This scenario assumes your materials have been transcribed into word processed files. Ideally, your file names would correspond to the numbering system mentioned in the next item. See "Naming Computer Files" for more thoughts on this.
READY… Preparations
- Make a copy of all the documents you will code. Keep the "originals" in their own directory on the computer. Always keep a safe backup copy of your materials somewhere other than your current work area. See "Copies and Backups" for more on this.
- Inventory interviews/artifacts/fieldnotes and devise a sensible naming/numbering scheme — each gets a unique "item number." Record basic background information for each item in a single table keyed by the item number.
Interviews
Interview ID Description (YYYYMMDD) NH1178* Interview with W Brokim(19910723) by VC — 57 yr old AA male who runs Project M.O.R.E. working with prison release and counseling. NH1179 Interview with Charles Brodson (19910724), CoChair of Treatment Cttee and Head of Wallance Jones Child Guidance Clinic by VC. Material on ways to build organization more sensibly and on conflicts that have come up in the process. NH1186 Interview with W. Romero (19910724) by VC — runs "Mother Care" van out of St. Robert's hospital NH1187 Interview with L. Winston (19910724) by VC — PD NH1188 Interview with L Hampton (19910724) by VC — she "helps staff 2 commitees and does other work" (199107 1188-2) NH1189 Kelly Clarkson (19901129), Director of Fairview Community Health Clinic NH1190 Interview with R Krooger (19901130) by K. Krooger is second term alderperson who formed a drug committee on the Board of Aldermen. Interview is marked by a few peculiar utterances that make me wonder about quality of other responses (e.g., "We were a quite university city that did not have the problems of other cities 4 years ago. We've gotten as bad as everyone else…." 1190-20. Perhaps a misquotation by the interviewer. NH1999 B. Quabble Health Department (19901129) *NH prefix because these interviews part of a multi-city study and these interviews were done in North Hedsted
SET…things up
- Select a few exemplary interviews or other artifacts and read through, jotting notes about general themes and ideas.
- We will proceed in stages, but the overall task here is to read the interview notes, identify passages that contain a theme or idea or fact relevant to our project, label the text and copy it to our coded interviews file.
- Create a new document called, say, "MyName-yyyymmdd-coded-interviews.docx." Open the first interview file (remember, it's a copy of the "original" which is left untouched in another directory).
- Before we start, we want to pre-label each chunk of text in the interview with the reference number of the interview so that we'll always know where it came from. There are some other numbering considerations you might want to consider after you get the hang of the basics, but for now we will just tag each paragraph with the item ID (that is, the interview number) as seen in bold below.
FILE NH1178-19910723-Brokim.docx
THERE SEEM TO BE LOTS OF ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED IN THIS PROJECT. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE BREADTH OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION?
In this city, some grassroots groups are not headed by grassroots — each community wants claim to $ so truly(?) and their focus is too short sighted and immediate within the professional group. Some are their only for themselves and some are there to help the city become(?) better. (IV1178-19910714)
For example, they "call me as grassroots though we are really not grassroots; we are all professionals. Sometimes it’s just a code word for folks who are not so corporate, who don’t work in city hall, or for the hospital or for the university. (IV1178-19910714)DOES THIS EVER COME UP AS AN ISSUE OR PROBLEM?
On policy issue: not real grassroots — [it] only will work if we are sensitive to what goes on in the community (like with priority of funding). This is hard to get across because it sounds like a threat – include us or we’ll get in the way. And sometimes it is that. But the point is that the process really does NEED to draw from the front lines. (IV1178-19910714)
WHY THINGS NOT GETTING ACCOMPLISHED?
Sometimes people beat dead horses. We go round and round on stuff. The same issues keep coming up over and over again. It’s like folks have their own little “what I always want to bring up” and it’s not like other people actually disagree withthem, it’s just that there are other things we need to move forward on but the price of having them involved is that they get to bring up the same old tired complaint everytime. (IV1178-19910714)
YOU MENTIONED THAT SOME PARTICIPANTS HAVE THEIR OWN AGENDA…
Yes. Agencies all want a piece of the dollars and politicians want publicity. "People in the community will sabotage the ideas like clumping together diverse communities." (IV1178-19910714)
WHO ARE THE MAIN PLAYERS?
