how to present quotes in qualitative research

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Providing English and native language quotes in qualitative research: A call to action

Ahtisham younas.

1 Swat College of Nursing, Swat Pakistan

2 Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's NL, Canada

Sergi Fàbregues

3 Department of Psychology and Education, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona Spain

Angela Durante

4 University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Rome Italy

Parveen Ali

5 University of Sheffield, Sheffield UK

Associated Data

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

When publishing qualitative research in international journals, researchers studying non‐English‐speaking participants provide quotes in English language. This is an issue of increasing concern given the need to be rigorous to represent a diversity of participants within their context, beyond how language (alone) situates them.

To argue for providing English and native language quotes in qualitative research reports.

Discussion.

This paper is based on the literature on use of quotes and translation in qualitative research and authors’ experiences of publishing qualitative research.

Provision of native and English language quotes may allow for greater transparency of findings, thereby reflecting that the researchers adequately captured the socially and culturally dependent experiences of participants.

Conclusions

Presentation of findings with eloquent quotes serves as the gateway into the sociocultural experiences of individuals. We argued against the norm of providing translated quotes in qualitative reports and build a case for the provision of native as well as English language quotes to promote cross‐cultural understanding.

1. INTRODUCTION

Qualitative research is invaluable to facilitate the exploration and understanding of the experiences of individuals about diverse phenomena across different cultures and contexts (Bhattacharya,  2017 ; Teherani et al.,  2015 ). Qualitative research is also context‐dependent and offers an emic viewpoint of the social and cultural reality of the participants (Azungah,  2018 ). Conducting rigorous qualitative research requires researchers to attend to the cultural and social nuances influencing the studied phenomena. Increasing globalization and diversity create a need for more cross‐cultural qualitative research, but language differences between researchers and participants can substantially affect the rigour of this type of research (Nasri et al.,  2020 ). The language of researchers and the participants, and the differences in language arising due to translations and different dialects, can significantly influence qualitative research since they affect conceptualization, data collection, analysis and reporting procedures (Nes et al.,  2010 ).

Researchers conducting cross‐cultural qualitative studies involving non‐English‐speaking participants often collect data in their native language (Santos et al.,  2015 ; Zeb et al.,  2021 ) and then, subsequently, with the help of translators/interpreters or bilingual researchers, they translate these data into English during the stages of data collection, transcription, analysis and reporting (Feldermann & Hiebl,  2019 ; Helmich et al.,  2017 ; Santos et al.,  2015 ). When writing and publishing qualitative research in international journals, researchers studying non‐English‐speaking participants are required to provide participants’ quotes in English. We argue that this is an issue of increasing concern given the need to be rigorous to represent a diversity of participants within their context, beyond how language (alone) situates them. Translating qualitative data into English is often considered a marker for expediting communication and interaction with a global audience (Abfalter et al.,  2020 ).

Nevertheless, translation of participants quotes can undermine the presentation of context and contextual meanings inherent to participants’ experiences when expressing themselves in a different language. Translation involves interpretation on the part of researchers (Nes et al.,  2010 ). Therefore, because language contains meanings rooted in more than the research context, the precise meaning of research findings may get lost or changed because audiences from different backgrounds may lack information on the specific contexts of the findings (Abfalter et al.,  2020 ; Nasri et al.,  2020 ). Consequently, to promote cultural and language transparency and describe the contextual meanings of participants, there is a greater need to represent the original voices of non‐English language speakers in research reports. Presenting original voices of participants can also enhance the rigour of qualitative research by supplementing knowledge of the researcher's positionality and how it affects the researchers’ interpretation of participants’ experiences. Providing both native and translated quotes has an added potential to enhance the symbolic and conceptual utility of qualitative research. Sandelowski ( 2004 ) explains this conceptual utility “as worlds are created with words, and words are the primary currency of qualitative research, to reword something is to remake the world” (p. 1373).

