Document comment: You can write a comment for each document. The
recommendation is to write meta information about a document into the
comment field. For interview transcripts these might be the interview
protocols or interview postscripts. Information like age, gender, etc. is
managed in document groups, not the comment field. For other document
types, you can use the comment field to specify the source of the
document, the context of obtaining the information, a description of who
published it, the target audience and so on.
Entity managers: The main entity types in ATLAS.ti are documents,
quotations, codes, memos, networks, links, relations and groups. An easy
way to access most entity types is via the Project Explorer. For each entity
type you can open a manager, e.g. by double-clicking on the branch in the
Project Explorer.
Filter (global): Global filters affect the entire project. You can set them in
the Project Explorer or the managers. If a global filter is activated, you see
a colored bar on top of the affected lists. The color indicates which entity
is filtered according to the entity color (blue = documents; orange =
quotations; green = codes; magenta = memos; purple = networks).
Filter (local): You can set local filters in managers, e.g. by clicking on an
item in the side panel. Local filters only influence the manager where you
set the filter. If a local filter is activated, you see a light-yellow-colored bar
on top of the entity list.
Groups: The following entities can be grouped: documents, codes, memos
and networks. The main purpose of groups is to filter the data.
Groups – code groups: Code groups as filters help you to navigate
through your list of codes. Therefore, it is useful to create a code group for
each category. It is, however, recommended that categories and their
subcategories are represented on the code level. Code groups are an
additional layer on top but not in a hierarchical sense. A code can be a
member of multiple code groups. At later stages in the analysis, you may
create further code groups if you need them as filters in an analysis.
Groups – document groups: Document groups in ATLAS.ti can be
thought of as variables. You can, for instance, group all female and male
respondents, all teachers, all postmen, all engineers, all moms, all dads, all
singles and all married, unmarried or divorced respondents. You can group
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