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Unit Overview
Unit Overview
Citizen social scientists are especially empowered to tell their community's data story. As members of the community speaking with and for their families, neighbors, friends, and local influencers, citizen social scientists are uniquely positioned to highlight commonalities in experiences. Because of this, citizen social scientists are able to suggest strategies for action that bridge differences in view and address key issues in the community.
Your method and style of communication will need to reflect the different purposes your data story serves and the various audiences you'd like to reach. These are numerous, and there are likewise many effective, creative communication strategies. Here, we will focus on written communications intended for two purposes: 1) informing the community of the findings of your research, and 2) recommending data-driven policy action. We'll provide suggestions for structuring technical reports and research briefs summarizing your data, review basic drafting techniques, and demonstrate methods for displaying qualitative data.
Key Terms
Key Terms
Primary Information Source: a firsthand account of events or experiences, such as narratives collected in an interview.
Problem Statement: provides a clear, concise roadmap that describes the issue in need of study.
Research Brief: concise research summaries focusing on only one or two key findings from the research.
Secondary Information Sources: an analysis or description of information taken from firsthand accounts created by someone without firsthand experience.
Technical Report: non-scientific research reports written for public audiences, including community members or lawmakers.
Thesis Statement: a roadmap to guide your research report; makes a claim that is proven through evidence provided throughout a research report.
What is Your Data Story?
What is Your Data Story?
What do you need to communicate about your data? We'll start by reviewing strategies for brainstorming and organizing data insights.
Organizing Ideas
Organizing Ideas
Develop a problem statement that succinctly summarizes the purpose and importance of the research you conducted.
Focusing your Research Problem
Focusing your Research Problem
Now that you've had the chance to develop and organize your ideas, use the template below to begin to clarify your problem statement.
Telling Your Data Story
Telling Your Data Story
Now that you have a problem statement, you can decide what type of report will work best. Do you want to use a technical report or a research brief. Read more about below:
Technical Reports
Technical Reports
Technical reports are non-scientific research reports written for public audiences, including community members or lawmakers. They are written in straightforward language, avoiding technical jargon, and concisely convey the gist of your important research findings.
Research Briefs
Research Briefs
Research briefs are shorter and more concise than a technical report. They often focus on only one key finding from the research. A series of research briefs can be developed covering numerous research themes.
Document Outline
Document Outline
Whether you are preparing a full technical report or a shorter research brief, there are some key areas of information that you will want to cover. There are many effective ways to structure these documents. We recommend including the basic information outlined below. Click on each section heading to read more in the drop down menus.
Executive Summary
Executive Summary
This section provides a concise and comprehensive overview of your study's purpose, methods, and key findings in a single page. If a person was to read only the executive summary, they should have a solid understanding of what you did, what you found, why it was important, and what you recommend.
Background and Methods
Background and Methods
This section provides a more elaborated overview of the research purpose than what you covered in the executive summary. It provides context for your investigation and often contains supporting evidence from other studies to explain what makes your work important.
This section also provides a description of the research site, or community, and a description of the research methods you used to systematically assess the research problem. Ideally, all of this critical information will be concisely reviewed in 1-2 pages.
Study Participants
Study Participants
This section describes the people who participated in your study. It includes an explanation of the sampling methods you used to recruit participants, as well as how many people you interviewed individually or in your focus group(s). Broad descriptions of characteristics of the participants can be included, but avoid detailed descriptions of individuals to protect confidentiality. For example, you might mention that five people interviewed were teachers, four worked in human services, and another six were parents of school-aged children. You could also report demographic characteristics of participants, such as the number from different age groups, racial/ethnic identities, or gender. This information is often summarized in a table.
Findings by Topic
Findings by Topic
The research findings are the bulk of your report or brief - this section contains the good stuff! Identify a few important themes from your analysis (3-5) that highlight commonalities/differences in experience or viewpoints, needs expressed, or ideas for improvement that emerged in your data.
This is a great place to integrate supporting evidence from your data. This may be presented as blocks of direct quotes, summarized in tables with a count of the appearance of particular themes or key words, or by other visualizations, like word clouds.
Recommendations and Conclusions
Recommendations and Conclusions
The final section of your report or brief will leave the reader with clear recommendations for future action. It may also point out new questions arising from your research that require further investigation. It's always a good idea to end with a BANG, leaving your reader with an impactful picture of the importance of your work and it's applications to improving people's lives.
Creative Ways to Present your Data
Creative Ways to Present your Data
Quote Tables
Quote Tables
Your interviewees and focus group members have likely shared compelling responses to your thoughtfully designed questions. You might want to share some of these direct quotes from your research. A quote table is a great way to organize this information.
Quote tables can be organized by research themes. See the example to the right.
Word Clouds
Word Clouds
Word clouds can be used as an eye catching way to show off your data. There are many free online applications that you can use to generate a word cloud using your data. Some online word cloud tools allow you to use fun shapes and colors to add more customizaton.
Word clouds are a fun way to show your reader central themes from your research.
The word cloud to the right was created by using the data from the Quote Table above.
Descriptive Tables
Descriptive Tables
You might want to include a descriptive table in your report to break down basic information about your study participants. See the example at the right hand side of the page. This type of table might include:
Gender
Race
Age
Education
Employment
Marital Status
Number of Children
Descriptive tables will give your reader a better idea of your study sample.
Integrating Evidence
Integrating Evidence
Giving voice to the experiences and perspectives of people you interviewed is often a goal of qualitative research. Additionally, you may want to put your respondents' voices in context by reviewing historical information or other studies. Review the slide presentation at right to learn more about integrating evidence from primary and secondary information sources into your report or brief.
Technical Report Examples
Technical Report Examples
Research Brief Examples
Research Brief Examples
Summary
Summary
Telling your data story in an effective manner requires keeping your purpose and audience in mind. Though the style of communication will vary, being direct and concise in your reporting is always important. This will involve thoughtfully organizing your ideas, centering them around a problem statement. Sharing your findings will likely require you to locate additional supporting evidence from primary or secondary information sources. Your participants' voices will also provide strong supporting evidence to illustrate your main findings. Integrating direct quotations in creative ways, including tables or blocks within the text, breathes life into your report.
Once you share your findings with others, you might begin to consider what new or old questions remain unaddressed from your research.
Reflection Questions
Reflection Questions
Who, Where, How?
Who, Where, How?
How will you share your Muskegon Heights story? Discuss strategies you will use to share your data in writing and public presentations. Who will want to hear about your research, and where will you share what you learned?
Call to Action?
Call to Action?
Based on the experiences and viewpoints you collected and analyzed, what action steps can you recommend be taken to address concerns your participants expressed?
Next Steps?
Next Steps?
Did your research leave you with any new questions? What do you need to know next?
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