Writing up

The project has begun to move on to its next phase, where I need to start to write up my findings in several different outputs. The plan for is to write several articles based on the project one focused on some theory about narrative I’ve been developing from my data, an article about the construction of identity in the discourse about religious belief, and an additional article that’s still not determined. I’m also thinking about working on a (short) book that’s limited to the project and the findings, and a longer, more extensive book called Religious Belief and Discourse pulling together some of my larger thoughts about faith as it relates to Discourse. Finally, I’m going to be working on an infographic based on the findings for sharing with the institutions and people that have been involved in the project so far.

There is a challenge, of course, in doing this sort of writing as you try to present your work to both academic and general audiences. There’s no point in just producing a bunch of writing to be stuck in a library and read by a few dozen academics. A key part of the project has included working with community organisations and talking to leaders about what they do in their communities, but as I have been working at boiling this down to some key findings, it’s not clear to me yet, how best to communicate these findings and, indeed, if I have anything worthwhile to say at all. What seems most clear to me is that deciding what is useful to share requires more conversations with people who don’t share the same language as me about data and analysis and impact, but people who work in the real world of community engagement and know how best to speak to the audiences I want to reach.