concepts/codes under a given theoretical code/category should
be of the same level of abstraction.
•Establish the boundaries of the theory. This means you have to go
beyond those boundaries to discover where they are.
•Include only things that directly relate to the core variable, and be
aware and articulate exactly how they relate.
•Be open to changing your core variable, way into the write-up (e.g.
Miranda).
•Be clear about which theoretical codes you are using and why.
•Be sure that everything is about what people are working on. This
may differ with different parties. E.g. Victor initially had some
confusion in his theory about who was “taking a stand.” It starts out
with mentors taking a stand, but then he goes into protégés taking a
stand. It was much less clear how they were doing that. I suggested
he could fix that by seeing the changes protégés were making as
indicators to the mentors of their success, which would keep them in
taking a stand business. They are reinforcers. This enabled him to
keep this material without shifting away from his core variable. The
protégé’s were working primarily on taking a stand. They were
working on something like self-improvement.
•Write the first quality full draft of the theory before going into the
literature. You won’t know what literature is relevant until you have
the full theory.
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•Go into the serious academic theoretical literature, that comes out of
scholarly fields such as sociology, social psychology, psychology.
Don’t spend too much time in “literature light,” such as you find in the
practicing professions literature. It will give your theory less
credibility. E.g. systems literature found in KA guides, which pretty
much ignores serious systems theory, like you can find in sociology.
•Concepts not only carry imagery, they convey attitude. E.g. the U.S.
government’s use of the concept, “descoping” to refer to Iraq
reconstruction projects that are failing or have failed. Descoping
involves redefining the limits of the contract to meet what has been
done and eliminate what hasn’t been done, so they can claim the
contract has been completed. Also, individual readers will bring their
own interpretation to a concept, so you must be very careful in word
choices and try to select the clearest most neutral words or terms
possible to diminish the chances that readers will turn the concept
into their own meaning, rather than what fits the data.
•Avoid absolutes. They effectively shut down options for further
discovery, as well as invite “put downs.”
•Avoid making positive and negative judgment statements because
they invite put-downs.
•When writing about theory, write in the present tense. When writing
descriptively about data, write in the past tense.
•Use concepts, not analogies or metaphors. GT concepts have
imagery, but treating them as if they are analogies or metaphors
weakens them.
•Remain open to more discovery (theoretical sampling) all the way to
the end. Remain open even to changing the core variable (e.g.
Miranda). The write-up is not a time to relax and stop thinking and
discovering. Writing is a continuation of your analysis. As Glaser
(Theoretical Sensitivity, p. 7) said, “Grounded theory assumes that
part of the method, itself, is the writing of a theory.”
•Don’t include concepts or terms that are not part of your
theory/explanation. E.g. including face sheet variables (age, gender,
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educational level, etc.) in your theoretical write-up will imply that
these are causal variables. However, readers who don’t understand
that grounded theory is about behavior, not people, will probably
want to see these categories mentioned. If you feel it is necessary to
do that, do it in the introduction to your dissertation (not your theory),
and make it clear that you are doing so only to establish context.
Only if they actually are variables in your theory should you say
anything more. If none of them are, which in all likelihood will be the
case, make that clear.
•You should use the same formatting for concepts that are on the
same level of abstraction. E.g. if you develop sub-sections to portray
sub-categories of one concept, you must do it for all concepts on that
level of abstraction. If you don’t it may appear that you have weak
spots or holes in your theory, or that the concepts are not really on
the same level of abstraction (even if they are).
•It is helpful to italicize concepts when you introduce and define them,
but don’t italicize them throughout the text because it reduces the
flow of the text for the reader and can make the theory feel contrived.
•If you incorporate theoretical codes such as “property,”
“dimension,” or “condition” make sure you use them accurately, i.e.
that what you are referring to as a property is actually a property,
what you are referring to as a dimension is actually a dimension, and
what you are referring to as a condition is actually a condition. It is
easy to confuse such terms, so you must think deeply about their
use.
•It is sometimes unnecessary and even cumbersome to continually
preface concepts/material with a theoretical code (e.g. property,
dimension). Once you have introduced and identified something with
its relevant theoretical code, it is usually not necessary to keep
prefacing each use of that word with the theoretical code. It clutters
up the sentence and therefore muddies the meaning. It can be
likened to leaving up some of the scaffolding on a building after
construction has been completed. For example, once you have
introduced something as a property, you don’t need to continue
prefacing each use of the word with phrases such as, “the property
of.”
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•Word selection is extremely important, not only in naming your
concepts, but writing up your theory. Re you concepts, the word or
phrase you choose to represent a pattern from the data essentially
“is” the data for the reader. A word/phrase that doesn’t perfectly fit in
effect un-grounds your theory. The theory is grounded partially in
whatever meaning you and/or readers bring to it—i.e. it becomes
more constructivist than it should.
