Getting Better Quality Stuff

Abstract

EDITOR'S NOTE: As the previous article suggested, critics as well as practitioners of ethnographic research have observed that researchers tend to overrely on informants, and as a comsequence they may overemphasize those data which support a favored imagery rather than reporting counterinstances which challenge that imagery or indicate possible variations. Michael Agar suggests that one remedy to this problem is a mix of quantitative and qualitative procedures. Drawing from cognitive anthropology, he suggests two formalization strategies which the ethnographer could employ in improving both data acquisition and analysis.