Understanding Suicide as Reflected in Suicide Notes: A Critical Assessment of Research Methodology in Text-Based Research

The suicide note is a piece of text that often evokes emotional reactions within the reader, as it contains elements that are heavily personal. These feelings can be so “complex or overpowering” that they “may require reflection and interpretation” (Boden, Gibson, Owen, and Benson, 2016). Boden et al. examined that “researchers will engage in some form of reflexivity, but fewer will examine how their feelings influence their analysis” (p. 1081). Feelings as a component of research is just an example of why qualitative research on the suicide note is important and necessary, as current research on this subject has mostly been quantitative. For instance, current research has shown that linguistic analysis of suicide notes can lead to a broader understanding of the suicidal mind, as “suicidal individuals are more self-focused, express more negative emotion and sometimes use more death-related words” (Tausczik and Pennebaker, 2010). However, the question is whether mere quantitative...Show moreThe suicide note is a piece of text that often evokes emotional reactions within the reader, as it contains elements that are heavily personal. These feelings can be so “complex or overpowering” that they “may require reflection and interpretation” (Boden, Gibson, Owen, and Benson, 2016). Boden et al. examined that “researchers will engage in some form of reflexivity, but fewer will examine how their feelings influence their analysis” (p. 1081). Feelings as a component of research is just an example of why qualitative research on the suicide note is important and necessary, as current research on this subject has mostly been quantitative. For instance, current research has shown that linguistic analysis of suicide notes can lead to a broader understanding of the suicidal mind, as “suicidal individuals are more self-focused, express more negative emotion and sometimes use more death-related words” (Tausczik and Pennebaker, 2010). However, the question is whether mere quantitative research is expedient enough to broaden our understanding of suicide, as purely quantitative methods lead to generalised results, which is undesirable (Stack & Rockett, 2018). In my thesis, I will review the relevant literature on how the suicide note as a text type is researched and argue that qualitative components should be incorporated in quantitative research to broaden our understanding of suicide.Show less

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Understanding Suicide as Reflected in Suicide Notes: A Critical Assessment of Research Methodology in Text-Based Research