Analyzing Qualitative Data. Graham R Gibbs
at certain points the respondent went off topic and so these parts can be ignored. Such an approach will clearly be quicker, and might also allow you to focus on the larger themes and not get bogged down in the particular words. But there are several drawbacks. You may find that the parts you have transcribed lose their context and you find it harder to interpret what they really mean. Moreover, the ideas you have at the start of analysis, which might lead you to decide what parts need transcribing, may well be different from those you develop later in the study.
Names
The convention is to put the name of the person speaking, in capitals, at the start of each time they speak (e.g. each answer to the interviewer’s questions or each turn in a focus group discussion). Putting the name in capitals makes it stand out on the page but also means you can use case-sensitive search and find in computer software to look for only what the interviewee said or just when their name is used by others elsewhere in the interviews. This is particularly useful when analyzing focus group discussions. Use the name that is easiest for you to remember the interviewees by. This is usually their first name. Then either type a colon and a tab before the actual text, or start the text on a new line. If you are dealing with a large number of respondents then you might opt to indicate the person’s surname with their first name and surname (or first letter of surname), as in ‘MARY C:’ to distinguish them from others with the same first name. Indicate the interviewer’s speech in the same way. Use ‘I:’ or ‘IV:’ or ‘INT:’ at the start, or if you have several interviewers and you want to distinguish them in the transcripts, then use ‘I-JOHN:’, ‘I-KATE:’, etc. Make sure that all names are spelled correctly and consistently. This means you can use search and find in your word processor to anonymize the text and find all the speech by the same person in CAQDAS programs.
Anonymization
As you will eventually be quoting from your transcripts in your write up of the research and you might even be depositing the data in a public archive so other researchers have access to it you will need to consider how you will ensure confidentiality. Do this by anonymizing the names of people and places to make it safe for participants (if their activities are illegal or illicit) and safe for the researcher (e.g. if you have been investigating covert operations or paramilitary groups). It is easiest to produce an anonymized copy immediately after transcription. However, you may find it is best to do your analysis using the unanonymized version, as familiarity with the real names and places can make it easier. However, many researchers report that if you anonymize early on in the analysis, you soon become just as familiar with the anonymized names.
Create a listing, in a separate file, kept somewhere safe, of all the names – people, places, organizations, companies, products – that you have changed and what you have substituted for them. Use search and find in your word processor to find each name and substitute it with the anonymized version. Make sure you search for both normal text versions of respondent’s names (‘Mary’) if these appear in other respondent’s talk as well as capitalized versions (‘MARY:’) if you have used that to identify speakers. It is usually best to use pseudonyms rather than crude blanks, asterisks, code numbers and so on. You will still need to read the transcript carefully to ensure that more subtle, but obvious clues to a person, place or institution are not evident. If you are going to deposit your data into a data archive, then remember you will need to retain and deposit the original, unanonymized versions alongside the accessible anonymized versions.
Level of transcription
I noted above that the act of transcription is a change of medium and therefore necessarily involves a transformation of the data. There are varying degrees to which you can capture what is in the sound recording (or your handwritten notes) and you need to decide what is appropriate for the purposes of your study. Sometimes just a draft version of what is said is sufficient. This is often the case in policy, organization and evaluation research, where the salient factual content of what people have said is good enough for analysis. However, most researchers who are interested at least in respondents’ interpretation of their world need more detail than this. They aim at a transcribed text that looks like normal text and is a good copy of the words that were used. This may seem straightforward, but even here there are decisions to be made. Continuous speech is very rarely in well-constructed sentences. Speakers stop one line of thought in mid-sentence and often take up the old one again without following the grammatical rules used in writing. And there are all kinds of features that aren’t often captured by written prose (see Box 2.1). You may therefore be tempted to ‘tidy up’ their speech. Whether you should do this depends on the purpose of your study. Tidy, grammatical transcripts are easier to read and hence analyze. If your study is not much concerned with the details of expression and language use and is more interested in the factual content of what is said, then such tidying up is acceptable. On the other hand it clearly loses the feel for how respondents were expressing themselves and if that is significant in your study you will need to try and capture that in the transcription. The downside is that it makes the actual typing more difficult to do. A similar dilemma arises when respondents speak with a strong accent or use dialect. The most common practice here is to preserve all the dialect words and regional terms and grammatical expressions, but not to try to capture the actual sound of the accent by changing the spelling of the words. Keeping to a standard and consistent spelling is important if you are going to use the search functions in software to help with the analysis (see Chapter 8). It is harder to find all the text you are looking for if you haven’t spelled terms consistently. This is important if you are going to use computer searching. Box 2.2 gives some examples of different transcription styles.
BOX 2.1 Conversational features
Abbreviations (e.g. isn’t, aren’t, weren’t, could’ve, I’d, she’s, he’d, I’m, you’re, they’ve, we’ll, don’t, haven’t, that’s, ’cause, something’s, who’s) – sometimes spelt out by transcribers.
Verbal tics, like ‘er’, ‘um’, ‘erm’ – often ignored, but others such as ‘like’, ‘y’know’ and ‘sort of’ usually get included.
Pauses – either cut or shown simply by three dots (…).
Repetitions (for example, ‘What I mean … I mean … what I want to say is … I mean that is a real problem’) – might simply be rendered as ‘That is a real problem’.
(adapted from Arksey and Knight, 1999, p. 146)
BOX 2.2 Examples of different levels of transcription
Just the gist
90% of my communication is with … the Sales Director. 1% of his communication is with me. I try to be one step ahead, I get things ready … because he jumps from one … project to another … This morning we did Essex, this afternoon we did BT, and we haven’t even finished Essex yet.
(… indicates omitted speech)
Verbatim
I don’t really know. I’ve a feeling that they’re allowed to let their emotions show better. I think bereavement is part of their religion and culture. They tend to be more religious anyway. I’m not from a religious family, so I don’t know that side of it.
Verbatim with dialect
Well … first time I were with … I was still at school, I were fifteen … an’ … me brother ’ad gone into army … and me mum and dad said that it wasn’t workin’ out, me livin’ at ’ome … an’ … I don’t know … really I don’t why they kicked me out, but they did and I ended up livin’ with me cousin.
Discourse level
Bashir: Did you ever (.) personally assist him with the writing of his