B.Gartwick, C.Smith, B.Diamond are the main players. They pretty much run the show, even if sometimes from the background. (IV1178-19910714)
"Pete Brown in Dixwell — A Different Drummer — says need to have struggle because if didn't then wouldn't have a job … Al Sharpton." (IV1178-19910714)
DO YOU HAVE OTHER CONCERNS ABOUT HOW THINGS ARE UNFOLDING?
"Everyone wants to know what does RWJ want to see and we will give it to them, but I want to answer the question how is this going to work?" There is "a lot of discussion with too much [emphasis] on what RWJ wants to see [and] not what NH needs. No one is talking good RTC (?) for treatment of substance abuse. APT is just research, Crossroads is too overcrowded." (IV1178-19910714)
GO .. start coding
Now we start "coding." After my initial read through I found myself thinking about inclusion, participation, leadership, conflict. I start re-reading, and this time I'll type in codes as they occur to me. My convention here is that I put the codes in square brackets at the beginning of paragraphs. If I want to code the paragraph with more than one concept, I just separate them by commas. For now I do not worry about the order and I don't worry about what the codes are — I just write something that makes sense and that I'll be able to understand later.
THERE SEEM TO BE LOTS OF ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED IN THIS PROJECT. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE BREADTH OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION?
[INCLUSION, GRASSROOTS, PARTICIPATION, SELFISHNESS] In this city, some grassroots groups are not headed by grassroots — each community wants claim to $ so truly(?) and their focus is too short sighted and immediate within the professional group. Some are their only for themselves and some are there to help the city become(?) better. (IV1178-19910714)
[CONFLICT, GRASSROOTS, FAKE-GRASSROOTS] For example, they "call me as grassroots though we are really not grassroots; we are all professionals. Sometimes it’s just a code word for folks who are not so corporate, who don’t work in city hall, or for the hospital or for the university. (IV1178-19910714)DOES THIS EVER COME UP AS AN ISSUE OR PROBLEM?
[GRASSROOTS, PARTICIPATION, INCLUSION, CONFLICT] On policy issue: not real grassroots — [it] only will work if we are sensitive to what goes on in the community (like with priority of funding). This is hard to get across because it sounds like a threat – include us or we’ll get in the way. And sometimes it is that. But the point is that the process really does NEED to draw from the front lines. (IV1178-19910714)
WHY THINGS NOT GETTING ACCOMPLISHED?
[WHY THINGS NOT GETTING ACCOMPLISHED] Sometimes people beat dead horses. We go round and round on stuff. The same issues keep coming up over and over again. It’s like folks have their own little “what I always want to bring up” and it’s not like other people actually disagree withthem, it’s just that there are other things we need to move forward on but the price of having them involved is that they get to bring up the same old tired complaint everytime. (IV1178-19910714)
YOU MENTIONED THAT SOME PARTICIPANTS HAVE THEIR OWN AGENDA…
[CONFLICT, SELF-INTEREST, SABOTAGE, COLLABORATION AS THREATENING] Yes. Agencies all want a piece of the dollars and politicians want publicity. "People in the community will sabotage the ideas like clumping together diverse communities." (IV1178-19910714)
WHO ARE THE MAIN PLAYERS?
[LEADERSHIP] B.Gartwick, C.Smith, B.Diamond are the main players. They pretty much run the show, even if sometimes from the background. (IV1178-19910714)
[LEADERSHIP, CONFLICT] "Pete Brown in Dixwell — A Different Drummer — says need to have struggle because if didn't then wouldn't have a job … Al Sharpton." (IV1178-19910714)
DO YOU HAVE OTHER CONCERNS ABOUT HOW THINGS ARE UNFOLDING?
[CONCERNS, WHAT FUNDER WANTS VS WHAT WILL WORK] "Everyone wants to know what does RWJ want to see and we will give it to them, but I want to answer the question how is this going to work?" There is "a lot of discussion with too much [emphasis] on what RWJ wants to see [and] not what NH needs. No one is talking good RTC (?) for treatment of substance abuse. APT is just research, Crossroads is too overcrowded." (IV1178-19910714)
Stop and Notice,
Note that sometimes I use actual question wording or a paraphrase as my code.
COPY CODED TEXT FRAGMENTS TO THE NEW FILE
Next I copy the coded paragraphs to a new file.
When there are several codes for a given passage, I make multiple copies of the passage — one for each code, plus one extra — and then remove codes so each copy has just one. For the first multiple entry I leave all the codes in the brackets (this could come in handy later for seeing what codes co-occur). I also put an asterisk in front of this one. This seems odd, but we'll see why it is useful below.
