QUIBILS AND QUIRKS
(the original text as serialized in The Cariboo Observer)

Dan Lukiv, M.Ed.
English and Creative Writing
McNaughton Centre, Quesnel, BC, Canada
E-mail: lukivdan@shaw.ca

LAST EPISODE/CHAPTER 12: Mr. Quirk grabbed his wife and made her sit on his lap. "I want a kiss," he’d said. "Yuck!" Hooper said. "I want to visit Mooch."

CHAPTER 13: "BEARS COULD EAT HIM"

            "For land sakes." Mrs. Quirk struggled to get off her husband's lap. "When will you grow up?"
            "Oh, Mable." He snickered as she stomped her feet. "You're still a spring chicken."
            "I want to visit Mooch," Hooper announced again.
            Mrs. Quirk yanked at her husband's nearest ear-lobe.
            "Ow!" he said, releasing her.
            "That's the last time I make you carrot cake," she said.
            Mr. Quirk laughed. He devoured his slice of cake, then opened the Q-volume of Professor Hamburger's Encyclopaedia.
            "I want to visit Mooch," Hooper repeated. "He's my best friend."
            "You can't wander through the forest at night," Mrs. Quirk said. "You might get lost."
            "Mable, you're a worrywart. He can follow a trail," Mr. Quirk said.
            Her eyes flashed. She stood between Hooper and her husband. "It's dark."
            "All the better to see fireflies," Mr. Quirk said. "And besides, the moon's out; the sky's clear. That's enough light for anybody."

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Qualitative Research:
A Framework to Enhance Understanding

Nancy L. Leech Ph.D
Assistant Professor
University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center
E-mail: nancy.leech@cudenver.edu

Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie, Ph.D.
Professor
Sam Houston State University
E-mail: tonyonwegbuzie@aol.com

A growing number of researchers in the social sciences label themselves as “qualitative researchers”. Other researchers occasionally venture into undertaking a study that they refer to as representing a “qualitative study”.  When speaking to self-proclaimed qualitative researchers, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to discern what they really do with their research. When asked what conducting qualitative research means, most researchers describe their topics of study, populations of interest, ascribed theories, or methods of collecting data. Some researchers refer to themselves as conducting feminist research or phenomenological studies. Many researchers use the term qualitative researcher to describe what they are not, namely, that they are non-quantitative researchers (Silverman, 2001, p. 25). Indeed, as Schwandt (2000) concluded, “Qualitative research represents a ‘loose coalition of inquirers seemingly united only in their general opposition to…foundationalist-empiricist-representationalist nexus of beliefs’” (p. 203). Yet, as noted by Grahame (1999), “the notion that qualitative research is non-quantitative is true but uninformative: we need more than a negative definition” (p. 4).

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