To present an argument for providing English and native language quotes in qualitative research reports by outlining the potential benefits of this practice. First, we briefly discuss existing guidance concerning translation in qualitative research. Second, we discuss the importance of providing quotes in qualitative research. Finally, we outline several benefits of providing English and native language quotes in qualitative research and propose recommendations for carrying out this task.

3. TRANSLATION IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

To date, there has been extensive discussion in the literature about issues concerning the translation of data in qualitative research (Abfalter et al.,  2020 ; Chen & Boore,  2010 ; Hendrickson et al.,  2013 ; Nasri et al.,  2020 ; Santos et al.,  2015 ). Evidence suggests that translation‐related decisions have a direct impact on the validity of a study's findings and require the researcher to be aware of issues and concerns surrounding translation and interpretations (Chen & Boore,  2010 ; Squires,  2008 , 2009 ). Many authors have suggested strategies to ensure rigour in translation, and these include: transcribing verbatim in the original language in which data were collected, using two bilingual researchers, moving back and forth between raw and translated data to ensure consistency, choosing the appropriate time to do the translation, being mindful of the conceptual equivalence when translating, enabling sociocultural matching and ensuring that researchers are linguistically competent and culturally sensitive (Chen & Boore,  2010 ; Hendrickson et al.,  2013 ; Nasri et al.,  2020 ; Santos et al.,  2015 ). To enhance the transparency of translation decisions and improve the scientific rigour of translated qualitative studies, Abfalter et al. ( 2020 ) proposed a framework making use of the following generic queries:

3.1. WHY? The reason for translating

Researchers should clarify the reasons for translating the quotes. The common reasons are linguistic comfort, value for the academic community and academic career. Linguistic comfort refers to the idea that researchers and participants may feel at ease when interpreting and sharing their data in the native language. However, the researchers then need to translate the quotes, so the global academic community can benefit from the research. Translation of quotes may enable researchers to expand the epistemological spectrum by presenting distinct sociocultural phenomena and their variations concerning the characteristics of individuals in those contexts. This notion refers to the value for the academic community. Finally, researchers may translate their qualitative research and quotes into English because international publications are required for academic promotion in many countries (Abfalter et al.,  2020 ).

3.2. WHEN? The time for translating

Researchers should clearly note the timing for translation during the research process. Early‐stage translation of data can ensure homogeneity of concepts and language and may save the cost of translation. However, translation at a later stage can produce higher‐quality findings because researchers can discover new insights while analysing the data in their native language. Nevertheless, later stage translation can be costly and time consuming (Abfalter et al.,  2020 ).

3.3. WHAT? The data or content for translating

It is important to clarify what content is to be translated because limited complexity in translation can result in greater loss of meaning and context of the original data. Some researchers may only translate the verbal data, while others may be interested in verbal data and emotions, exclamatory remarks, humour, metaphors, traditional and cultural expressions, and other linguistic characteristics (Abfalter et al.,  2020 ).

3.4. WHO? The person(s) translating

The person responsible for translating the data has the authority and responsibility to make pertinent decisions about the translation process and the content. The research teams should clearly note who (eg research team, data analyst, research assistant, interpreter or any other person outside the research team) will be involved in translation (Abfalter et al.,  2020 ).

3.5. HOW? The mode of translating

Researchers should state the techniques used for translation because the diversity and heterogeneity of languages of the participants can affect the translation process. Abfalter et al. ( 2020 ) discussed two techniques. First, a contextualized hermeneutic approach ensures the accurate translation of the meaning and experiences of participants. Second, a technicist approach follows strict rules and methods to translate the data for enhancing its accuracy, validity, reliability and quality.

3.6. WHERE? The location for translating

The location for translation could be (i) “within the socio‐geographical environment of the source language, (ii) within the socio‐geographical environment of the target language and (iii) outside the socio‐geographical environment of both source and target language” (Abfalter et al. ( 2020 ), p. 12). Translation within the source language or native language in the specific subculture can preserve contextual information and meaning of participants’ experiences. Translation within the target language, that is, English, may affect the researcher's positionality, social identity and the contextual meaning of the data (Abfalter et al.,  2020 ).

