While judging the trustworthiness and quality of qualitative inquiry is central to scholarship, policy development, and program design, the process is neither simple nor formulaic. Standards are emergent and often contested, as advocates for a particular genre argue that theirs are the proper or correct ones. The trustworthiness of qualitative inquiry depends on the credibility and rigor of the study design, the data collection and analyses, and finally on the arguments put forward and the evidence on which they rest. This article maps, placing particular emphasis on argumentation, evidence, and ethics, the contested terrain of canons for trustworthiness – from early postpositivist perspectives to those defined by probity and relationships.
