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How do I search for words or phrases inside research material?

1 min readCoding and memos

Overview

Open Quick Search from the header and type a word or phrase. Results list the matching passages, which you can open in their documents, and the matches can be coded as a set. You can also combine words with AND, OR, NOT and NEAR, so a search can express a real analytic question. Search helps you check terminology, find known phrases and review uncoded occurrences. It does not replace reading the context or interpreting meaning.

What to do

  1. Start with a focused word or exact phrase that relates to your research question.
  2. Add operators when you need them (see “How do I write a Boolean or proximity search?”).
  3. Open results in their sources and read the surrounding text before you code or count anything.
  4. Treat spelling variants, inflections, translations and OCR errors as possible missed matches, and use a * wildcard for word endings.

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