Sketch conclusions early, draft introductions last

Finally, I did know one thing, but I practised it only too falteringly. Bob Biller taught his Berke-ley students to write their policy papers backwards: to begin with their tentative conclusions and then to do the research to attempt to disprove or to corroborate them. I found I did this naturally but not literally. I could not quite begin with a page actually labelled “Conclusions,”

but I would often, especially under the pressure of a deadline, make and then remake a short list of “Here’s what I really want to say.”

That list always evolved. Half of the original items remained to the end, and half evaporated as empty or wrong-headed or overly ambitious. Similarly, half of the fi nal list refl ected additions made along the way. But towards the end, as I saw that indeed “these fi ve points are really what I want to say,” then fi nally I found I could write the essay at hand. Before that, I had too little idea of where I was going. I couldn’t write the beginning until I knew what the argument was going to be, but I didn’t know the argument until I started with my bets, with my hunches and questions about a problem, and then worked out pages here and there about the major points that I thought my research would support. Often a page that I’d write would lead me to one simple thought that I hadn’t had before, and then with it, I’d have to put aside the page and begin again to explore the point at hand. The search process in such writing is slow, preparatory work.

But what’s preparatory and what’s not? There’s no telling beforehand.

All that’s clear is that writing involves cycles and circles, persistence and regularity. Before there can be the page(s) on “Tentative Bets/Possible Conclusions” that I now ask students to sketch, there must be some immersion, some decent familiarity with the material at hand.

Otherwise, what is anyone to have conclusions about? But at the same time, without the sense of an anchor or destination, a rough idea of possible conclusions, and more than a broad purpose, one’s writing can often be far too broadly formulated. Writing, like speaking and like acting, is all about choice and judgment. By balancing the exploration of a territory with a perpetual checking of desirable destinations, we avoid getting too far off track and lost.

Given a problem and some study of it (by experience, knowledge of the literature, interviews, and so on), it’s important, and enormously practical, to be sketching, refi ning, revising, add-ing to one’s conclusions as – and not only after – one does the work to substantiate them.

Only with a sense of destination can one decide ultimately which roads to take. At times it still sounds backwards to me, writing tentative conclusions so early on, but it’s enormously helpful even so. ¹⁰

Notes

1 Originally framed as “Notes on the craft of academic writing,” this paper dates from 1984. Convinced that misery loves company, I wrote it for students and junior academics also struggling with writing.

Edited slightly since, it appears shorter and edited once more for inclusion here.

2 Overreaching and underachieving, my dissertation was entitled, “Questioning and shaping attention as planning strategy: toward a critical theory of analysis and design” (UC Berkeley, 1977). Studying an environmental review offi ce’s staff in a metropolitan planning department, I explored the ethics and politics of the selective attention shaped via planners’ practical (speech act) questioning as they did basic planning analysis of project proposals.

3 See also Wildavsky’s Craftways , Transaction Books. New Jersey. 1989.

John Forester

4 That essay on “Listening: the social policy of everyday life” appeared as Chapter 7 in Planning in the face of power (University of California Press, 1989), and its themes underlie and animate most of what I have written and tried to explore further since then. Both The deliberative practitioner (Forester 1999) and Dealing with differences (Forester 2009) develop theoretical and practical aspects of the (extra)ordinary practice of listening to and with others (see, e.g., Forester 2012a, 2012b, 2013).

5 These books would eventually appear as Planning in the face of power (1989) and Critical theory, public policy, and planning practice (State University of New York Press, 1993). Both explore practice in contentious political contexts: the former found an audience in planning schools, the latter – perhaps too theoretical for planners, too planning/policy oriented for political theorists – seemed to fi nd no audience at all.

6 See Jeremy J. Shapiro, “Reply to Miller’s review of Habermas’ Legitimation crisis, ” Telos , March 20, 1976, 170–176.

7 We can fi nd it, actually, in Alfred Schutz’s “postulate of adequacy,” but that has its own problems. A. Schutz, Phenomenology and Social Relations , ed. H. Wagner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).

8 See Hannah Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” Social Research 38, no. 3 (1971): 417–446.

9 See, for example, Karl Popper, Conjectures and refutations (New York: Basic Books, 1962); Hilary Putnam, Reason, truth, and history (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1981); and Martha Nussbaum, Love’s knowl-edge (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).

