Many Ways to Code

There are many ways to code documents in qualitative research. Here are a couple you may not have thought of.

I code using word. I insert the codes into a copy of a transcript. Then I used Google desktop to locate the coded segments.

Alankaar Sharma, a Ph.D. students at the SSW, University of Minnesota, uses the comment function of work for coding as well as NVivo.

Valandra, a Ph.D. student at the U of Minnesota, uses word's table function and puts the code in the left column, the text in the center, and observer comments/memos on the right side. The entire manuscript is in the center column.

Any of these or a combination might work. Remember, researchers are the central processors of qualitative texts.

When I first did qualitative text analysis, I used Ethnograph, but after a few years I found that the core concepts and key ideas were in my head and the segments I coded far too big and in some ways unclassifiable because their meanings change as my perspectives change. I fell back on coding in word.

Many researchers who have been at it for years no longer use specialized software for coding.

In writing proposals, it would be a good idea to state the specific software program you are using. If you have space, also describe the functions that are relevant to your proposed research.