3.7. BY WHAT MEANS? The means and tools for translating

Researchers should also explicitly describe the tools and methods used translating data from native to target language. The tools may include online software, glossaries, internet searches and IT tools (Abfalter et al.,  2020 ).

This framework is useful for qualitative researchers engaged in cross‐cultural research for appropriate translation and integration of language to capture participants’ experiences. We recommended utilizing this framework during the research process and tailoring the queries to the context of each study.

4. IMPORTANCE OF PROVIDING QUOTES IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Researchers must work consciously to ensure the rigour of the translation of qualitative data and the integrity of their decision‐making when presenting their findings. One quality criterion essential to the reporting of qualitative research is the inclusion of participants’ quotes in the findings section of the study (Malterud,  2001 ; Walsh & Downe,  2006 ). Quotes are presented as “evidence, explanation, illustration, impression, representation and/or to enhance the readability of qualitative research” (Eldh et al.,  2020 , p. 5). Using quotes allows researchers to provide strong evidence that the reported findings are credible and accurate representations of the participants’ views and experiences (Eldh et al.,  2020 ; Fitzpatrick & Boulton,  1996 ). Embedding participants quotes within paragraphs of theme description adds additional richness to the study findings (Eldh et al.,  2020 ), allows the reader to see the issue from the participants’ perspective in their own words and helps strengthen the reporting of participants’ experiences when interpreting results, particularly when authors are dealing with a community, they are not a part of.

5. CHALLENGES WITH THE PRESENTATION OF QUOTES IN ENGLISH AND THE NEED FOR CHANGING THIS PRACTICE

As previously discussed, authors have mainly argued for ensuring transparency and rigour during the translation of qualitative data (Chen & Boore,  2010 ; Nasri et al.,  2020 ; Santos et al.,  2015 ). Such arguments are presented with the underlying assumption that English readers can understand and attest to the accuracy and rigour of data analysis and reporting (Al‐Amer et al.,  2015 ). However, attention needs to be paid when information is translated from one language to another and the nuances of the message conveyed via words—not to mention accent, dialect and ways of speaking—are lost. This practice can supress the culturally flavoured meanings of individuals’ experiences and views (Helmich et al.,  2017 ).

To adequately and rigorously present results, researchers working with non‐English participants often provide participants’ quotes in English when writing and publishing qualitative research for international journals. The quotes are provided as if the participants shared their experiences and views in fluent English, assuming that readers will be able to adequately capture the underlying meanings (Al‐Amer et al.,  2015 ; Helmich et al.,  2017 ). Even when the original data are in English, researchers often produce a corrected version of the participants’ quotes by tidying up any mispronunciations and removing common colloquial expressions such as “humms” and “aahs” (King et al.,  2019 ). While this practice can help make the quotes more comprehensible and readable, it can also affect transcription accuracy and reduce the authenticity of the reported data. These two problems can be still more significant when quotes are translated since researchers might then need to do further editing to make the text more comprehensible. Esposito ( 2001 ) argued that some types of translations might lead researchers to lose the “emic quality” of the original dialogue between the participants and the researchers. Translating quotes might make it difficult to preserve the original meaning of the qualitative data when reporting the study findings.

