Writing@CSU

Writing Guides

Content Analysis

 

Step Five: Develop Rules for Coding Your Texts

Back Back to Steps for Conducting Conceptual Analysis

After taking the generalization of concepts into consideration, a researcher will want to create translation rules that will allow him/her to streamline and organize the coding process so that he/she is coding for exactly what he/she wants to code for. Developing a set of rules helps the researcher insure that he/she is coding things consistently throughout the text, in the same way every time. If a researcher coded "economically challenging" as a separate category from "expensive" in one paragraph, then coded it under the umbrella of "expensive" when it occurred in the next paragraph, his/her data would be invalid. The interpretations drawn from that data will subsequently be invalid as well. Translation rules protect against this and give the coding process a crucial level of consistency and coherence.

BackView Previous Step NextView Next Step

Copyright © 1993-2009 Colorado State University and/or this site's authors, developers, and contributors. Some material displayed on this site is used with permission.