CODE MEDIA DATA WITH A TRANSCRIPT

Code Media Data with a Transcript

This Tutorial ScreenCast demonstrates how to code a selection from a media file using a Transcript. This is known as creating a Quick Clip.

Code Media Data with a Transcript

Transana provides a method of coding media files with a transcript by creating Quick Clips. Quick Clips are fast and easy to create, and are designed to allow efficient coding of media data without requiring as much analytic thought up front as Categorization requires. You can quickly apply coding and figure out later what that coding means.

Quick Clips are Keyword-oriented Clips, while Standard Clips are Collection-oriented Clips. In the same way that we had to create a Collection before we could create a Standard Clip, we need to create a Keyword before we can create a Quick Clip.

There are several methods of coding media data with a transcript to create Quick Clips.

Highlight and Double-Click a Keyword

Load an Episode Transcript by double clicking it in the Data Window’s Database Tree.

Highlight a segment between, but not including, the time codes on either side of the words. The selection may include time codes in the middle, but should not include time codes at the beginning or end of the selection.

Now double-click the Keyword in the Database Tree you want to apply to the selection. That’s it. You’ve created a Quick Clip, matching the text selected in your Episode with the Keyword you double-clicked.

Highlight and Right-Click

Click somewhere in another segment, without making a selection.

Right-click a Keyword and choose “Create Quick Clip” from the menu. You should notice that a new Clip appears in the Data Window’s Quick Quotes and Clips Collection. If you are displaying the Keyword Visualization or Hybrid Visualization rather than the Waveform Visualization, the coding for the Clip will be reflected in the Visualization Window.

Without changing your transcript selection, right-click another Keyword and choose Create Quick Clip to add this Keyword to the existing Quick Clip. You will notice that no new Clip is created, but the coding is added to the Visualization Window after a moment.

If you double-click the newest Clip to load it in a new tab in Transana’s interface, you will notice Transana selected all of the text between the time codes surrounding your cursor since you did not make a selection in the Transcript.

Apply the Same Code to Multiple Selections

If you want to create a series of Quick Clips with the same Keyword, highlight the desired Keyword in the Database Tree. Then, for each selection you make in the Transcript, you can press Ctrl-K or the Create Quick Quote or Clip button in the Document Toolbar to create the desired Quick Clip using the time codes on either side of your selection as the Clip boundaries.

When Quick Clips are Created

Let’s take a closer look. In the Collections node of the Database Tree, you will now find a Quick Clips Collection. If this Collection doesn’t already exist, Transana creates it automatically.

Assuming this is the first Quick Clip you created from this Episode, you will see the Quick Clips Collection with only this Clip in it. Transana takes the name of the Episode and automatically names and numbers the Quick Clip.

Double-click the new Quick Clip so it opens in the Document window, replacing the Episode transcript. You will see just the selected Transcript text. Looking in the Visualization Window or at the Keywords Tab in the Data Window, you will see that the Quick Clip has been assigned Keywords inherited from the Episode coding and the Keyword which you used to trigger the Quick Clip creation. When you play the Clip, you will see that it starts at the time code preceding your selection and ends at the time code following your selection.

In the Data Window, right-click the Clip and select Locate Clip in Episode from the menu. This will re-load the source Episode and will highlight the text between the time codes used to create the Clip. Without moving your selection in the Transcript, double-click another Keyword. Transana will add additional Keywords to your existing Quick Clip, rather than creating a new, duplicate Quick Clip, when you signal the creation of another Quick Clip without changing your text selection. A single Clip with multiple Keywords is analytically more useful than multiple identical-text Clips with one Keyword each.

Name Your Collections of Quick Clips

Since you have just created a group of related Quick Clips, you may want to rename the Quick Clips Collection to reflect the common theme for this group of Clips. If we leave things as they are, these Quick Clips will get mixed in with later Quick Clips we create for other reasons.

Right-click your Clips Collection and choose Collection Properties from the menu.
Change the Collection ID to a name that identifies this collection, and press the OK button.
The next time you create a new Quick Clip, a new Quick Clips Collection will be created for the new group of Quotes and Clips.

Analytic Memos

It’s now a good idea to create more analytic memos. No action in Transana should be considered finished until you have written about it in an analytic memo.

Right-click (Ctrl-click on macOS) the Clip you just created and choose Add Clip Note from the popup menu. Name the new Note for your document and enter your initials as NoteTaker. Press OK.

Press Ctrl-T on Windows or Cmd-T on macOS to insert a date-time stamp in the note. You might want to write about why you made the selection you did, why you included the coding you did, how you see this clip fitting in with your overall analysis, and any questions you might have, among other issues.