CODE A TEXT SELECTION

Code a Text Selection

This tutorial ScreenCast demonstrates how to code a text selection in Transana. This is also known as creating a Quick Quote.

Highlight and Double-Click a Keyword

Load a text document by double-clicking it in the Data window’s Database Tree.

Highlight a text selection you would like to apply a keyword to.

Now double-click the Keyword. That’s it. You’ve created a Quick Quote, matching the text selected in your Document with the Keyword you double-clicked.

Highlight and Right-Click

Click somewhere in another sentence, without making a selection (not even a single-letter selection).

Right-click a Keyword and choose “Create Quick Quote” from the menu. You should notice that a new Quote appears in the Data Window’s Quick Quotes and Clips Collection with coding reflected in the Visualization Window.  If no text is highlighted when Quick Quote creation is triggered, Transana will try to select an appropriate full sentence for the Quick Quote.

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

If you double-click the newest Quote to load it in a new tab in the Document Window, you will notice Transana selected the sentence surrounding your cursor since you did not make a selection in the Document.

Apply the Same Code to Multiple Selections

If you want to create a series of Quick Quotes with the same Keyword, highlight the desired Keyword in the Database Tree. Then, for each selection you make in the Document, you can press Ctrl-K on Windows, Cmd-K on macOS, or press the Create Quick Quote or Clip button in the Document Toolbar to create each desired Quick Quotes.

When Quick Quotes are Created

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

Transana takes the name of the Document and automatically names and numbers the Quick Quote.

Double-click the new Quick Quote so it opens in a new tab in the Document window. You will see just the text from your Document that you had highlighted. Looking in the Visualization Window or at the Keywords Tab in the Data Window, you will see that the Quick Quote has been assigned the Keyword which you used to trigger the Quick Quote creation, and may also have inherited keywords from the Document if any were assigned there.

Click back into the Document by selecting the correct tab in the Document window. Without moving your selection in the Document, double-click another Keyword. Transana will add additional Keywords to your existing Quick Quote, rather than creating a new, nearly-identical Quick Quote, when you signal the creation of another Quick Quote without changing your text selection. A single Quote with multiple Keywords is analytically more useful than multiple identical-text Quotes with one Keyword each.

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 quote you just created and choose Add Quote Note from the popup menu. Name the new Note for your quote 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 quote fitting in with your overall analysis, and any questions you might have, among other issues.