making sense of my data

I completed the second round of indexing my data - (I still have to get used to calling it indexing categories rather than the simple 'coding' - I think I sound slightly more sophisticated using this new term and it avoids possible confusion that I might be involved in developing a website or something using some or other programming language). Now comes the task of trying to make sense of what my data is saying. It might be easy to just using the indexing categories I already have as a spring board for a discussion of my data. But those categories only make sense when used within the context of that particular tasks - i.e. looking at individual data documents and trying to slice up the data into interpretative categories that offer a description about that snippet of information. In a sense it's an almost decontextualised activity. Now I need to bring the outcomes of this categorizing activity into some sort of unified whole and tell a story about how all the previously disconnected bits of information or categories fit or don't fit together within a context of the department where the data was originally collected and not forgetting within the context of my research study...which reminds me What are my research questions again? Basically  I now need to look through all the categories to find thematic coherences - themes that might stretch over multiple categories or connect with specific categories in specific ways. Mmm...

I've been brainstorming and have some coherent looking mind maps with some viable themes - thus evidence of this intellectual pursuit . Unfortunately my need to always see the bigger picture first before drilling down to the specifics means I'm a bit stuck. I'm not sure what the bigger picture is just yet.  What I think I should do is focus on the description of the specifics without needing to know it's significance in relation to the bigger picture just yet. By describing what I've identified in my mind maps as broad themes I think their significance as the 'bigger picture' will start to be illuminated as part of description process. But for me this is an almost counter-intuitive approach. So I have to fight what my gut and strangely my brain is telling me...and do what my rational academic self is instructing me to do. Maybe a little digression to Jennifer Mason is in order!