Guides
Guides for your qualitative research project
From planning interviews to coding and writing up: practical guides for students who use qualitative interviews in essays, dissertations and theses. Each guide explains one step and works through an invented example.
Try an interview exercise
Find two errors in a fictional interview, explain a code and export the text to Word. Start with the free exercise files.
Transcription
From audio file to finished transcript, and the conventions to follow along the way.
Verbatim transcription: rules, examples and when to use it
What verbatim transcription is, how true and intelligent verbatim differ, the rules for pauses, overlaps and inaudible passages, and which style your method needs.
10 min read · Updated 11 October 2026
How to transcribe an interview: a step-by-step guide
Transcribe your interviews step by step, from preparing the audio and choosing a style to checking, anonymising and formatting the transcript for your appendix.
9 min read · Updated 11 October 2026
Interviews
Plan, run and record your interviews.
Ethics and consent
Information sheets, consent, anonymisation and storage when your interviews contain personal data.
Analysis
Code your data and build themes with established qualitative methods.
Reflexive thematic analysis: Braun and Clarke’s six phases explained
What reflexive thematic analysis is, Braun and Clarke’s six phases in their 2022 wording, how it differs from codebook approaches and how to write it up in your dissertation.
10 min read · Updated 11 October 2026
Inductive vs deductive coding: differences, examples and codebooks
How inductive, deductive, hybrid and abductive coding differ, when to use each, and how to build a codebook with definitions, criteria and example quotes.
10 min read · Updated 11 October 2026
Discourse analysis: approaches, steps and an example
What discourse analysis is, how its main traditions differ, how to analyse interview transcripts and how much transcription detail your approach needs.
11 min read · Updated 11 October 2026
Narrative analysis: methods, models and an example
What narrative analysis is, Riessman’s thematic, structural, dialogic and visual approaches, Labov’s six-part model and the ethics of using people’s stories.
10 min read · Updated 11 October 2026
Methodology
Choose and justify your approach, from coding strategy to reflexivity.