10 Written in 1984 (see note 1), I broke my own rule with this paper and did not submit it for publica-tion because I believed it was too idiosyncratically personal. Fifteen years later I discovered that it had had an underground existence at Cornell’s writing program, and I edited it slightly then to share with interested students and junior faculty.

References

Austin, John. (1961). Philosophical papers . London: Oxford University Press.

Barzun, Jacques, and Henry Graff. (1970). The modern researcher . New York: Harcourt Brace.

Drees Ruttencutter, Helen. (1983, January 17). “A Way of Making Things Happen,” New Yorker . Forester, J. (1989). Planning in the face of power . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Forester, J. (1993). Critical theory, public policy and planning practice: toward a critical pragmatism . Albany: State University of New York Press.

Forester, J. (1999). The deliberative practitioner: encouraging participatory planning processes . London: MIT Press.

Forester, J. (2009). Dealing with differences: dramas of mediating public disputes . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Forester, J. (2012a). “From good intentions to a critical pragmatism,” in R. Crane and R. Weber, eds., Hand-book of urban planning . New York: Oxford University Press.

Forester, J. (2012b). “Learning to improve practice: lessons from practice stories and practitioners’ own dis-course analyses (or why only the loons show up).” Planning Theory and Practice 13 (1): 11–26.

Forester, J. (2013). “On the theory and practice of critical pragmatism: deliberative practice and creative negotiations.” Planning Theory 12 (1): 5–22.

Habermas, Jurgen. (1975). Legitimation crisis . Boston: Beacon Press.

Harrison, Barbara Grizzuti. (1979, June 2). “On Lies, Secrets and Silence: Selected Prose 1966–1978, by Adrienne Rich,” New Republic .

Machiavelli, Niccolo. (1961). Letters . New York: Capricorn Books.

Mills, C. Wright. (1959). The sociological imagination . New York: Oxford University Press.

Nussbaum, Martha. (1992). Love’s knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wildavsky, Aaron. (1971). “Things I never knew: a preface” and “Introduction” in Revolt against the masses . New York: Basic Books. See also Wildavsky’s Craftways , Transaction Books. New Jersey. 1989.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (1972). Tractatus logico-philisophicus . New York: Humanities Press.

The craft of research

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INTRODUCTION

Patsy Healey

Filled with a mixture of enthusiasm and nervousness, the novice researcher often feels the need to get immersed in empirical material at the start of a research project, to gather data and somehow build up a study from this. The chapters in this part of the book urge all researchers to resist this temptation! (See overall introduction.) Instead, it is important to stand back from the issues and problems which lead us to be interested in a specifi c topic and to consider the nature of the research to be undertaken. Such refl ection will lead to some signifi cant conceptual and methodological choices which will shape how a research question is set, the nature of the analysis undertaken and the way the validity of fi ndings are to be judged. What issue or problem is the focus of the research study? What contribution will it make to the accumulation of plan-ning knowledge, and/or addressing a specifi c, practical dilemma? What paradigms – perspectives on the world – shape the way you as the researcher are thinking about the problem or issue and how does this affect the relationships to be explored? How does this shape the methods which will be appropriate for the research? Who is the audience for the study and how will this infl u-ence how its robustness and validity will be judged?

The chapters in this part aim to help planning researchers think about these broader ques-tions. But do not expect simple answers or recipes. There are no neat single answers. As out-lined in the overall introduction, the planning fi eld draws on several disciplinary traditions and intellectual perspectives. There are even disagreements about the focus of the planning fi eld itself (e.g., contrast the defi nitions of planning provided by Moulaert and Mehmood in Chapter 2.5 and by Webster in Chapter 2.6). This eclectic diversity is a potential strength, as it provides a rich conceptual and methodological array available to the researcher. But approaching this range demands a creative mixture of imagination and rigour. Careful choices have to be made about how an initial research puzzle will be translated into a specifi c research question, analytical approach and detailed methods. To be robust, given the range of possibilities, researchers in our fi eld need to think explicitly about what will make the fi ndings of our project acceptable as valid

‘truth claims’, with what caveats and in what contexts. If such choices are not well made and well justifi ed, fi ndings of a study will be exposed to the kind of criticism which Webster makes ( Chap-ter 2.6 ). The chapChap-ters in this part are therefore aimed to set you thinking. Some help to scope the range within which specifi c choices about strategy and method will be made. Others present a particular approach, from within their preferred perspective. Do not expect agreement! If we

Patsy Healey

authors were all in a seminar room together, some disputes would surely break out. Readers are encouraged to think about these as a way of clarifying the choices each will come to make. The rest of this chapter sketches out the rich resources to be found in the chapters.