Sandelowski ( 1994 ) proposed two approaches to the reporting of the participants’ quotes: the “preservationist” approach and the “standardized” approach. While in the preservationist approach, researchers try to preserve every element of the participants’ verbal quote, in the standardized approach, researchers clean up every textual element that might be distracting to the readers. An example of the latter approach is provided by Morse (1996), who argues that researchers should edit the participants’ quotes because, in her own words, unedited quotes “will distract the reader, and the message that the researcher is trying to convey will be obscured by the irrelevant material.” In this article, we argue that the time has come that, in cross‐cultural qualitative reports, a preservationist approach is prioritized over a standardized approach. Nevertheless, it is also important that the choice of the preservationist approach aligns with the study purpose and researchers’ paradigmatic and methodological stance. The preservationist approach can be adhered to by encouraging researchers to provide participants’ quotes in both English as well as the original language of the data collection. While providing both native and English language quotes, the researchers should also discuss the reasoning for choosing and presenting quotes. It is also important that journal editors encourage and support the presentation of English language quotes alongside translated quotes. The inclusion of bilingual quotes can help highlight the voices of participants living in non‐English‐speaking countries. Since those participants might be less prevalent than English native speakers in studies published internationally, the inclusion of bilingual quotes could be understood as a way of democratizing research (ie reducing imbalances of power within the research process).

6. POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF PROVIDING ENGLISH AND NATIVE LANGUAGE QUOTES’

6.1. contribution to rigour in data analysis.

Qualitative data analysis is a daunting task that requires researchers to practice creativity, innovation, intuition and abductive reasoning. In cross‐cultural qualitative research, it is essential that the participants’ experiences are adequately interpreted within their contexts (Pelzang & Hutchinson,  2017 ; Saldaña, 2021 ) and, as a result, participants’ experiences are converted into meaningful themes to inform practice. The presentation of qualitative findings needs to be done in descriptive and interpretive ways so that the meanings of the studied phenomena are illuminated in the light of the social and cultural contexts of the phenomena (Munhall,  2012 ).

Describing the themes in qualitative research, the provision of direct quotations enables researchers to grasp the data in an authentic way, however, assuming that the readers’ evaluation of the rigour and plausibility of the study is largely contingent on the presented data (Feldermann & Hiebl,  2019 ). Therefore, the provision of both native and English language quotes in the qualitative report may allow multilingual readers to assess the consistency and adequacy of the translation and the extent to which the quotes accurately represent the themes. Consequently, readers may develop greater confidence in the study findings. For example, a reader who is proficient in both Italian and English languages may find a qualitative report with Italian and English language quotes more relevant than a similar study that only provided quotes in English. This could be due to various reasons: (i) readers can better relate to the former qualitative report than the later, (ii) readers can better evaluate the consistency between the actual experience of participants and the presented account of the participants’ experience, and (iii) readers can better relate to and contextualize the views and experiences of the participants in the broader social and cultural context.

6.2. Greater transparency in research reporting

Transparency in qualitative research entails comprehensive reporting of study methods, researchers’ assumptions and biases, cultural context and study findings (Tuval‐Mashiach,  2017 ). In reporting study findings, participants’ quotes are crucial to support the themes, their interpretation and explanation, and to convey the explicit meaning of the generated themes (Yin,  2011 ). Put simply, the presentation of the participants’ quotes gives voice to the generated themes (Sutton & Austin,  2015 ) and provides vividness to the text (Eldh et al.,  2020 ). Participants’ words and phrases demonstrate the depth of their views and the intensity and underlying emotions of their feelings and experiences. Although researchers may use emotional labels such as anger, distrust, disgust and surprise to adequately describe participants’ experiences, quotes are better illustrative of the participants’ true feelings (Corden & Sainsbury,  2006 ). Therefore, if the participants shared their experiences in their native language, it seems reasonable that the quotes are presented as such.

Relevant and meaningful participants’ quotes can potentially enhance the representation of their experiences, the evocation of readers’ emotions and the process of generating responses (Bradshaw et al.,  2017 ; Sandelowski, 1994 ). Sometimes, participants’ actual words can better impact on readers compared to researchers’ descriptions of those experiences (Corden & Sainsbury,  2006 ). No matter how accurate the translation can be, there is always a possibility of losing the true essence and cultural and social favour in a translated quote. An inaccurate and inadequate translation may take away the essential flavour of the quote that makes it appealing and interesting to the readers. Therefore, if both native and English language quotes are provided, it adds transparency to language reporting for the readers. As discussed previously, multilingual and native readers can assess the adequacy of translation and the relevance of the quotes to the themes.

