In a sea of information, how do you craft qualitative research that truly shines?

This workshop is designed for researchers who want their qualitative work to be credible, publishable, and useful to the people who need it most. Rather than relying on worn-out and often inappropriate yardsticks such as “generalizability,” we will focus on resonance: the quality that helps findings feel meaningful, trustworthy, memorable, and actionable.

Resonant qualitative research does more than report themes. It connects research design to timely concerns, uses analysis to explain rather than merely describe, and offers insights that matter to real audiences, including article reviewers, funding officers, policy makers, practitioners, community partners, and people working in health, government, nonprofit, and academic settings.

Too often, resonance is treated as part of the hidden curriculum of qualitative research. Researchers are told that powerful writing, compelling findings, and practical impact matter, but they are not always shown how to achieve them. In this workshop, we will demystify resonance and identify concrete strategies for designing, analyzing, and writing qualitative research that captures attention and supports meaningful action.

By the end of the workshop, participants will:

• Understand resonance as a key qualitative practice, including how it differs from and overlaps with generalizability, aesthetic merit, transferability, and informational power.
• Develop research designs that speak to participants’ dilemmas, concerns, and lived experiences.
• Use analytic techniques that move beyond description toward interpretation, explanation, and insight.
• Explore ethical and practical ways to use large-language AI to support resonance-oriented qualitative practices.
• Practice heuristic activities for resonant claim-making, including jeopardy research questions, conceptual cocktail parties, negative case analysis, and abduction.
• Be introduced to complementary analytic approaches, including vignette analysis, typologies, metaphor and narrative analysis, explanation and causality, discourse tracing, deconstruction, and arts-based strategies.

Participants will leave with strategies for resonance, a stronger sense of how to make their qualitative research compelling, and greater confidence in moving their analysis from data to insight to impact.

Resources for this workshop draw from Qualitative Research Methods: Collecting Evidence, Crafting Analysis, Communicating Impact (3rd ed., Wiley, 2025) and Sarah’s research in innovative qualitative methods and organizational communication. Sarah has published more than 100 scholarly essays, presented her qualitative research more than 350 times to scholarly, professional, and pedagogical audiences, and is a LEGO® Serious Play® Certified Facilitator.