In Chapter 2.2 , du Toit introduces the general challenge of designing a research strategy and the range of possibilities for research studies in the planning fi eld. He encourages researchers to think about the logic of a research strategy. He introduces various typologies which have been developed to distinguish different kinds of research. He links these to broad paradigms (positivist, interpretive and critical) about how to think about the world and how it works which inform methodological choices. He then develops these typologies to classify research designs in the planning fi eld, richly illustrated with examples of such studies for readers to follow up. In Chap-ters 2.5 , 2.6 and 2.7 , authors position themselves very clearly within a specifi c perspective, and readers may be interested to review du Toit’s chapter after having read them. However, du Toit does not argue that we have to make an exclusive choice between perspectives and methods. A research design may mix inspirations. In such cases, it is even more important to be explicit and systematic about choices made and the resultant logic of a research study.

Making such choices to arrive at a research design is a complex and value-laden process, even where a study is positioned within the positivist paradigm so common in the sciences. As a result, research activity is infused with ethical issues. In Chapter 2.3 , Thomas and Lo Piccolo review how values enter choices involved in research activity, and the kinds of ethical issues which arise at different stages of a research project. They introduce the role of formal codes of research ethics and explain their value and limitations. They underline, however, that doing research is a social practice, only marginally affected by formal codes. Much more important is the research culture. They argue that what we research and how we do it are deeply affected by the institutional position from which we engage in research and the reasons why we do it.

For researchers in the planning fi eld, these institutional issues are especially challenging, because of the action orientation and value commitments which infuse the fi eld (see overall introduc-tion). Thomas and Lo Piccolo underline that there will be struggles over research paradigms and appropriate methods, with claims that some are more ‘robust’ than others. Such struggles may not be easy – for example, when a novice researcher begins to pull away from the preferred paradigm of a supervisor. Thomas and Lo Piccolo emphasise the importance of developing a culture of research practice which encourages such critical questioning and recognises that dif-ferent research designs and logics are possible. Campbell in Chapter 1.5 describes her efforts to build such a ‘community of researchers’ among a group of doctoral students.

The next two chapters expand the discussion to consider research designs which involve comparisons, especially cross-national comparisons. These became common in the context of increasing integration among the planning research community in Europe from the 1990s, but are increasingly conducted across all parts of the world. In our fi eld, it is inevitable that such studies have to confront the complex political-institutional differences between countries and cultures which affect how planning activity is understood and practiced. In Chapter 2.4 , Booth introduces the challenge of cross-national research. He argues that all comparisons involve ing some assumptions about similarities and differences. In the planning fi eld, our focus in mak-ing comparisons is typically on qualities of places and of governance activity. Booth draws on a long research career comparing the philosophy and practice of development regulation between England and France. Apparently similar intervention tools and practices turn out, on investiga-tion, to arise from very different governance cultures and histories, which shape the institutions and practices through which planning work is done. Booth also notes the signifi cance of lan-guage, some concepts in one language being untranslatable in another. He argues that research

designs involving cross-national comparisons need to allow the time and space to grasp these important contextual dynamics.

In some of the work he refers to, Booth introduces the challenge of working with research teams in different countries and the importance of a common framework to guide the work of the different teams. This challenge is addressed directly in Chapter 2.5 , where Moulaert and Mehmood draw on a range of large-scale, EU-funded, multi-sited research projects conducted in recent years. The particular focus of these projects has been on processes of social innovation in urban neighbourhoods. This work has been inspired by a normative concern to explore how collective action can make a difference to people’s lives in situations of diffi culty and marginality.

The teams involved in this work have come not only from different countries but also have been multidisciplinary, demanding what Moulaert and Mehmood call a ‘post-disciplinary’ approach.

