ABSTRACT
Although data analysis is justifiably depicted as excruciatingly hard work, it is important not to get so caught up in the tough slogging that you forget to enjoy the marvelous intellectual adventure you are on. For the researcher who has taken up interpretive description in order to address a clinical problem and learn more about a phenomenon central to professional practice, it is imperative, after you have spent (most likely) months reviewing the literature, developing your research proposal, entering the field, and gathering data, not to lose sight of the passion and curiosity that brought you into the inquiry in the first place. The enormity of the effort it takes to bring you to the data analysis stage is part of what makes data analysis so difficult, and it is important to ensure that you avoid feeling overwhelmed with exhaustion and overeager to finish up your research project quickly. The difference between an excellent research product and one that is mediocre or worse depends on your capacity to reignite the flame of enthusiasm and fully engage in making sense of the hard-earned data you have before you. For this reason, it is essential to plan on a significant investment of time in the data analysis phase and to ensure that you find ways to charge up your batteries to sustain your energy for the duration. Fortunately, you will also find that data analysis can also be surprisingly fun. The intellectual excitement that comes with truly engaging in the creative activity of working data patterns into a rigorously thought-through conceptualizing that sheds new light on something you are passionate about is marvelously rewarding. And, as MacLure puts it, “there is, or can be, a languorous, and not wholly cerebral pleasure in giving oneself over to the data” (2013, p. 174)
