Impersonality and passivity in academic manuals: Implications for clarity in qualitative research

Abstract

The basic question of this study refers to what roles the manuals for the elaboration of academic works - proposed by university institutions - can play regarding communication in scientific reports, in the current context of dynamic trends in the construction of knowledge. This study is justified due to the influence that the recommendations established by university institutions for writing scientific papers have on the production of research reports. The aim of this research is to describe and understand the patterns of use of these materials, especially with regard to the recommendations of language characteristics to be followed in terms of suitability for the various possible research designs. Under the aegis of documentary research, as a dialectical interpretive bias, data were collected on electronic websites of different university institutions, analyzed initially in an exploratory phase and later, including manuals from institutions located in a defined region, covering parts of two Brazilian states. The results point to an inflexible academic language indicated for scientific reports, which can be an obstacle to a clearer and updated wording that in conclusion, could make known the presence of the researcher who, with his conceptions and procedural practices, vivify knowledge, mainly the resulting of qualitative research.