Crafting Qualitative Research Articles on Marriages and Families

Abstract

This paper aims to assist those who do qualita tive research in the field of marriage and family to reduce the number of rejections received in response to article submissions. Recurring shortcomings identified by reviewers and sug gestions made to authors about revising papers are organized using headings traditionally used in a research article-introduction and litera ture review, method, results, and discussion. Considerations stemming from the fact that data on marriages and families are produced largely through interviews also are addressed.Although there is a vast and growing literature on why and how to do qualitative research, in most research guides production of the research report is the topic that gets the shortest shrift. Furthermore, most advice is general rather than aimed specifically at how to produce journal ar ticles.

Becoming a Mother: The Influence of Motherhood on Women's Identity Development

“…The other investigators, all licensed psychologists and psychologists-in-training, served as auditors of the analysis. As it is important to acknowledge the biases and positioning of the researcher in qualitative work (Matthews, 2005), information about the researchers is important for reader interpretation. Thus, the primary researcher was of similar background to multiple participants in that she was female, culturally identified primarily with majority American culture, and also identified as Christian.…”

Geosocial Networking App Use Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in Serious Romantic Relationships

“…Codes are described in terms of the number of participants who endorsed the code, and participants' answers could include multiple codes within one response. Following Matthews (2005), lengthy explanations of quotes are avoided; instead, quotes are presented to illustrate conclusions drawn from the data. With the exception of minor edits to spelling and grammar to improve readability, all quotes are presented verbatim.…”

Kin and Youths in the Social Networks of Youth‐Headed Households in Namibia

“…Proximity to focal child took into account local means of transportation and communication, generating a scale that ranged from same homestead or neighborhood to locations within walking distance and those that could not be reached in a full‐day walk (1 = within [30‐min or full‐day, as specified] walking distance , and 0 = otherwise ). Selected excerpts from the interviews are weaved through the results to highlight important themes from the analyses (Matthews, 2005).…”