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Learning how to theorise data in doctoral writing

Research · June 2018

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Kirstin Dianne Wilmot

Rhodes University
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Published version available on DoctoralWriting SIG: https://doctoralwriting.wordpress.com/2018/06/04/learning-how-to-
theorise-data-in-doctoral-writing/

Learning how to theorise data in doctoral writing

By Kirstin Wilmot

Theorising data in PhD research is a daunting task. It’s easy to get lost in the wilderness of
data, and when the commonly given advice is to just ‘apply theory to your data’, it’s easy to
see where anxiety creeps in. What does ‘theorising’ even involve?

There is little consensus on how to theorise. Most studies tend to adopt a focus on the
importance of using theory in research, but don’t provide much guidance on how to actually
apply theory to data.

I have used ‘semantic gravity’ from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) to better understand
the theorising process. LCT is a sociological theory that analyses knowledge practices.
‘Semantic gravity’ is a tool that can identify how forms of knowledge can range from
concrete, specific instances to more generalised and abstract forms. These different forms
that knowledge takes are represented along a continuum and are understood as different kinds
of strengths of semantic gravity. In doctoral writing, these different strengths are seen in
moves between detailed description of specific instances of data from a context of study
(stronger semantic gravity) and more general and abstract interpretations of the data (weaker
semantic gravity). For example, moving from a particular experience of one student in one
context, ‘Being part of the Tuesday reading group helped develop my thinking’ to a more
general and abstracted interpretation that could account for multiple students across multiple
contexts, ‘Communities of practice play an important role in students’ learning in higher
education’.

In a pilot study of my PhD research I examined a student’s draft data chapter and compared it
to the final version in her published dissertation. Using semantic gravity, I was able to track
how her theorising craft developed over time. The tool also allowed me to identify what
features made the final version more successful than the draft version.

Being able to track movements between concrete and abstract knowledge when theorising in
doctoral writing and making these movements explicit to students is valuable, as research has

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shown that this is actually quite hard to do. However, it is a necessary part of PhD research
because it enables insights gained from one research context to be generalised across
contexts. Doctoral writers therefore need to learn how to do this effectively.

A new perspective on an old problem

In my study I have identified four different strengths of semantic gravity that doctoral
students move between when applying theory to their data. These are reflected on a
continuum, defined relatively to one another.

Developing a continuum of semantic gravity like this enables students’ writing practices to be
mapped across texts as they move from rich description to theoretical interpretations of the
data. It is a useful tool to show how their knowledge practices develop over time as they go
through numerous iterations of a chapter. A semantic gravity continuum like the one above
can be adapted by supervisors and could be used as a scaffolding tool for feedback in
supervisions. Mapping texts using a semantic gravity continuum also enables the different
types of knowledge in texts to be illustrated using ‘profiles’. Profiles are great because they
provide an immediate visual of what is going on in a text, in terms of how the student is
building knowledge. I will demonstrate this below!

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How to move between data and theory

When students start analysing their data, their texts often comprise mostly of summarising
descriptions of the data and quotes from the data itself. For example,
Ted also described climate change in terms of opinions rather than facts: “Climate
change, well it’s the big thing at the moment and everybody has an opinion” and
“people are entitled to their opinion”.
This results in relatively strong semantic gravity, because the writing rests heavily on specific
instances of data. This kind of writing forms the following profile.

When students introduce theory into their writing for the first time, my research found that
they often make sudden leaps to theoretical concepts, without much build up to, or
explanation of, the theoretical interpretation being made. For example,
The arguments that Joe and Jock constructed were in service of establishing (B), that
they are justified in not acting, rather than being about the science (epistemic relations).
Here, the student has jumped to the theoretical concept of ‘epistemic relations’ (weaker
semantic gravity) without much explanation of why this interpretation has been made. This
results in a segmented use of stronger and weaker semantic gravity. You can see it in the
following profile.

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Published version available on DoctoralWriting SIG: https://doctoralwriting.wordpress.com/2018/06/04/learning-how-to-
theorise-data-in-doctoral-writing/

This leads us to a valuable lesson: it isn’t just what you use; it’s how you use it. For example,
it’s not just about mentioning theoretical concepts when discussing data (such as in the
example above). Successful theorising is about transforming understandings of specific
instances of data into more abstract interpretations – and in order to do this successfully, the
student needs to show how that transformation has occurred. Let’s take a look at what
happens when the student starts to do this after several iterations.

In this example, after the student made a few attempts at analysing, she starts to weave the
knowledge cross the four strengths of semantic gravity more regularly and incrementally. She
does this by moving from rich description of specific examples from the data to gradually
generalising these examples away from the specific context, before interpreting the data using
theory. For example:
The conversations focused on ordinary people’s prerogative to form their own beliefs
and opinions about climate change based on their personal experiences and the views of
those they trust, rather than on the advice of climate scientists or policy experts. There
was an emphasis on the legitimacy of climate change views that were based on personal
and subjective beliefs rather than on facts. As such, epistemic relations were downplayed
(ER–): the debate is conducted not on the basis of competing scientific facts but on
competing beliefs and opinions. There was a stronger emphasis on social relations
(SR+): on the importance of subjective experiences and points of view.
Here, the student builds up to a theoretical interpretation (using the concepts of ‘epistemic
relations’ and ‘social relations’ from her theory) and explains why this interpretation has been
made. By moving between theory and data in this way she is able to make her thinking
process explicit to the reader. Writing of this kind creates the following profile.

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Here we can see how the shifts between specific instances of data (stronger semantic gravity)
and more abstract interpretations of the data (weaker semantic gravity) are more frequent,
connected, and span a wider range in the more developed text. The text also ends on an
abstract level, enabling the insights gained from the data to be applied to other contexts.

Key insights for learning how to theorise

While the four strengths of semantic gravity used in the profiles might seem common-sense
and obvious, all that makes sense is not always common. This new way of understanding the
messy problem of how to integrate theory and data provides two valuable insights.

(1) Revealing the drafting process

First attempts at theorising often start with rich description, as the student starts to make
sense of the data. When theory is incorporated, it is often first imposed onto the data –
seen in big leaps from specific instances of data to abstract theoretical constructs with
little evidence of how the student arrived at the interpretation. A semantic gravity analysis
can show why some texts are more ‘integrated’ and ‘sophisticated’ and why others are
more ‘disconnected’ and ‘underdeveloped’, without students having to rely on vague
adjectives.

(2) From analytical device to pedagogic tool

The continuum of semantic gravity identified here can be used as a scaffolding tool to
help students demonstrate their thinking process as they generate theoretical

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 Published version available on DoctoralWriting SIG: https://doctoralwriting.wordpress.com/2018/06/04/learning-how-to-
theorise-data-in-doctoral-writing/

interpretations of their empirical data. If big leaps are being made between concrete and
abstract knowledge, students can use the tool to learn how to more explicitly step through
the theorising process in their writing, both in terms of building up to theory, and for
unpacking theoretical interpretations. The advantage of the tool is that it is flexible: it can
be adapted to suit any field or theory (the four strengths identified here were generated
from the data itself).

Semantic gravity provides us with a valuable tool for identifying and unpacking what makes
some attempts at theorising more successful than others. It provides a tool for both
supervisors (to diagnose issues in student writing) and students (who can use it as a
scaffolding tool).

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