Writing-Up

Geoff Walsham

Lecture 5 of Course on Interpretive Research in IS - Oslo University

Contents of Lecture 5

• Writing an academic paper

• Structuring the paper

• Discussion of various components

• The art of persuasion

• English language issues

• Writing-up a longer piece of work

Writing an Academic Paper

• Crucial question: what is your key message?

• To what audience?

• What is new about your contribution?

Structuring the Paper

• Create an outline including sections and sub-sections

• Think about the length of the various sections

• Write material on the sections to outline their contents and how they will connect

• Discuss the outline with a co-author or colleague

Title

• Important - should be sharp and focused on your contribution

• See some of Orlikowski’s titles:‘CASE tools as organizational change: investigating

incremental and radical changes in systems development’

‘Technological frames: making sense of information technology in organizations’

Abstract

• Should summarise the whole paper (it is not an introduction)

• Topic; why it is important; what you have done; what are your key conclusions

• In less than 150 words

• Write the abstract early - it is a good test as to whether you know what you are trying to say and why

Introduction

• Not too long!

• Why is this topic important?

• How are you planning to develop your contribution in this paper?

• How is the rest of the paper structured?

Literature Review

• Not just everything you have read on the topic

• A structured review of interesting aspects of the literature

• But showing why your paper is needed

• Can include references that you do not like to make your argument - but be polite!

Methodology

• Reporting on ‘soft’ human issues is not an excuse for sloppiness (Walsham 1995)

• Collection of field data: research sites chosen, why, who was interviewed, their job roles, other data sources, time period of the data collection …

• Analysis: how data were recorded; how they were analyzed; iterative process between theory and data ...

Methodology - Comment

• You won’t get a paper published in a good journal just because you have written a good methodology section

• But you might get a paper rejected by a good journal because your methodology section is weak

Empirical Data and Analysis

• Make it a coherent, interesting story

• Sometimes helpful to have an ‘overview’ before giving details

• Use plenty of quotes, but make sure that they directly support the point that you are making

• Tables can be useful to summarise key points being made in the text

Discussion and Conclusions

• What is your key contribution?

• How does this advance our knowledge?

• To what extent will your results generalise to other contexts?

• What further work could be done (but not much on this in a paper)?

• Pay attention to a good ending

The Art of Persuasion(Walsham 1995)

‘Van Maanen (1989) reminds us that establishing validity in the eyes of a reader is part of the art of persuasion, and is as much a matter of rhetorical style and flair as it is of accuracy and care in matters of theory and method’

• Practice/practice/practice …

• Develop your own style

English Language Issues

• Lear how to write grammatically

• Get a competent native speaker to check your English

• If you write well in your own language, you can learn to write well in English

Writing-Up a Longer Piece of Work

• Basic ideas remain the same

• But structure is even more important

• Flow between different sections/chapters needs additional linking material

• What have others done? What have I done? So what? (thesis structure)