Let me try to explain, in the simplest terms possible, the difference between a typical research paper and a research paper incorporating phenomenological analysis.¹

In a typical research paper, the student makes a specific claim about a topic, and then finds primary and secondary scholarship to support their claim.

In a research paper incorporating phenomenological analysis, the student undertakes their own direct and first-person reflection on a phenomenon central to their topic, and then relates primary and secondary scholarship to this reflection, in support of a claim about the topic.

To elaborate on this difference:

In a typical research paper, the student has an opinion about a topic, and then seeks out scholarship that will hopefully convince their readers that this opinion is correct.

In a research paper incorporating phenomenological analysis, the student first thinks deeply and methodically about their topic, and then relates relevant scholarship to their own thoughts, in support of a claim about the topic.

To elaborate a bit further still:

In a typical research paper, what is said in the relevant scholarship about the topic often guides the student’s thinking about the topic, without their ever encountering the phenomenon central to the topic on its own terms; the scholarship does most of the thinking for the student.

In a research paper incorporating phenomenological analysis, the student puts the relevant scholarship to one side to reflect on this phenomenon in its giveness; the student thinks for themself, alongside the phenomenon.

And yet again:

In a typical research paper, the scholarship constitutes the whole of the evidence for the student’s claim.

In a research paper incorporating phenomenological analysis, the student’s own thinking is elevated to the status of evidence, alongside and in dialogue with relevant scholarship.

In summary, a research paper incorporating phenomenological analysis ensures that the student has actually bothered to think about the topic for themselves, providing they have faithfully attended to the phenomenon and rigorously applied the method.

In other words, do your phenomenological analysis first, and then relate the primary and secondary scholarship to this analysis, in support of a claim about the topic.

What you’ll find is that your analysis will deepen the points made by scholarship that agrees with your claim, and it will show how other scholarship didn’t delve deeply enough into the phenomenon itself. In both cases, the result is a paper that sees more deeply into experience.

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¹I regularly teach a graduate-level class called Architecture and Phenomenology. Students in this class are expected to write a research paper centered on their own phenomenological reflections about their topic. This page is meant for these students.

© D. R. Koukal