6.3. Ensuring adequate capture of participants’ views

Quotes presented in qualitative research need to illustrate the essence of the participants’ experiences and “bring the text to life—or bring life to the text” (Eldh et al.,  2020 , p. 4). Relevant and relatively succinct quotes demonstrate points that researchers make about the data and provide insights into the global and contextual patterns in the data (Lingard,  2019 ). When quotes are translated, errors of omission and translation and differences in translated texts can substantially affect the interpretation of the data, the generation of meanings and the final representation of the participants’ experiences (Wong & Poon,  2010 ).

The above‐listed translation errors could make researchers fail to adequately capture participants’ views in studies conducted in settings with ingrained cultural values and norms related to race, gender, stigma and marginalization (Nasri et al.,  2020 ). In those types of studies, readers may expect greater awareness of the inherent cultural norms and values, and such awareness is often reflected in the quotations presented in the published qualitative findings. Publishing quotes in the original language may offer the opportunity for the readers to gather insights into the essence of the participants’ experiences. It might also allow researchers to retain an insider's perspective and ensure that the participants’ views are accurately captured and represented in their own words (Manning,  1997 ; Patton,  2002 ). Finally, reporting quotes bilingually might give readers a chance to immerse themselves in the situations that the quotes relate to and develop accurate insights about the participants’ social and cultural contexts.

6.4. Promoting cross‐cultural understanding

One of the aims of cross‐cultural research is to offer readers an understanding of the complexities of culturally and socially dependent phenomena and recognize the differences in phenomena across contexts (Karasz & Singelis,  2009 ). Greater consideration must be given to research methods in cross‐cultural research conducted in collectivistic cultural settings entailing greater sense of participants’ socio‐political dynamics (Pelzang & Hutchinson,  2017 ). Language differences are integral to understanding collectivist diversity across contexts and cultures. Language is not just words, but also a symbolic system of communication shaped by the customs, beliefs, identities, and world views of a given social group (Angel,  2013 ).

Each language has its own metaphors, and analogies and embodies figures of speech that are filtered through the social consciousness of the speakers. For example, the word “solicitor” means salesperson in the USA, but lawyer in the UK (Cambridge Dictionary,  2020 ). If an English word has different meanings across English‐speaking countries, it also has greater variations in meaning in other languages. The word “acha” could have several meanings within Urdu and Hindi languages based on the connotation and context. The sentence “Ye acha hai” (acha used in a positive connotation) means “this is good” in English, but “Acha, ab tum mujhe samjhogy kai ye kam kese hota hai” means “OK, are you going to teach me how to do this now/ do I have to learn this from you now?” (Acha used in an aggressive connotation). Or the same sentence “Ye acha hai?” can be used in a sarcastic way (sarcastically saying this is great!). Similarly, Nes et al. ( 2010 ) exemplified that the “ gezellig ” is used in Dutch language by late‐life couples, while expressing the feeling they had when doing things together. The meaning expressed with this Dutch word entails “experiencing togetherness in doing everyday activities together, often at specific times of the day and in the own home. Translating the word gezellig, only as ‘cosy’ would reduce the meaning” (Nes et al.,  2010 , p. 315). Many of these differences can be found in other languages, as illustrated in Table  1 . Therefore, reporting participants’ quotes in English and their native language can help address the problem of words’ multiplicity of meanings across languages while offering readers the opportunity to develop cross‐cultural understanding of participants’ accounts. Readers who are only proficient in English may develop an interest in learning more about the native language of the participants. When the native language is made available along with the translated text, readers have a greater opportunity to appreciate the described cultural phenomenon and apprehend the richness embedded in the study findings.

