inaccessible explanations of complex phenomena. A variant of
this particular contrast in modes of communication (serialistic
rather than holistic) also runs through two of the alternative
patterns discussed here. My thesis is that in the humanities
and social sciences there are only four fundamental ways of
handling long, text-based explanations, which I shall discuss in
turn. These organizing patterns are: descriptive; analytic; argu-
mentative; and a matrix pattern, combining elements of any
two of the other three approaches.^8
Descriptive explanations
Suppose that I am asked to give an account of the room where
I am sitting and writing these words, which is my home study.
Figure 3.5 shows the main features of the room, which are rea-
sonably complex. A descriptive mode of explaining something
is to take the way that things are organized externallyor exoge-
nously to me and to then use that pattern to structure the
sequence of what I say. For instance, in explaining about my
study I might start at some particular point, like the door, and
then decide to sweep my arm around the room in a particular
direction (clockwise in this case) listing everything that comes
into my line of sight as I do so, as shown in Figure 3.5(a). Here
I might say: ‘First there is a white door, and next to it in a
clockwise direction is a green painted wall, and a grey beaten-
up sofa, and above it a noticeboard with papers pinned on it, a
CD rack, then a series of long bookshelves with four-drawer fil-
ing cabinets underneath, and then a printer, an old desk-top
PC, and a new laptop on a desk surrounded by papers, then a
window with three frames ...’ and so on.
This listing account already illustrates some obvious defi-
ciencies of a descriptive way of explaining things. The sequence
of objects being named is united in only one way, namely prox-
imity in the room. The things I list are next to each other. But
in every other way the different objects described together are
jumbled up randomly and unpredictably. The list may work OK
if readers get to see Figure 3.5 (I certainly hope so). But without
this visual support, the list could be very hard to take in and
to visualize. The account I give of my study could also easily
PLANNING AN INTEGRATED THESIS◆ 63