Conference Agenda (All times are shown in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) unless otherwise noted)

The thematic narrative, composed of precise excerpt-commentary-units, is a disciplined and effective way to capture and convey the rich detail and multivocality of qualitative research (Emerson, Fretz & Shaw, 1995; Hartel, 2020). The workshop will teach the essentials of this writing strategy. While the same material was featured in an online format at the 2020 ASIS&T Annual Meeting, the offering at hand is new and improved. Participants will be taught to write a thematic narrative: a gradually unfolding descriptive account that relates vivid pieces of field data to relevant concepts in the scholarly literature. Then they will learn to create excerpt-commentary units: rhetorical structures that contain four distinct and purposeful elements. Along the way, many interactive exercises – writing – will occur. Our session suits doctoral students near finishing, experienced social scientists who wish to fortify their writing, and those who supervise or edit qualitative research. The lead instructor, Dr. Jenna Hartel, has taught this method to more than 300 students at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto. The workshop’s facilitators, Keith Munro, Hugh Samson, and Niloo Sohljoo are doctoral candidates with a passion to mobilize a next generation of expert writers of Information Science. Additional registration fee applies.

This half-day workshop is for discussion and give and take between participants and the Editors-in-Chief of ASIS&T publications: Steve Sawyer for the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), Lisa Given for the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST), and Chirag Shah for Information Matters. The workshop will consist of three separate 60-minute sessions of discussion and Q&A for each journal, plus some time for discussion and Q&A with all three Editors-in-Chief and editorial board members. Pre-workshop, participants will submit “Ask the Editor” questions on how to write a successful article at any of the publications. During the Information Matters session, Chirag Shah will answer questions, address current IM topics and discuss how to write the specialized IM article. For JASIST, Steve Sawyer will organize small groups to review synthetic abstracts to seed a discussion of the criteria JASIST uses to assess submissions, and will answer questions about how to submit a successful JASIST paper. For ARIST, Lisa Given invites participants to submit “Expression of Interest” paper ideas for workshopping during the session, will explain the “Expression of Interest” pitch process for new submissions, and give tips for writing comprehensive reviews for ARIST. Additional registration fee applies.