Examples of lost meaning during translation

7. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Presenting participants’ quotes in qualitative research reports is critical for enhancing the rigor, interpretation and explanation of research findings. In cross‐cultural qualitative research, the presentation of comprehensive findings with eloquent quotes essentially serves as the gateway into the culturally and socially dependent experiences of individuals. In this article, we argue against the common practice of providing translated quotes in qualitative research reports. We build a case that the provision of native and English language quotes may allow for greater transparency, rigor and cross‐cultural understanding of research findings.

We are also conscious of the fact that sometimes journals do not have adequate space to publish qualitative studies with a long list of quotes. Therefore, we offer three recommendations to overcome this limitation. First, the translated and original quotes could be presented in a supplementary online file, only if the journal restricts the word count. If the journal space permits, the authors should provide both English and original language quotes under each theme or sub‐theme in the research report. Second, as Bazeley ( 2013 ) suggested, researchers working in a second language can “use occasional phrases (or brief quotes) from the original language in the final report as needed, accompanied by a parenthesized translation or an explanation where you can't directly translate” (p. 77). Such publishing practices are already common in the field sociolinguistics. For example, the Journal of Sociolinguistics and Journal of Applied Linguistics (published by Wiley) requires authors to provide English and non‐English quotes and encourages adding a second abstract in the authors’ native language to avoid losing the context of findings. Therefore, it seems reasonable to provide both English and native quotes when reporting qualitative studies in the fields of nursing and the health sciences. Finally, the authors of cross‐cultural qualitative studies should explicitly discuss any potential challenges and issues encountered during the translation and analysis of native language quotes in their manuscripts. It is important that readers are aware of the issues that may have affected the transparent reporting of qualitative quotes and their underlying contextual meanings.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Dr. Parveen Ali is an Associate Editor for Nursing Open.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to acknowledge Katelyn Jardine a sociolinguist for offering valuable and critical comments to improve this manuscript.

Younas, A. , Fàbregues, S. , Durante, A. , & Ali, P. (2022). Providing English and native language quotes in qualitative research: A call to action . Nursing Open , 9 , 168–174. 10.1002/nop2.1115 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

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• Zeb, H. , Younas, A. , Ahmed, I. , & Ali, A. (2021). Self‐care experiences of Pakistani patients with COPD and the role of family in self‐care: A phenomenological inquiry . Health & Social Care in the Community , 29 ( 5 ), e174–e183. 10.1111/hsc.13264 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

Research Design Review

A discussion of qualitative & quantitative research design, the use of quotes & bringing transparency to qualitative analysis.

“An overemphasis on the researcher’s interpretations at the cost of participant quotes will leave the reader in doubt as to just where the interpretations came from [however] an excess of quotes will cause the reader to become lost in the morass of stories.” (Morrow, 2005, p. 256)

By embedding carefully chosen extracts from participants’ words in the final document, the researcher uniquely gives participants a voice in the outcomes while contributing to the credibility – and transparency – of the research. In essence, the use of verbatims gives the users of the research a peek into the analyst’s codebook by illustrating how codes associated with particular categories or themes in the data were defined during the analysis process.

As an example, the analysis of data from a recent in-depth interview study among business decision makers determined that the broad concept of “relationships” was a critical factor to driving certain types of decisions. That alone is not a useful finding; however, the analysis of data within this category uncovered themes that effectively gave definition to the “relationships” concept. As shown below, the definitional themes, in conjunction with illustrative quotes from participants, give the reader a concise and useful understanding of “relationships.”

In this way, quotes contribute much-needed transparency to the analytical process. As discussed elsewhere in Research Design Review (e.g., see this April 2017 article ), transparency in the final document is built around “thick description,” defined as “a complete account…of the phenomena under investigation as well as the rich details of the data collection and analysis processes and interpretations of the findings” (Roller & Lavrakas, 2015, p. 363). One of the ingredients in a thick description of the analytical process is the details of code development and the coding procedures. The utilization of verbatims from participants in the final report adds to the researcher’s thick description (and transparency) by helping to convey the researcher’s thinking during data analysis and how that thinking steered the creation and application of codes.

