Memo Writing
While researchers are gathering, coding, or analyzing data, they will likely come up with ideas or thoughts about their codes or relationships between codes, or they might come up with questions they want to answer in their further investigation. In order to remember these thoughts and questions, researchers write them down. Memos are such analytic or conceptual notes. According to Glaser (1978), memos are “the theorizing write-up of ideas about codes and their relationships as they strike the analyst while coding” (p. 83). Memos can also be defined as “the narrated records of a theorist's analytical conversations with him/herself about the research data” (Lempert, 2007, p. 247). By memo writing, we take a step back and ask, “What is going on here?” and “How can I make sense of this?” For example, when Lempert was writing a memo from interview data in her study of domestic violence in South Africa, the concept of “shelter trap” occurred to her. Lempert then immediately defined this concept as a short-term solution that deflects “attention (and resources) away from the problem—structural inequalities” (p. 251).
We analyze ideas about the codes while conversing with ourselves and making comparisons. “Through memo writing, we elaborate processes, assumptions, and actions that are subsumed under our codes. Memo writing leads us to explore our codes; we expand on the process they identify or suggest” (Charmaz, 2000, p. 517). We write down ideas in process and progress. Memos help the researcher to “gain an analytical distance that enables movement away from description and into conceptualization” (Lempert, 2007, p. 249) and to build up and maintain “a storehouse of analytic ideas that can be sorted, ordered and reordered” (Strauss & Corbin, 1998, p. 220).
Grounded theorists engage in simultaneous data collection and analysis, and thus write memos from the beginning of the research process. Their early memos are often shorter, less conceptualized, and filled with analytical questions and hunches. Exhibit 3.1 illustrates an early memo.
EARLY MEMO EXAMPLE
Inconsistent Applying of School and Classroom Rules
My field notes and audio-recordings indicate that teachers often apply and uphold explicit school and classroom rules in a rather inconsistent manner. In all six classrooms observed in the study, the teachers have told the children the following rules: (1) don't talk during lessons/circle-times when teacher is talking, (2) don't talk during lessons/circle-times when another student who the teacher has given permission to speak is talking, (3) speak one at a time while the others are quiet, (4) raise your hand and wait for your turn if you want to speak, and (5) don't speak or answer without permission from the teacher. Nevertheless, I have for instance observed daily incidents when teachers apply these and other rules inconsistently. Sometimes, teachers correct or reprimand students when they break school and classroom rules. Sometimes teachers just ignore these rule transgressions. And sometimes they appear to positively reinforce the student behavior or act as if the student was doing the right thing.
- How are these rule inconsistencies constructed in everyday interactions?
- Why do these rule inconsistencies occur?
- How do teachers make meaning of these rule inconsistencies?
- How do students make meaning of these rule inconsistencies?
- What are the consequences?
- Are there any hidden assumptions and/or latent patterns here?
I should investigate this further and look for more examples of rule inconsistencies in order to grasp the variation by conducting more ethnographic observations. [Editors' note: See, for example, Chapters Four and Seven.] What happened in these situations and what appear to be the consequences? Do I see a latent pattern, when comparing incidents with incidents? I should also ask students who I observe participating in such events afterward about their experiences, concerns, and meaning-makings of the incidents. In addition, I should ask teachers themselves about these incidents.
Source: This is one of the earlier memos in the analysis process that preceded the findings in Thornberg, 2007.
See, in Exhibit 3.1, how Thornberg takes an active, open, and critical stance by generating analytic questions about the social process of rule inconsistencies that he saw in many field notes and transcriptions from audio-recordings from classroom observations. All questions in the memo are expressions of the basic question in initial coding, “What is happening or actually going on here?” By asking these questions, Thornberg formulates hunches and strategies for further data gathering and coding. Later in a research process, memos become more elaborated and conceptual. Charmaz (2006, p.82) argues that although memos vary, a researcher may do any of the following in a memo:
- Define each code or category by its analytic properties
- Spell out and detail processes subsumed by the codes or categories
- Make comparisons between data and data, data and codes, codes and codes, codes and categories, categories and categories
- Bring raw data into the memo
- Provide sufficient empirical evidence to support the definitions of the category and analytic claims about it
- Offer conjectures to check in the field setting(s)
- Identify gaps in the analysis
- Interrogate a code or category by asking questions of it
In Exhibit 3.2, Thornberg (2007) has come further in his research process on rule inconsistencies in school. He has now identified a basic social process—applying implicit rules—as well as its consequences for and relationships to other significant categories. Note that the memo begins with a title, “Applying Implicit Rules,” which is the tentative name of the main category in the memo, and then provides a definition of this category. Furthermore, Thornberg relates the category to other categories and thus conceptualizes in the memo how this basic social process appears to affect students' meaning-makings and the possibility of their having a say about these rules. In the memo, “a latent pattern or a social process” refers to unarticulated and unconscious regularities in everyday social interaction.