Later we'll introduce a technique for tracking co-occurring codes but for now we won't worry about this.
Researcher-IM-CityProject-coded-interviews-20110312.docx.
[INCLUSION, GRASSROOTS, PARTICIPATION, SELFISHNESS] In this city, some grassroots groups are not headed by grassroots — each community wants claim to $ so truly(?) and their focus is too short sighted and immediate within the professional group. Some are their only for themselves and some are there to help the city become(?) better. (IV1178-19910714)
[GRASSROOTS, INCLUSION, PARTICIPATION, SELFISHNESS] In this city, some grassroots groups are not headed by grassroots — each community wants claim to $ so truly(?) and their focus is too short sighted and immediate within the professional group. Some are their only for themselves and some are there to help the city become(?) better. (IV1178-19910714)
[PARTICIPATION, INCLUSION, GRASSROOTS, SELFISHNESS] In this city, some grassroots groups are not headed by grassroots — each community wants claim to $ so truly(?) and their focus is too short sighted and immediate within the professional group. Some are their only for themselves and some are there to help the city become(?) better. (IV1178-19910714)
[SELFISHNESS, INCLUSION, GRASSROOTS, PARTICIPATION] In this city, some grassroots groups are not headed by grassroots — each community wants claim to $ so truly(?) and their focus is too short sighted and immediate within the professional group. Some are their only for themselves and some are there to help the city become(?) better. (IV1178-19910714)
[CONFLICT, GRASSROOTS, FAKE-GRASSROOTS] For example, they "call me as grassroots though we are really not grassroots; we are all professionals. Sometimes it’s just a code word for folks who are not so corporate, who don’t work in city hall, or for the hospital or for the university. (IV1178-19910714)
[GRASSROOTS, CONFLICT, FAKE-GRASSROOTS] For example, they "call me as grassroots though we are really not grassroots; we are all professionals. Sometimes it’s just a code word for folks who are not so corporate, who don’t work in city hall, or for the hospital or for the university. (IV1178-19910714)
[ FAKE-GRASSROOTS, CONFLICT, GRASSROOTS] For example, they "call me as grassroots though we are really not grassroots; we are all professionals. Sometimes it’s just a code word for folks who are not so corporate, who don’t work in city hall, or for the hospital or for the university. (IV1178-19910714)
[GRASSROOTS, PARTICIPATION, INCLUSION, CONFLICT] On policy issue: not real grassroots — [it] only will work if we are sensitive to what goes on in the community (like with priority of funding). This is hard to get across because it sounds like a threat – include us or we’ll get in the way. And sometimes it is that. But the point is that the process really does NEED to draw from the front lines. (IV1178-19910714)
[PARTICIPATION, GRASSROOTS, INCLUSION, CONFLICT] On policy issue: not real grassroots — [it] only will work if we are sensitive to what goes on in the community (like with priority of funding). This is hard to get across because it sounds like a threat – include us or we’ll get in the way. And sometimes it is that. But the point is that the process really does NEED to draw from the front lines. (IV1178-19910714)
[INCLUSION, GRASSROOTS, PARTICIPATION, CONFLICT] On policy issue: not real grassroots — [it] only will work if we are sensitive to what goes on in the community (like with priority of funding). This is hard to get across because it sounds like a threat – include us or we’ll get in the way. And sometimes it is that. But the point is that the process really does NEED to draw from the front lines. (IV1178-19910714)
[CONFLICT, GRASSROOTS, PARTICIPATION, INCLUSION] On policy issue: not real grassroots — [it] only will work if we are sensitive to what goes on in the community (like with priority of funding). This is hard to get across because it sounds like a threat – include us or we’ll get in the way. And sometimes it is that. But the point is that the process really does NEED to draw from the front lines. (IV1178-19910714)
[WHY THINGS NOT GETTING ACCOMPLISHED] Sometimes people beat dead horses. We go round and round on stuff. The same issues keep coming up over and over again. It’s like folks have their own little “what I always want to bring up” and it’s not like other people actually disagree withthem, it’s just that there are other things we need to move forward on but the price of having them involved is that they get to bring up the same old tired complaint everytime. (IV1178-19910714)