Morrow, S. L. (2005). Quality and trustworthiness in qualitative research in counseling psychology. Journal of Counseling Psychology , 52 (2), 250–260. http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.52.2.250

Roller, M. R., & Lavrakas, P. J. (2015). Applied qualitative research design: A total quality framework approach . New York: Guilford Press.

Image captured from: https://cdmginc.com/testing-corner-quotation-marks-add-power/

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A good reference, as well as making a good point about the integration and grounding of the participant’s voice with the researcher’s/ evaluator’s interpretations and recommendations. This exemplfies the strentgh of a qualitative approach!

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Structuring a qualitative findings section

Reporting the findings from a qualitative study in a way that is interesting, meaningful, and trustworthy can be a struggle. Those new to qualitative research often find themselves trying to quantify everything to make it seem more “rigorous,” or asking themselves, “Do I really need this much data to support my findings?” Length requirements and word limits imposed by academic journals can also make the process difficult because qualitative data takes up a lot of room! In this post, I’m going to outline a few ways to structure qualitative findings, and a few tips and tricks to develop a strong findings section.

There are A LOT of different ways to structure a qualitative findings section. I’m going to focus on the following:

Tables (but not ONLY tables)

Themes/Findings as Headings

Research Questions as Headings

Anchoring Quotations

Anchoring Excerpts from Field Notes

Before I get into each of those, however, here is a bit of general guidance. First, make sure that you are providing adequate direct evidence for your findings. Second, be sure to integrate that direct evidence into the narrative. In other words, if for example, you were using quotes from a participant to support one of your themes, you should present and explain the theme (akin to a thesis statement), introduce the supporting quote, present it, explain the quote, and connect it to your finding. Below is an example of what I mean from one of my articles on implementation challenges in personalized learning ( Bingham, Pane, Steiner, & Hamilton, 2018 ). The finding supported by this paragraph was: “Inadequate Teacher Preparation, Development, and Support”

To mitigate the difficulties of enacting personalized learning in their classrooms, teachers wanted a model from which they could extrapolate practices that might serve them well in their own classrooms. As one teacher explained, “the ideas and the implementation is what’s lacking I think. I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing. I need to see things modeled and I need to know what it is. I need to be able to touch it. Show me a model, model for me.” Unfortunately, teachers had little to draw on for effective practices. Professional development was not as helpful as teachers had hoped, outside training on using the digital content or learning platforms fell short, and few examples or best practices existed for teachers to use in their own classrooms. As a result, teachers had to work harder to address gaps in their own knowledge. 

Finally, you should not leave quotations to speak for themselves and you should not have quotations as standalone paragraphs or sentences, with no introduction or explanation. Don’t make the reader do the analytic work for you.

Now, on to some specific ways to structure your findings section.

Tables can be used to give an overview of what you’re about to present in your findings, including the themes, some supporting evidence, and the meaning/explanation of the theme. Tables can be a useful way to give readers a quick reference for what your findings are. However, tables should not be used as your ONLY means of presenting those findings.

If you are choosing to use a table to present qualitative findings, you must also describe the findings in context, and provide supporting evidence in a narrative format (as in the paragraph outlined in the previous section).

2). Themes/Findings as Headings

Another option is to present your themes/findings as general or specific headings in your findings section. Here are some examples of findings as general headings:

Importance of Data Utilization and Analysis in the Classroom  The Role of Student Discipline and Accountability Differences in the Experiences of Teachers 

As you can see these headings do not describe precisely what the finding is, but they give the general idea/subject of the finding. You can have sub-headings within these findings that are more specific if you would like.

Another way to do this would be to be a bit more specific. For example:

School Infrastructure and Available Technology Do Not yet Fully Align with Teachers’ Needs 

Structural support for high levels of technology use is not fully developed 

Using multiple sources of digital content led to alignment issues 

Measures of School and Student Success are Misaligned

Traditional methods of measuring student progress conflict with personalized learning

Difficulties communicating new measures of student success to colleges and universities.

