Segregating Sections of Documents using QDA Miner

When performing text analysis, sometimes the text needs to be separated into different sections.  When the text is separated by common markers such as “Chapter” or “Section”, then it is easy to import using the Provalis Research Document Converter Wizard, which is included with QDA Miner, WordStat and WordStat for Stata.  Sometimes though when you want to import lots of documents they don’t have common sections or section titles, yet when you read the documents there are common sections.  If this is a challenge that you face then there are options for you:

1. If you have edit access (unlikey on PDFs) you may be able to insert a specific character that allows you to locate the specific blocks of text that you want to analyse.
2. Using QDA Miner you can code the blocks of text under common codes, i.e. “Theory”, “Practice” and then use WordStat to analyse just on the selected code blocks. Now, because QDA Miner allows multiple codes overlapping or within other code blocks you can still analyse your other codes separately without the need to re-start your analysis.