Good Description

• In Event: Foundational Concepts and New Directions in Qualitative Research

Abstract

“Good Description”


Does answering “why” presuppose the “what” and the “how”? In the era of the “credibility revolution,” descriptive research takes on new importance. While an extensive literature has argued that description is necessary and under-valued (Gerring 2012, Holmes et al 2023), it remains unclear what constitutes good description. We articulate and illustrate what *good* description looks like. Specifically, such analyses a) explore important phenomena in the world as it is while remaining cognizant of counterfactuals, b) analyze how processes unfold over time and place, c) examine the diversity of instantiations and contexts in which a phenomenon occurs and how these might interact. In doing so, good descriptions can enrich our understanding of causal mechanisms and how they are sustained over time.

We offer a practical guide for how to describe while attending to the concerns raised by the credibility revolution: how to harness the insights and tools of causal inference for better description. For example, a number of recent historical persistence studies would benefit from spelling out the mechanisms of reproduction, persistence, and attenuation. Such “good description” can greatly improve a range of studies, especially those of time- and context-varying, multicausal phenomena.

Authors

• Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Stanford University

• Daniel de Kadt, London School of Economics