Capture the Unexpressed: Anecdote as a Device in Hermeneutic Phenomenological Research

Abstract

I sit on the edge of the bed of my youngest daughter and read the fairy tale of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. My little four-year-old daughter has heard this story thousands of times and simply loves it. In my eagerness to create a good story and a good setting I add some personal description to the story. Then she who is thrilled with the story makes a strange face and corrects my telling: “No, mama, it is not like that. You have to tell the truth”.