I found that there is one point these four articles all mentioned and all make efforts on emphasizing its importance, that is, the importance of clear and detailed description. As H & M motioned in the book that thick description are vital and it appears to the census shared by many qualitative researchers in the recent literature. Clear and detailed description serves as a means of allowing decisions about the extent to which findings from one study are applicable to other situations. From this view, it is important for examining or improving one’s generalizability of qualitative research.
The same view is also shared by Gary King in his book. He wrote in the paragraphs illustrating four characteristics of scientific research that scientific research uses explicit, codified, public methods to generate and analyze data whose reliability can therefore be assessed. Because all methods have limitations, explicitness is that those limitations can be understood and addressed. In addition, the methods can be taught and shared. This process allows research results to be compared across separate researchers and research projects to be replicated, and scholars to learn.
Through explicitness, thick decription, clear and detailed description, qualatative researchers are able to increase reliability and generalizability of their reseach and also be able to more or less compensate the weakness of qualitative research by its nature.