EXAMPLE OF A MEMO TAKEN DURING FOCUSED CODING
Applying Implicit Rules
A deeper analysis of rule inconsistencies indicates a latent pattern or a social process that I would call “applying implicit rules.” In everyday school life, teachers and students interact as if there were a set of unarticulated supplements or exceptions to the explicit rules. This unspoken set of rules appears to be unnoticed background features of everyday life. These implicit rules form patterned regularities of social interactions in classroom or other school contexts, produced by teachers' responses to students' behavior in the everyday stream of activities.
Creating Confusion and Criticism Among Students
Informal conversations and focus group interviews with students indicate that many students appear to be unaware of these implicit rules and to perceive the teachers' behavior as inconsistent and confusing. John in grade 5 tells me, for example, “Well, but then you don't know what to do,” and his classmate Robin said, “No, if you don't need to put your hand up or if you do have to put your hand up.” Furthermore, several students claim that some rule inconsistencies result in unfairness.
| Alice: | It's unfair when she [the teacher] gives them the question, although they haven't put their hands up. |
| Robert: | What do you mean? Why is it unfair? |
| Alice: | That they still get the question. And those kids who have put their hands up, don't get it, although we have this rule. |
| (From a group interview with Alice and Johanna, fifth grade) | |
Children's difficulties in making sense of the inconsistencies can, at least in part, be explained by the latent pattern of implicit rules, which remain unarticulated in everyday teacher-student interactions.
Creating Rule Diffusion, Prediction Loss, and Negotiation Loss
Rule inconsistencies and unarticulated implicit rules create rule diffusion among students (that is, uncertainty and interpretation difficulties regarding which rules are in force and how they should be applied). This rule diffusion in turn leads students to a prediction loss (that is, they cannot always predict what would be appropriate behavior in particular situations, and how teachers would react to their behavior or fellow students' behavior). By remaining unarticulated and invisible for the students, the implicit rules also result in a negotiation loss for them (that is, they are not given any opportunity to join teachers in an open discussion and decision-making processes for developing and revising these rules). They cannot have a say in and openly negotiate rules of which they are unaware.
Source: This is one of the later memos in the analysis process that preceded the findings in Thornberg, 2007.
During focused coding, researchers raise focused codes into tentative conceptual categories in their memo writing. They begin to treat their focused codes as categories, which in turn inspire and push them to explore, develop, and analyze these codes more deeply. Early in her data collection concerning how people experienced chronic illness, for example, Charmaz (1991) created codes for disclosing illness and maintaining secrecy. She soon learned, however, that she needed to code for a greater range of responses, such as strategically announcing illness, avoiding disclosure, and imparting information. Grounded theorists evaluate their tentative categories and decide whether they are sufficiently robust to stand as categories. Furthermore, they compare categories, explore relationships between categories, and search for patterns and meanings in order to build up a grounded theory.
A memo should begin with a title, which is usually the tentative name of the main focused code or category. The grounded theorists then try to write down a working definition of the code or category and use the constant comparative method (that is, comparing the category with data, codes, subcategories, and other categories, and comparing the memo with other memos). When writing memos, researchers do not worry about the language and grammar because memos are for their own personal use (Glaser, 1978; Lempert, 2007). One tip is to use informal, unofficial language (Charmaz, 2006). The important thing is “to record ideas, get them out, and the analyst should do so in any kind of language—good, bad or indifferent” (Glaser, 1978, p. 85). Also, grounded theorists remember to treat memos as partial, preliminary, and provisional, and to compare, sort, and integrate memos (Charmaz, 2006). Through memo sorting researchers create and refine theoretical links by making more abstract and systematic comparisons between categories. They sort, compare, and integrate memos by the title of each category. They compare categories, look for relationships between categories, and consider how their sorting of memos and integrating of categories reflect the studied phenomenon. Memo sorting helps to reveal relationships between categories more clearly and helps researchers develop a grounded theory as well.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
- What purposes does memo writing fulfill in grounded theory analysis?
- How do the examples of memo writing in Exhibits 3.1 and 3.2 help you to think about developing and analyzing the codes and the possible relationships between them?
- How does memo writing challenge researchers to advance their analysis?