Read – Chapters, Journal Articles, and Research Blogs: Find top research articles to cite and enrich your reading with your ready-made bibliography of qualitative research from SAGE books, journals, and other credible sources. Use the discussion questions online to practice thinking critically about research.

17.1 What counts as qualitative research

Some of the arguments in this chapter are developed online in my article on ‘What Counts as Qualitative Research? Some Cautionary Comments’ [go to David Silverman].

Q. According to this article, how do researchers lose sight of how a sequence is consequential for what we say and do in interviews?

17.2 Making the familiar strange

This article shows how good research seeks to avoid preconceptions and make the familiar appear strange.

Mannay, D. (2010). Making the familiar strange: can visual research methods render the familiar setting more perceptible? Qualitative Research, 10(1), 91–111.

Q. What are some characteristics of good research avoiding preconceptions?

Q. What preconceptions will you need to address in your research?

17.3 The strangeness of documents

Lindsay Prior makes the familiar appear strange by encouraging researchers to see documents as active agents in the world, and to view documentation as a key component of dynamic networks rather than as a set of static and immutable ‘things’.

Prior, L. (2008). Repositioning Documents in Social Research. Sociology, 42(5), 821–836.

Q. What does Prior mean by repositioning documentation?