[CONFLICT, SELF-INTEREST, SABOTAGE, COLLABORATION AS THREATENING] Yes. Agencies all want a piece of the dollars and politicians want publicity. "People in the community will sabotage the ideas like clumping together diverse communities." (IV1178-19910714)[SELF-INTEREST, CONFLICT, SABOTAGE, COLLABORATION AS THREATENING] Yes. Agencies all want a piece of the dollars and politicians want publicity. "People in the community will sabotage the ideas like clumping together diverse communities." (IV1178-19910714)
[SABOTAGE, CONFLICT, SELF-INTEREST, COLLABORATION AS THREATENING] Yes. Agencies all want a piece of the dollars and politicians want publicity. "People in the community will sabotage the ideas like clumping together diverse communities." (IV1178-19910714)
[COLLABORATION AS THREATENING, CONFLICT, SELF-INTEREST, SABOTAGE] Yes. Agencies all want a piece of the dollars and politicians want publicity. "People in the community will sabotage the ideas like clumping together diverse communities." (IV1178-19910714)
[LEADERSHIP] B.Gartwick, C.Smith, B.Diamond are the main players. They pretty much run the show, even if sometimes from the background. (IV1178-19910714)
[LEADERSHIP, CONFLICT] "Pete Brown in Dixwell — A Different Drummer — says need to have struggle because if didn't then wouldn't have a job … Al Sharpton." (IV1178-19910714)
[CONCERNS, WHAT FUNDER WANTS VS WHAT WILL WORK] "Everyone wants to know what does RWJ want to see and we will give it to them, but I want to answer the question how is this going to work?" There is "a lot of discussion with too much [emphasis] on what RWJ wants to see [and] not what NH needs. No one is talking good RTC (?) for treatment of substance abuse. APT is just research, Crossroads is too overcrowded." (IV1178-19910714)
[WHAT FUNDER WANTS VS WHAT WILL WORK, CONCERNS] "Everyone wants to know what does RWJ want to see and we will give it to them, but I want to answer the question how is this going to work?" There is "a lot of discussion with too much [emphasis] on what RWJ wants to see [and] not what NH needs. No one is talking good RTC (?) for treatment of substance abuse. APT is just research, Crossroads is too overcrowded." (IV1178-19910714)
Processing Codes I
Next I use my word processor to alphabetize these by paragraph. This groups texts together that share the same code and within a given primary code, I can see what the other codes are. Also, the asterisk in front of that extra copy allows one copy of each text fragment to be sorted separately. This allows me to compile a list of co-occurring codes. But first I just assemble of list of the codes I have used
COLLABORATION AS THREATENING
CONCERNS
CONFLICT
FAKE-GRASSROOTS
GRASSROOTS
INCLUSION
LEADERSHIP
PARTICIPATION
SABOTAGE
SELF-INTEREST
SELFISHNESS
WHAT FUNDER WANTS VS WHAT WILL WORK
WHY THINGS NOT GETTING ACCOMPLISHED
Just looking at this list I see that fake-grassroots can probably be grouped with grassroots and self-interest is very possibly a synonym for selfishness. And inclusion and participation seem to be two sides of the same coin. I make a note that in the future they'll be coded as "SELF-INTEREST" and "PARTICIPATION," respectively. I also decide that "sabotage" will be a sub-code of conflict
COLLABORATION AS THREATENING
CONCERNS
CONFLICT
- SABOTAGE
GRASSROOTS+ FAKE-GRASSROOTS
INCLUSION + PARTICIPATION
LEADERSHIP
SELF-INTEREST + SELFISHNESS
WHAT FUNDER WANTS VS WHAT WILL WORK
WHY THINGS NOT GETTING ACCOMPLISHED
Processing Codes II
CODED PASSAGES
COLLABORATION AS THREATENING
[COLLABORATION AS THREATENING, CONFLICT, SELF-INTEREST, SABOTAGE] Yes. Agencies all want a piece of the dollars and politicians want publicity. "People in the community will sabotage the ideas like clumping together diverse communities." (IV1178-19910714)
CONCERNS
[CONCERNS, WHAT FUNDER WANTS VS WHAT WILL WORK] "Everyone wants to know what does RWJ want to see and we will give it to them, but I want to answer the question how is this going to work?" There is "a lot of discussion with too much [emphasis] on what RWJ wants to see [and] not what NH needs. No one is talking good RTC (?) for treatment of substance abuse. APT is just research, Crossroads is too overcrowded." (IV1178-19910714)
CONFLICT
[CONFLICT, GRASSROOTS, FAKE-GRASSROOTS] For example, they "call me as grassroots though we are really not grassroots; we are all professionals. Sometimes it’s just a code word for folks who are not so corporate, who don’t work in city hall, or for the hospital or for the university. (IV1178-19910714)
