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Tips on notetaking for qual researchers 1/x: avoid using bullets in your notes (bullets are the fast food of note-taking). Try to write complete sentences (you will fail) but you will at least have the beginning of a coherent point, which you clean up later (see 3/x)
Notetaking tip 2/x: Accept failure before you start. Your interview will def go faster than you can take notes, even if you're just observing. Accept it. The key is to know this and not pretend you'll get everything.
Notetaking tip 3/x: Go back and revise asap. Take your notes as best you can in the interview, but go back and revise right away (best) or before you sleep (at worst). You will be surprised at what you remember, and those incomplete sentences will complete themselves! (see above)
Notetaking tip 4/x: Get a few verbatim quotes, but don't transcribe in real time. Great quotes are going to be full of emotion, story, personal turns of phrase, or really well put. 80% of what ppl say does not fit that! Wait for the gold and write it right away.
Notetaking tip 5/x: Go back and SUMMARIZE asap. This is not the same as revision. This is your synthesis of what happened. It is not a faithful reporting but the beginning of an analytic memo. Do it for every interview.
Notetaking tip 6/x: Don't forget nonverbal details. Did they start shouting and waving their hands around? Make a note of that. Were they hesitant to answer? Note that. Notes are not a transcription, but a summary.
Notetaking tip 7/x: Laptop or no laptop? Ideally no laptop to establish rapport, but that is for the advanced practitioner. If you must use a laptop, take extra pains to LOOK AT your participant, instead of your screen.
Notetaking tip 8/x: If you are simply taking notes, and not actually asking the questions, your job is a lot harder than you think. Your partner needs you to catch all the stuff they cannot. Your notes should make the interaction come alive when they're read.
Notetaking tip 9/9: Make every effort to separate observation from interpretation. Interpretation (contrary to pop belief) is *necessary* but you must revel in what actually transpired first; make sense of it later. /END
If you liked this thread, please donate to a rent relief charity such as United Lift in California https://www.unitedlift.org/ or any of these other orgs, nationwide https://www.cashay.com/rental-aid-heres-where-you-can-find-help-in-every-state-115243162.html
Bonus tweet: The backstory to this thread. My designer colleague @owenderby was taking notes in interviews with me. I was giving feedback in in a doc and just decided to do this thread instead. Now he thinks itâs the most epic troll ever 
sorry Owen!
sorry Owen!