•Be cognizant of how you use conjunctives. E.g. if you write
something like, “it is the property of cultivating” you are effectively
saying that whatever it is is the only property of cultivating (which
means that it is cultivating, only expressed with another word). This
shuts your theory down. If you write “it is a property of cultivating,”
all options remain open. Another example: if you write “poor
communication weakens the organizational effectiveness” versus
“poor communication weakens organizational effectiveness.” The
first sentence with “the” inserted implies you are writing about a
particular organization. Without “the” makes it a general theoretical
statement, rather than a mere substantive one.
•You should include only words that are necessary to convey your
basic intended meaning. You should avoid including “add on” words
that are inconsequential to that meaning, even if they sound nice.
Every word should have an identifiable purpose. A cluttered text will
obscure your theory.
•Be mindful about how you use adverbs like “hence,” “therefore,”
“thus,” “so,” etc., particularly to open a sentence (I commonly see
this). Such words contain implicit or explicit propositions/equations.
They effectively say that what follows is related to what came before.
Particularly when writing up a theory. You don’t want to imply
relationships where they don’t exist or mislead the reader into
thinking you are establishing a relationship when you are not
intending to do so.
•Be cautious in your use of superlatives. You may lose credibility
with reader if you use extreme words and statements. Superlatives
are usually exaggerations of what is really going on. Most things
occur within a range. Although extremes may occur at the edges of
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that range, they are seldom representative of the norm. It is okay to
use superlatives in the context of that range, but not out of context of
the range.
•Introduce and discuss your concept or theoretical idea first, then
give examples from your data to illustrate it, not the reverse. If you
give the example first, your text will read as primarily description
rather than theory. Your theory will get lost in the description. This is
the way it is done in QDA (qualitative data analysis), which focuses
more on description rather than theory.
•Be cautious of drawing inferences from your data, particularly if they
are related to motives. Inferential leaps are inappropriate for GT.
•Don’t get too context specific. Abstract. E.g. collapse gender, age,
etc. into a category such as “personal attributes.”
•Anything pattern/variable, condition, or whatever used in an
hypothetical probability statement should be “named” (expressed
conceptually), if possible, otherwise the hypothetical probability
statement will remain hidden to the reader. If something isn’t
nameable, it probably doesn’t belong in a hypothetical probability
statement. If you fail to fully articulate things conceptually, you lose
the value of having hypothetical probability statements and strand
yourself between conceptual description and a fully developed
grounded theory.
•When introducing or discussing concepts, begin the discussion with
the conceptual/theoretical point and then example it. Do not lead with
an example.
•When writing up a theory, unless it is overdone and begins to feel
contrived, it is usually a good idea to use gerunds when
conceptualizing action.
•As Glaser and Strauss said, a theory is a theory because it explains
something. It not only explains phenomena (in GT that would be the
core variable/category) in general, it explains variations. Variations
can be stated in hypothetical probability form. If there are no
discernible hypothetical probability statements in your write-up, the
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explanatory power of your theory will be weak. The absence of
hypothetical probability statement likely indicates that your write-up
is more conceptual description than full explanatory theory. A
conceptual description is essentially a list of concepts followed by
description, with minimal integration between the concepts.
•Make sure that each sentence contains only one subject, unless it is
intended to be a list of similar subjects. Example of what not to do:
“According to Glaser (1967), the researcher begins with a general
area of interest, and attempts to gain a theoretical foothold.”
Example of okay sentence: “According to Glaser (1967), the
researcher begins with a general area of interest, data collection,
constant comparative analysis, and theoretical sampling.”
•If your theory is a process theory it must have at least two stages.
Not only must you discuss each stage, you must also depict how the
process moves from one stage to another. And, you must discuss
shape. Is it linear (begins at stage one and ends at the last stage in
the process)? Is it recursive, circular, or whatever? You will probably
need to introduce and maybe even discuss the stages in a linear
order, but you still need to make the shape of the process clear. For
example, most discussions of the grounded theory process introduce
and discuss each stage in linear order, although the process itself is
not linear. As Glaser said, “The detailed, conceptual grounded route
from data collection to a finished writing is a process composed of a
set of double-back steps.” (Theoretical Sensitivity, p. 16)
•The write-up of your theory should follow your theoretical outline
(that’s what it is for). So, your section and sub-section headings
should parallel your theoretical outline.
•Glaser is dead-set against including diagrams in a theory write-up.
He thinks they distract from the theory and invite the reader to
shortcut. Because they are bare bones, they also open the door to
misinterpretation and imported ideas. Glaser maintains that if you
need a diagram, there must be something inadequate about the writeup of your theory. He acknowledges that diagrams can be useful to
the analyst when they are trying to piece their theory together. But the
analyst is far more familiar with the data and emerging theory than
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readers so they can remain honest to the data. I tend to agree with
Glaser about all of this. However, I think that diagrams can be useful
in a summary section or appendix. By this time the reader has
encountered them, and they will have read and digested the theory.
At that point a diagram may help refresh their understanding and help
them to better remember the theory, bypassing all of the potential
problems I mentioned above.
Proprietary
Not for distribution without permission of
Odis E. Simmons, Ph.D.
osimm@comcast.net or osimmons@fielding.edu
1-253-549-2267