The practice of social inquiry cannot be adequately defined as an atheoretical making that
requires only methodological prowess....As one engages in the “practical” activities of
generating and interpreting data to answer questions about the meaning of what others
are doing and saying and then transforming that understanding into public knowledge,
one inevitably takes up “theoretical” concerns about what constitutes knowledge and
how it is to be justified, about the nature and aim of social theorizing, and so forth. In
sum, acting and thinking, practice and theory, are linked in a continuous process of
critical reflection and transformation. (Schwandt, 2000, pp. 190–191)