Anna triandafyllidou wrote:
> I have also tried to "decipher" the ATLAS/ti and Nudist demos in order to
> decide which one would suit my needsbest (analysis of textual data, i.e.
> interviews or newspaper articles, looking at identity processes in
> discussions of the domestic population about illegal immigrants). However,
> I did not find them extremely useful. Of course, they allow for relational
> coding at many levels and you can ask the software for complex retrieval
> operations but apart from that I do not see many differences from "old"
> DBMS systems like Foxpro2 (which after all was very easy to learn.)
> Moreover, I have had problems trying to insert text that I already have on
> file (wordprocessing file or text only) to use as the raw material to be
> analysed.
> I would like to hear your opinion/advice (or other people's) on this matter.
Well, here is my share:
I wonder what you want to achieve. Of course QDA programs have some similarities
to data bank programs, but most of the data bank programs have restrictions e.g.
in length of a case (255 characters often). Also your arguments are more technical
(how to insert already existing text). Have you already had a look in the
Weitzman/Miles book? This contains a lot of program descriptions -- unfortuantely
due to the rapid software development some are outdated -- and a classification
scheme where all the feature one should think of are discussed. And of course
there are many more programs available than just atlas/ti, winmax and Nudist.
There are demo or test versions available from most other packages as well, see
the table at http://www.soziologie.uni-jena.de/home/klein/textanae.htm that points
to WWW-pages and ftp-sites.
Hope this helps
Harald
-------------------------------------
Dr. Harald Klein
Friedrich Schiller University
Department of Sociology
07740 Jena
Germany
Tel.: +49 3641 945543 or +49 172 9421627
Fax: +49 3641 945542
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