The sources of data for your project may be gathered in a variety of different ways, be in a number of different formats or represent very different types of data. NVivo provides different types of sources which reflect these differences in your project's data:
Internals typically form the majority of your source material. These may be your field notes, interview transcripts, audio or video material and so on.
Externals can represent those sources of data which cannot be directly imported into your NVivo project
Memos to record your own ideas, insights and growing understanding of your data
Names matter! You will want to recognize a source easily. The longer the name, the harder it is to recognize and it is particularly difficult to handle many names that start with the same words (e.g. “ interview with” ). Pay careful attention to the naming scheme that you apply to your sources, and consider how to make use of folders to manage the different sorts of sources you have.
In the Volunteering Sample Project
The documents or audio/video sources which contain interviews are stored in a folder called Interviews. The documents then include the name of the person interviewed.
You can use a source's description to record details that will assist your recall, offer important context or record reflective comments.
In the Volunteering Sample Project
The description of each source in the Interviews folder lists the name of the interviewer, the date and time of the interview and its social location.
It is important to carefully format and place content while preparing your data records, as this will significantly increase their readability and will also impact your ability to make use of functionality related to this structure. NVivo provides a number of ways to structure the content of your sources. These include:
Using paragraph styles in structured documents enables you to:
Auto code your sources - make a node for each Heading 1 and code the Normal text at the node. Refer to Auto Code by Paragraph Style for more information.
When exploring the content coded at a node, spread coding or view the context based on paragraph style.
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Making text large and bold does not mean it is a Heading; you must apply a Heading paragraph style. |
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Careful paragraph structure within your sources' content allows:
The ability to spread your view or coding to surrounding paragraphs within a node or in query results.
The ability to 'auto code' your sources based on their paragraph structure.
When you are reading or reflecting on content of your sources, there will be many occasions when you wish to record that you should "See Also" another source, or some of its content, or an item outside your project. By placing these links you ensure that a comparison will be remembered, or a relevant piece of evidence followed.
In the Volunteering Sample Project
'See Also' links are used in the following ways:
The Defining 'volunteer' memo contains a 'See Also' link to the Wesley Mission - Definitions of 'Volunteering' external.
The interview transcript document Frederic contains a 'See Also' link from different points of the interview when Frederic makes two very different comments about the nature of volunteering.
Two of the participants, Anna and Grace volunteered in similar capacities. A 'See Also' link has been placed from the relevant quotation in the Grace's Interview transcript document to the relevant quotation in Anna's interview transcript.
An annotation can be placed in the content of any source to record brief comments attached to particular places in the content. Annotations are valuable for ensuring that your ideas about your data are stored at their context without interrupting the flow of your source. Their uses will differ across projects.
In the Volunteering Sample Project
Annotations are used in the following ways:
The transcript document Fredric contains annotations with comments about this participant's choice of words in one instance and seeming contradictions in his opinions.
The Project Journal document contains an annotation with observations about the comments of one researcher by another.
