Images were a way to think. I weave back and forth.... I have the data from the interviews, my own experiences, the literature review. All through that I had images in my head about what I was talking about...e.g., what meditation means or what I think people say it means...so that's how I think.... The trouble is it takes longer...you come up with images and sensations and then you have to come up with words.... I had images in my head, but when I took the photographs I had an image of what I wanted to capture, and then sometimes the images spoke and said more. Some pictures I already had and most were ones that I took. The outcome is...here are some photos that support the text, but it really was the process. (personal communication, December 2007)
Sheila Stewart (2008) was writing poetry, or what she calls poetic pieces, alongside her more "straightforward" writing about her exploration of practitioners' stories. At the time she didn't know that those poems would make their way into her research writing. Sheila reflected how writing the poems helped her move forward with the research writing and added to that writing:
For me the [poetic] writing is very tied up with figuring out what I think and feel, as I do it, it's not like I know something and then I write it down. I'm kind of writing it.... I was just writing those [poetic] pieces as I went along...on my computer, on other little files...partly to help me out.... I don't know that I knew that I would be putting those in or not, then sometimes when I put them in they just seemed to help whatever was there.
And I think you're trying to say so much with words that are in sentences that have to be in a paragraph or whatever, and there's all these other things that are going on inside of you as you do it... It's like those poetic fragments can hold some of the tension of the words and the feelings...they hold the tension in a different way than the prose does.... We've been told that prose is supposed to explain something in a kind of straightforward way, we're taught how to write an essay.... These poetic pieces can hold the tension. They were a sort of a release for me.... Then I can go on and say something else. (personal communication, December 2007)
Checking with participants is a way to find out if your analysis reflects what they shared with you through interviews, journals or other methods. It may not be possible to check with all of your participants, especially if there is a long time between data collection and analysis. However, when you are able to check, participants' feedback can help you develop the analysis and help you feel more confident about the credibility of your work.