Extract from a first draft of an analysis

 Just to give you an idea of what students have handed in as first drafts before, here's part of a section on interruptions - there was a chart to refer to (but it won't copy in), where interruptions were divided into 'contradictory', 'supportive' and 'clarifying'. Look at how this student is sensitive to the ambiguities in the data and there is a sense of overview and interpretation of what the data suggests. 

After seeing this, this student was given advice to:

• use closer analysis of the quotes in context using more terminology (although that's done quite well here, it needs to be consistent throughout)
• work on structure/guidance for the reader giving more focus to what seems significant rather than trying to cover everything
• support judgements (e.g. "the rest could be considered contradictory" needs more exploration/explanation)
• use footnotes to link to theories e.g. Fairclough's unequal encounters needs to be clearly referenced

 Excerpt from an investigation on Difference theory in Y9 group discussions:

To an extent, the evidence supports Tannen since, in the male group, they interrupted each other more times than in the other two groups. This could suggest support for Tannen’s theory since

47% of the interruptions that took place within “Boysgroup” were contradictory which could suggest conflict. An example being when B1 interrupts B3 saying, “no (3) these two” whilst B3 is saying “put these two” when discussing which words they think matched. This could be considered an interruption because if B1 had allowed B3 to continue he may have completed his turn. Through B1’s use of the negative “no” in order to interrupt B3 could suggest that B1 is imposing his need to control the discussion task. This could be further supported as once he says “no” it takes B1 three seconds in order to then say “these two” suggesting he would rather the group matched a different two words together. His long pause could indicate that it took him a while to locate the other word he thinks would be a better match.  

Once B1 interrupts B3, his pause is quite long and it is surprising that one the other speakers didn’t take over the air time

from him, such as B3, which could suggest they thought that B1 was the one leading the task and so they didn’t want to take over his air time. In total, B3 interrupts B1 5 times which is the most any of the boys interrupted. This could suggest that B3 and B1 were the main speakers fighting for status during the task, evident in the different types of interruptions that B3 made. Only one

of them was supportive and the rest could be considered contradictory. In comparison, B1 interrupted B3 3 times and made 4 interruptions overall. One reason why B1 may be considered the more powerful participant is because B3 interrupted him so many times which could suggest

that B3 wanted more air time and he knew that B1 had the most and so he was challenging him for power.