Quotable Quotes

















"Benjamin Bloom, an American educational psychologist, and many others in the educational field have conceptualised the acquisition and retention of knowledge as having many domains or levels of depth.

The first domain is remembering. In essence, it refers to retaining facts. Unfortunately, retaining facts without understanding them is of little value. It also has a very limited lifespan.

The next level is comprehension or understanding. This is shown by our ability to express in our own words the meaning of the information.

With understanding, we can start to analyse, catalogue or break down the knowledge, to judge, appraise or evaluate the knowledge, and to relate it to a new context, or to synthesise by integrating it with other information." — K Ranga Krishnan in "Why we should teach logic in schools"

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"...interpretive methods of research start from the position that our knowledge of reality, including the domain of human action, is a social construction by human actors and that this applies equally to researchers. Thus there is no objective reality which can be discovered by researchers and replicated by others, in contrast to the assumptions of positivist science." — Walsham, G. (1993), Interpreting information systems in organizations, Wiley, Chichester, NH.

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"The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery." —William Kingdon Clifford in "The Ethics of Belief"

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"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb." — Sir Winston Churchill

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"... what we call our data are really our own constructions of other people’s constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to." — Clifford Geertz in "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture"

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"Qualitative studies are tools used in understanding and describing the world of human experience. Since we maintain our humanity throughout the research process, it is largely impossible to escape the subjective experience, even for the most seasoned of researchers. As we proceed through the research process, our humanness informs us and often directs us through such subtleties as intuition or 'aha' moments. Speaking about the world of human experience requires an extensive commitment in terms of time and dedication to process; however, this world is often dismissed as 'subjective' and regarded with suspicion. This paper acknowledges that small qualitative studies are not generalizable in the traditional sense, yet have redeeming qualities that set them above that requirement."

"A major strength of the qualitative approach is the depth to which explorations are conducted and descriptions are written, usually resulting in sufficient details for the reader to grasp the idiosyncracies of the situation."

"The ultimate aim of qualitative research is to offer a perspective of a situation and provide well-written research reports that reflect the researcher's ability to illustrate or describe the corresponding phenomenon. One of the greatest strengths of the qualitative approach is the richness and depth of explorations and descriptions."

— M. Myers in " Qualitative Research and the Generalizability Question: Standing firm with Proteus"

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"Qualitative interviews have operated for us like night-vision goggles, permitting us to see that which is not ordinarily on view and examine that which is often looked at but seldom seen." — H. J. Rubin and I. S. Rubin in "Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data"

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"An interviewer needs to follow the content of what is being said, listen to the meaning underneath the words, and then gently bring this into the conversation. He or she offers or reflects back what they have heard, so that the respondent can confirm, deny, or elaborate. This way of working creates empathy, deepens the conversation and ensures the meaning has been understood." — J. Chrzanowska in "Interviewing Groups and Individuals in Qualitative Market Research"

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"Any researcher who wishes to become proficient at doing qualitative analysis must learn to code well." — Anselm Strauss, Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists

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"Desire, to know why, and how, CURIOSITY; such as is in no living creature but Man; so that Man is distinguished, not only by his Reason; but also by this singular Passion from other Animals; in whom the appetite of food, and other pleasures of Sense, by predominance, take away the care of knowing causes; which is a Lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of Knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal Pleasure." —Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan

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"Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought" — Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

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"'Google' is not a synonym for 'research'." — Dan Brown in "The Lost Symbol"

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"We are becoming fluid and many-sided. Without quite realizing it, we have been evolving a sense of self, appropriate to the restlessness and flux of our time. This mode of being differs radically from that of the past [...] We feel ourselves buffeted about by unmanageable historical forces and social uncertainties [...] our behavior tends to be ad-hoc, more or less decided upon as we go along [...] But rather than collapse under these threats and pulls, the self turns out to be surprisingly resilient [...] We find ourselves evolving a self of many possibilities." (Lifton, 1993, p. 1).

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"Qualitative research is multimethod in focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials – case study, personal experience, introspective, life story, interview, observational, historical, interactional and visual texts – that describe routine and problematic moments and meanings in individuals' lives." (Denzin & Lincoln, 2004, p. 2) 

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"Theories are nets cast to catch what we call 'the world'; to rationalise, to explain and to master it. We endeavour to make the mesh ever finer and finer." — Karl Popper

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“The social stock of knowledge differentiates reality by degrees of familiarity [...] my knowledge of my own occupation and its world is very rich and specific, while I have only very sketchy knowledge of the occupational worlds of others [...] The social distribution of knowledge thus begins with the simple fact that I do not know everything known to my fellowmen, and vice versa, and culminates in exceedingly complex and esoteric systems of expertise. Knowledge of how the socially available stock of knowledge is distributed, at least in outline, is an important element of that same stock of knowledge.” Language in Education: A Source Book

