Getting the most from your data

Writing summaries

Summarising is a powerful tool for making your data more manageable. You can save an enormous amount of time by working with condensed versions of your data summaries make it much easier to get an overview and to think about your data as a whole, provided that they are not too extensive. This technique can be used even when original data is only a few tens of pages of notes. In making the summaries it seems as you have moved forward one stage in the process of becoming familiar with the available data and it forces you to get to grips with the main points. However, summarising has its disadvantages. You are bound to lose some potential ideas if you abandon the fullness of the original data. You may be tempted to rely on your summaries for too long and never check your emerging analysis with reality, or even your first hand notes of reality. You may get bored if you do most of the thinking around your own words. It can be quite time consuming to make summaries of a lot of data unless you are particularly skilled at writing them 2quickly. If you have move than about 100 pages of data you probably need to use the technique selectively. Everyone has their own way of preparing summaries. One way that works, is to start by reading the data several times, then jotting down each point as you come to it, in just two or three words same as labelling. Then the final step is to work from those brief phrases alone, for example, following your observations of an annual appraisal interview, you come to ask yourself, how did the employees react? You can find four different reactions in the first few interviews: became angry, became defensive, avoid, ignore – looking at what these had in common, you might call them all “negative reactions to criticism”. This helps you to look for some positive reactions as well and you find these in your data from some later interview. Later in the analysis you are having both positive and negative reactions along with other categories in a major section of your report called “forming standards”. Forming lists of possible categories of points lies at the heart of describing your data. They will form the building blocks for your description. In thinking about names for categories, I have often found I begin to see themes that stay through out the analysis.

In the end a report is often going to draw general conclusions from specific data. This may well involve turning incidents into generalisations and grouping ideas to form concepts. Labelling incidents in your own words helps you to see the data with fresh eyes. It may help you to identify good headings if you ask yourself some of the following questions in the above example:
- what different kinds of activities were going on? Think of what people were trying to achieve
- what different kinds of topics came up repeatedly?
- What different kinds of people were present? Think about their actual functions or roles rather than their titles
- What kinds of factors seemed to be influencing behaviours? Motivations?
- What kinds of explanations are they offering? Traditional and precedent or what is convenient?
- what are they assuming?

After your initial categories are beginning to become clear, see if you can group them in any way. it may help to think of having two or three levels of categories.
After you have studied your data carefully and immersed yourself in it, you need to step back and think about it.

this is the task that takes you beyond description of your data to interpretation. you are trying to discover the significance of your findings. The inherent limitations on interpretations of qualitative data is that you can only offer a personal interpretation and meanings - that can be changed with time. As you have done a limited case study so your interpretation revolves around those findings only or suggesting hypothesis for further exploraltions.

Recognize and pattern your own ideas about your data:

Highlighting text, coding paragraphs, adding your own comments, returning for more data, writing summaries, looking for common points, reading aloud, looking for surprises, concentrating on a single instance, listening in roles, annotating the record, sentence completions, self interrogation, hypothetical questions, brain storming, the researcher’s diary, letters to friends, conversations, multiple reports, seminars, visualising your audience, outlining your report, drawing pictures, mini papers, missing categories, scatter diagram, borrowing theories, geometrical shapes