Before you enter......
This really is the website of the book of the film of the powerpoint presentations of the journal articles – produced by Ray Pawson on the said topic in the last five years.
It is an attempt to deal with the great publishing peril known as the ‘conundrum of condensation’. As well as pouring their hearts and souls into a book, authors would love to include their every anecdote, associated paper, pet example, subsidiary argument, worked illustation, thought experiment, curriculum vitae entry, and auto-critique. Publishers, however, prefer to see sweat and blood on the pages at a maximum wordage these days of about 85,000.
This was a tension I felt very keenly in preparing this particular book. It is about ‘systematic review’ – the attempt to synthesise all relevant existing research in order to forward evidence-based policy recommendations. By their very nature, systematic reviews are extensive in coverage and extended in the telling – the result being that the book kept bursting its covers in the writing. The WWWeb provides a handy solution and here the reader will find full versions of the reviews outlined in the book and several papers that go off at tangents, albeit very interesting tangents, from the main line of argument.
In the goodness of time, their will be further additions the site – composed, I hope, of contributions by others (including both supporters and critics). Anyone interested in making an input (especially applications of the method) should contact Ray Pawson at:
Ray Pawson
Leeds
22nd September 2005