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“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.” — Karl Marx in "The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte"

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"[Qualitative research] assumes that there are multiple realities—that the world is not an objective thing out there but a function of personal interaction and perception. It is a highly subjective phenomenon in need of interpreting rather than measuring. Beliefs rather than facts form the basis of perception. Research is exploratory, inductive, and emphasizes processes rather than ends."Sharan B. Merriam in "Case Study Research in Education: A Qualitative Approach"

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"If there is no generalizing beyond the data, no theory. No theory, no insight. And if no insight, why do research?" — Henry Mintzberg in "Developing Theory about the Development of Theory"

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"No matter how accepted eventually, theory is of no use unless it initially surprises — that is, changes perceptions." — Henry Mintzberg in "Developing Theory about the Development of Theory"

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On the characteristics of a good theory:

"We consider it a good principle to explain the phenomena by the simplest hypothesis possible." — Claudius Ptolemy

"entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem" ("Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.") — William of Ockham

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"An issue is a topic that sparks controversy within a community of speakers, readers, and writers. More specifically, an issue is a topic that creates a tension in the community, a discontent or dissatisfaction with the status quo." — D. Kaufer, C. Geisler, and C. Neuwirth in "Arguing from sources: exploring issues through reading and writing"

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"[A] good theory explains, predicts, and delights." — Karl E. Weick in "Definition of 'theory'"

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"Strong theory, in our view, delves into underlying processes so as to understand the systematic reasons for a particular occurrence or non-occurrence. It often burrows deepy into microprocesses, laterally into neighbouring concepts, or in an upward direction, tying itself to broader social phenomena. It usually is laced with a set of convincing and logically interconnected arguments. It can have implications that we have not seen with our naked (or theoretically unassigned) eye. It may have implications than run counter to our common sense." Robert I. Sutton & Barry M. Staw in "What Theory is Not"

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"The fact is that there would be no interesting hypothesis to test if no one ever generalized beyond his or her data. Every theory requires that creative leap, however small, that breaking away from the expected to describe something new. There is no one-to-one correspondence between data and theory. The data do not generate the theory only researchers do that any more than the theory can be proved true in terms of the data. All theories are false, because all abstract from data and simplify the world they purport to describe. Our choice, then, is not between true and false theories so much as between more and less useful theories. And usefulness, to repeat, stems from detective work well done, followed by creative leaps in relevant directions."Henry Mintzberg in "An Emerging Strategy of "Direct" Research"

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"For while systematic data create the foundation for our theories, it is the anecdotal data that enable us to do the building. Theory building seems to require rich description, the richness that comes from anecdote. We uncover all kinds of relationships in our "hard" data, but it is only through the use of this "soft" data that we are able to "explain" them, and explanation is, of course, the purpose of research. I believe that the researcher who never goes near the water, who collects quantitative data from a distance without anecdote to support them, will always have difficulty explaining interesting relationships (although he may uncover them)."  Henry Mintzberg in "An Emerging Strategy of "Direct" Research"

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"Like so many words that are bandied about, the word theory threatens to become meaningless. Because its referents are so diverse—including everything from minor working hypotheses, through comprehensive but vague and unordered speculations, to axiomatic systems of thought—use of the word often obscures rather than creates understanding." — Robert K. Merton in "On Sociological Theories of the Middle Range"

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Even Mombi was not without a curious interest in the man her magic had brought to life; for, after staring at him intently, she presently asked:

"What do you know?"

"Well, that is hard to tell," replied Jack. "For although I feel that I know a tremendous lot, I am not yet aware how much there is in the world to find out about. It will take me a little time to discover whether I am very wise or very foolish." L. Frank Baum in "The Treasury of Oz"

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"All students of man and society ... are aware that the besetting danger is not so much of embracing falsehood for truth, as of mistaking part of the truth for the whole." — John Stuart Mill

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"(Man in general) is capable of rectifying his mistakes, by discussion and experience. Not by experience alone. There must be discussion to show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it. Very few facts are able to tell their own story, without comments to bring out their meaning. The whole strength and value, then, of human judgment, depending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is wrong." — John Stuart Mill

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"The element of chance in basic research is overrated. Chance is a lady who smiles only upon those few who know how to make her smile." — Hans Selye

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"The task of writing a literature review therefore is a means of learning about the literature; we write to learn about what we read. Initially, we write about materials that we do not know or understand very well. As our understanding develops we fill in gaps and take out errors. One of the key processes is identifying different methodologies and theoretically approaches. By writing regularly we can gradually become more comfortable writing about new knowledge in a knowledgeable way." — Rowena Murray in "How to Write a Thesis?"




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