First Principles
The collection of interview and archival evidence can be exhilarating—and exasperating. When writing it up, it is essential to recall the underlying purpose of all this evidence: to answer a research question.
Bringing the Research Question, the Argument, and the Evidence into alignment
While it is fundamental that your argument honestly reflect the evidence you have collected and that your argument and evidence answer a research question, you should expect all three ingredients to evolve during the course of the project.
Revising the Research Question. You should expect to revise your research question based on the availability of evidence and based upon your interim findings. If your knowledge of the literature and your new evidence suggest that a different research question would be more rewarding, you should adjust accordingly.
Revising the Argument. You are going to the trouble of collecting evidence because you do not know what the right argument is. It should come as no surprise that your argument will evolve as you collect new evidence.
Aligning the Question and the Answer. As your evidence motivates adjustments to your argument and even your research question, you should endeavor to adjust the argument and research question in tandem: the argument should always be an answer to the research question.
Curating evidence
Staying focused. The research enterprise involves the collection of a great deal of extraneous material. In interview and archival research, this material can be especially exciting—startlingly blunt quotes, an interview with someone famous, or a humorous anecdote. If they do not relate to the research question, they do not belong in your paper. If you cannot help yourself, put them in a footnote.
Staying honest. It can be tempting to include only evidence that supports the argument. Resist the temptation. Arguments in the social sciences are rarely infallible; the goal of furthering our collective knowledge requires that we be upfront about the strengths and the weaknesses of our arguments. If the the argument and evidence are too far out of alignment, change the argument, not the evidence.