Hi,

I'm just writing up my results and discussion chapter (combined) from a qualitative interview based study.

I still haven't finished it but it has already reached around 30,000 words!

I've tried to be as succinct as I could but there are many findings. The quotes do take a lot of the word count but reducing them will just loose the richness of the data.

Any advice? How do I reduce the word count?

Can the results be separated into two distinct chapters?

Or even three chapters? 15k words is still fairly long for a singular chapter.

Edit: Sorry I should have said - my R&D chapters were between 7k and 10k long (I have 5 R&D chapters). Hope that helps!

Eds, they could be but then it'll just lengthen the word count, as there'll be repetition.

I am thinking of placing a small section on summary of findings.

Appendix?

Yes, judicious use of an appendix is helpful with word count issues. Also don't provide too many quotes from your interviews, just enough to illustrate specific points and themes. You can't really quote every interesting finding from your interviews.

...after all, they're what you keep back for the book!

Your results and discussion chapters should be divided by perhaps themes, as opposed to all in one chapter?

The general word count for a chapter is around 7-15k as others have suggested. I had 4 data chapters, three of which were based on qualitative interviews and one based on a qualitative content analysis.

You'll also have to be selective of the quotes you use in your chapter, as DocInsanity has stated, you can't use everything.

Themed chapters is an excellent recommendation,. Also, really try not to have any repetition if possible, each chapter is supposed to say something new. If you are using the same quotes across chapters to illustrate several points then def do what the others have suggested and put them in the appendix rather than write it out each time. Well done though, better to have too much and whittle down than not enough.

Thanks everyone! None of the quotes are repeated. There just are a lot of findings. I think the idea of separating it up into different chapters based on themes is a good idea.