[CONFLICT, GRASSROOTS, PARTICIPATION, INCLUSION] On policy issue: not real grassroots — [it] only will work if we are sensitive to what goes on in the community (like with priority of funding). This is hard to get across because it sounds like a threat – include us or we’ll get in the way. And sometimes it is that. But the point is that the process really does NEED to draw from the front lines. (IV1178-19910714)
[CONFLICT, SELF-INTEREST, SABOTAGE, COLLABORATION AS THREATENING] Yes. Agencies all want a piece of the dollars and politicians want publicity. "People in the community will sabotage the ideas like clumping together diverse communities." (IV1178-19910714)GRASSROOTS
[GRASSROOTS, CONFLICT, FAKE-GRASSROOTS] For example, they "call me as grassroots though we are really not grassroots; we are all professionals. Sometimes it’s just a code word for folks who are not so corporate, who don’t work in city hall, or for the hospital or for the university. (IV1178-19910714)
[GRASSROOTS, INCLUSION, PARTICIPATION, SELFISHNESS] In this city, some grassroots groups are not headed by grassroots — each community wants claim to $ so truly(?) and their focus is too short sighted and immediate within the professional group. Some are their only for themselves and some are there to help the city become(?) better. (IV1178-19910714)
[GRASSROOTS, PARTICIPATION, INCLUSION, CONFLICT] On policy issue: not real grassroots — [it] only will work if we are sensitive to what goes on in the community (like with priority of funding). This is hard to get across because it sounds like a threat – include us or we’ll get in the way. And sometimes it is that. But the point is that the process really does NEED to draw from the front lines. (IV1178-19910714)LEADERSHIP
[LEADERSHIP, CONFLICT] "Pete Brown in Dixwell — A Different Drummer — says need to have struggle because if didn't then wouldn't have a job … Al Sharpton." (IV1178-19910714)
[LEADERSHIP] B.Gartwick, C.Smith, B.Diamond are the main players. They pretty much run the show, even if sometimes from the background. (IV1178-19910714)PARTICIPATION + INCLUSION
[PARTICIPATION, GRASSROOTS, INCLUSION, CONFLICT] On policy issue: not real grassroots — [it] only will work if we are sensitive to what goes on in the community (like with priority of funding). This is hard to get across because it sounds like a threat – include us or we’ll get in the way. And sometimes it is that. But the point is that the process really does NEED to draw from the front lines. (IV1178-19910714)
[PARTICIPATION, INCLUSION, GRASSROOTS, SELFISHNESS] In this city, some grassroots groups are not headed by grassroots — each community wants claim to $ so truly(?) and their focus is too short sighted and immediate within the professional group. Some are their only for themselves and some are there to help the city become(?) better. (IV1178-19910714)SELF-INTEREST
[SELF-INTEREST, CONFLICT, SABOTAGE, COLLABORATION AS THREATENING] Yes. Agencies all want a piece of the dollars and politicians want publicity. "People in the community will sabotage the ideas like clumping together diverse communities." (IV1178-19910714)
[SELFISHNESS, INCLUSION, GRASSROOTS, PARTICIPATION] In this city, some grassroots groups are not headed by grassroots — each community wants claim to $ so truly(?) and their focus is too short sighted and immediate within the professional group. Some are their only for themselves and some are there to help the city become(?) better. (IV1178-19910714)WHAT FUNDER WANTS
[WHAT FUNDER WANTS VS WHAT WILL WORK, CONCERNS] "Everyone wants to know what does RWJ want to see and we will give it to them, but I want to answer the question how is this going to work?" There is "a lot of discussion with too much [emphasis] on what RWJ wants to see [and] not what NH needs. No one is talking good RTC (?) for treatment of substance abuse. APT is just research, Crossroads is too overcrowded." (IV1178-19910714)
WHY THINGS NOT GETTING ACCOMPLISHED
[WHY THINGS NOT GETTING ACCOMPLISHED] Sometimes people beat dead horses. We go round and round on stuff. The same issues keep coming up over and over again. It’s like folks have their own little “what I always want to bring up” and it’s not like other people actually disagree withthem, it’s just that there are other things we need to move forward on but the price of having them involved is that they get to bring up the same old tired complaint everytime. (IV1178-19910714)