The key to holding such an ambitious research challenge together lies in the development of a

‘meta-framework’. They recognise that each situation investigated will have its own special char-acteristics and that the individual research teams need the freedom to work with the distinctive dynamics of each research site. But, at the same time, the individual cases need to be developed so that they can address the questions specifi ed in the meta-framework, which itself is developed collaboratively among the research team as a whole. The challenge is then to identify recog-nisable patterns across the cases, which can be substantiated by robustly investigated empirical fi ndings. Ontologically, this approach is positioned in a combination of du Toit’s ‘interpretive’

and ‘critical’ traditions. It also draws on the refl exive methodology of inquiry advocated by pragmatist philosophy, and especially the ‘holistic’ approach to analysing the relations between

‘parts’ and ‘wholes’.

In Chapter 2.6 , Webster reiterates the importance of rigorous research design and robust empirical methods in the conduct of planning research. Like Moulaert and Mehmood, he is concerned with how generalisable knowledge can be created from disparate experiences through the search for, and testing of, patterns of behaviour. But he approaches this challenge from a different intellectual perspective. He locates himself within the behavioural tradition of emerging work on evolutionary spatial economics. His focus is on understanding the rela-tionship between patterns of behaviour and patterns of urban form. This leads him to focus on individual behaviour, in contrast, for example, to Booth’s focus on culture. Ontologically, therefore, he is a ‘methodological individualist’. Epistemologically, he advocates the research methodology promoted by Karl Popper for the generation and refutation of hypotheses about such patterns. The core of his chapter is about what the methodology of refutation means for the design of a research project. But Webster does not lead us into an abstract discussion. He is deeply concerned with the development of robust ways to address the questions which politi-cians and practitioners ask – about the relation between health and urban form, or the behaviour of land and property markets. His chapter is a call to improve the quality of planning scholarship through carefully focused empirical investigation.

In Chapter 2.7 , Palermo and Ponzini draw on a very different planning culture, with respect to both academic discipline and planning institutions and practices. In Italy, the planning disci-pline and its practices are still deeply infl uenced by the architecture and design discidisci-plines. This leads Palermo and Ponzini to an interest in the way designing a project can itself be a tool of research inquiry. They introduce their discussion by positioning this tradition within a review of planning theory perspectives. They contrast the ‘positivist’, rational decision-making approach with pluralistic and communicative approaches, and seek to evolve the latter into an explorative research method centred on producing project ideas. In this way they arrive at ‘design hypoth-eses’, similar to those referred to by Webster. They then illustrate these approaches through the

Patsy Healey

work of three leading Italian planners from the 1930s to the present, arguing that the work-ing methods of these exponents have been neglected in more recent discussions of plannwork-ing theory and method. Palermo and Ponzini’s argument is that linear conceptions of how research feeds into planning processes need to be abandoned in favour of more recursive and interactive approaches, as Moulaert and Mehmood also advocate. They also make a plea for more interac-tion and synergy between social science and architectural tradiinterac-tions of research in the planning fi eld.

These chapters thus develop different approaches and arguments about the conduct of research in the planning fi eld. They all advocate thinking carefully through conceptual and methodological issues, to focus a study into a researchable design, the logic of which can be explained and justifi ed clearly. This may seem a hard challenge, but it need not be overcompli-cated or ambitious. Nor should the search for an orderly research logic crowd out insight and imagination. As the refl ections of researchers in Part 1 highlight, research inquiry is often a messy process, through which researchers develop their conceptual ideas as we learn through our inquiries. Research work is full of surprises, and fl ashes of understanding, along with the poten-tial for wrong turnings and confusion. An inipoten-tial research design may serve merely to provide

These chapters thus develop different approaches and arguments about the conduct of research in the planning fi eld. They all advocate thinking carefully through conceptual and methodological issues, to focus a study into a researchable design, the logic of which can be explained and justifi ed clearly. This may seem a hard challenge, but it need not be overcompli-cated or ambitious. Nor should the search for an orderly research logic crowd out insight and imagination. As the refl ections of researchers in Part 1 highlight, research inquiry is often a messy process, through which researchers develop their conceptual ideas as we learn through our inquiries. Research work is full of surprises, and fl ashes of understanding, along with the poten-tial for wrong turnings and confusion. An inipoten-tial research design may serve merely to provide