Quote From athos78:
For the one that thought that writing after the research is not a good idea, I think it is the most common way of doing it in engineering/science. First you do the research and keep track opf your results/progress on a log-book. Then you write the thesis, once you have something to say. Writing per se is not research, and wont get you anywhere if you dont have consistent results first.
Hmm...was this me? Anyway, it differs across fields I am sure, and I shan't comment on the sciences, but in the humanities and social sciences. 'results' are often as much the crystallisation of 'data from fieldwork' (which I am taking to be the science equivalent of experiments) as they are the crystallisation and gradual evolution over time of one's own thinking..
So, for instance, as I go along, and write, thoughts continue to evolve, become clearer in my own head, get deleted, changed, reframed and then one day it becomes clear. This continuous process isn't meant to repalce the final wriiting up phase, but perhaps, in the humanities and social sciences, writing is as much a 'tool' for thought, a 'medium' for ideas to find expression as it is a destination that takes the form of a well written thesis.
The latter is surely most done during writing up, but the former is continuous....as for reporting from the empirical, well,yes, that follows a sequence...
for instance, as a doctoral student, I find much of my work is to make sense of what people have been saying, and what is clear, and what the debates are. Not only does this form half of my thesis in the form of lit review, conceptual framework etc, but this is also the backdrop in which i will frame my data...and it is here that I find continuous writing a great tool for helping me clarify thoughts to myself...
that's all i meant!
