ABSTRACT
Most doctoral researchers understand that it is now acceptable to write as an 'I'. Writing 'I' was once seen as poor academic writing and poor research. Donna Haraway describes as a 'god trick', in which the researcher appears nowhere and everywhere via the use of the third person, researchers ought to explicitly situate the researcher in the text. Quantitative researchers choose the variables for analysis and how their data sets are used. Similarly the statistical tests used on quantitative data are often named after their creators, thus demonstrating that these tests are human creations set in values and particular ways of thinking - SPSS can therefore never be an autonomous instrument that 'uncovers' the reality of social life. Mullins and Kiley make it very clear that it is dangerous for an examiner to reach the end of the thesis and feel unsure what it was all about.
