Dedicated workshop
The corpus is coded, meticulously. The node tree is clean, hierarchical, logical. You open the Word file for the Findings section — and the page is blank. You look at NVivo, you look at the page, and you cannot see how to connect them. This workshop is exactly that bridge.
01
Six problems that stop people at the writing stage — each one has a technique, not just encouragement.
How do I turn my NVivo nodes into readable narrative themes? Your node tree is not your findings outline — and knowing why is the first step.
I have to include quotations, but how do I choose them? How many? Selection criteria: representativeness, richness, contrast, exception.
How do I integrate a verbatim without merely relating it? How do I actually analyse it?
How do I write a Findings section without falling into enumeration — “participants said… then they said…”?
I must stay close to the data without paraphrasing it. What exactly is the difference?
Where does my interpretation begin? Who is speaking at which moment — the participant or me?
02
Sessions are spaced at least a week apart: you write between them, and each session starts from what you produced.
Why your NVivo tree is not your findings outline. Grouping nodes into analytical themes rather than software categories. Thematic versus technical hierarchy, and where they diverge. Three kinds of findings outline: thematic, processual, typological. Then selection: “density” versus “occurrence”, and why many passages serve no purpose.
The trap: quoting, then paraphrasing what you have just quoted. The three-beat form — announce what you are about to show, the raw quotation, then what you say it means analytically. Paraphrasing versus analysing: “this participant says X” against “this persistence of X reveals a tension between Y and Z”. Compared cases, five real before-and-afters.
Unblocking the first paragraph. The arc of a well-written section: hook, context, verbatims, analytical synthesis. Writing live, then direct feedback on one or two sections you have started — where are the hidden paraphrases, how to reformulate, how to read your own text for analytical gaps. Then the full workflow, from NVivo node to finished section.
03
Five deliverables, plus four weeks of email follow-up — one question, answered properly.
Every key concept with worked examples, kept as a reference while you write the rest of your sections.
A twenty-criterion analytical checklist to run over a section before you consider it finished.
Real text, reworked and annotated, so you can see what changed and why it works.
An eight-page guide on integrating quotations without paraphrasing them.
A simple tracking table for organising extracts by theme as you pull them out.
04
05
I show you how a weak passage becomes an analytically robust one. You see the before and after, and understand why it works.
You work on your own material during the workshop, with immediate feedback. You leave with a corrected section.
Coded corpus, blank page — I have known it, and seen it in hundreds of doctoral students. It comes undone with technique and analytical clarity, not willpower.