As you can see, here the findings are shown as headings, but are structured as specific sentences, with sub-themes included as well.

3). Research Questions as Headings

You can also present your findings using your research questions as the headings in the findings section. This is a useful strategy that ensures you’re answering your research questions and also allows the reader to quickly ascertain where the answers to your research questions are. Often, you will also need to present themes within each research question to keep yourself organized and to adequately flesh out your findings. The example below presents a research question from my study of blended learning at a charter high school (Bingham, 2016) , and an excerpt from my findings that answered that research question. I have also included the associated theme.

Research Question 1: What challenges, if any, do teachers face in implementing a blended model in a school’s first year? Theme: TROUBLESHOOTING AND TASK-MANAGING: TECHNOLOGY USE IN THE CLASSROOM In the original vision for instruction at Blended Academy, technology was to be an integral part of students’ learning, meant to allow students to find their own answers to their questions, to explore their personal interests, and to provide multiple opportunities for learning. The use of iPods in the classroom was partially intended to serve the social-emotional component of the model, allowing students to enjoy music and to “tune out” from other classroom activities when working on Digital X. Further, the iPods would allow stu- dents to listen to podcasts or teacher-created content at any time, in any location. However, prior to the school’s opening, little attention was paid to the management of these devices, and their potential for misuse. As a result, teachers spent much of their time managing students’ technology use, troubleshooting, and developing classroom procedures to ensure that technology use was relevant to learning. For example, in Ms. L’s classroom, she attempted to ensure learning was happening by instituting “Technology-Free” periods in the classroom. When students had to be working on their laptops in order to complete lessons or quizzes, the majority of her time was spent walking from student to student, watching for off-task behavior, and calling out students for how long they were “logged in” to the digital curriculum. In one typical interaction, Ms. L admonished one student, saying “It says you only logged in for one minute . . . when are you going to finish your English if you only logged in one minute today?” The difficulties around ensuring students were using technology productively resulted in teachers “hovering” over students, making it difficult to provide targeted instructional help. Teachers often responded to off-task behavior/ technology use by confiscating computers and devices or restricting their use, in order to ensure that students were working. However, because the majority of tasks were meant to be delivered online or through technological devices, this was not a productive or effective solution.

4). Vignettes

Vignettes can be a strategy to spark interest in your study, add narrative context, and provide a descriptive overview of your study/site/participants. They can also be used as a strategy to introduce themes. You can place them at the beginning of a paper, or at the start of the findings section, or in your discussion of each theme. They wouldn’t typically be the only representation of your findings that you present, but you can use them to hook the reader and provide a story that exemplifies findings, themes, contexts, participants, etc. Below is an example from one of my recent studies.

The Role of Pilot Teachers in Schoolwide Technology Integration Blended High School is a lot like many other charter schools. Students wear uniforms, and as you walk through the halls, there is almost always a teacher issuing a demerit to a student who is not wearing the right shoes, or who hasn’t tucked in their shirt. In this school, however, teachers use technology in almost every facet of their instruction, operating in a school model that blends face-to-face and online learning in the classroom in order to personalize students’ learning experiences. It has, however, been a long road to this level of technology use. BHS’s first year of operation was, arguably, disastrous. Teachers were overwhelmed and students didn’t progress as expected. In one staff meeting toward the end of the schools’ first year, teachers and administrators expressed frustration with each other and with the school model, with several teachers arguing that technology was hurting, not helping. The atmosphere was tense, with one teacher finally shrugging anxiously and saying “Maybe need to ask ourselves, ‘Is this the best model to use with some of our kids?’” Ultimately, by the end of the first year, technology was not a regular classroom practice. In BHS’s second year, the administration again pushed for full technology integration, but they wanted to start slow. In a fall semester staff meeting, the principal and the assistant principal ran what the principal referred to as a “technology therapy session,” where teachers could share their struggles with using technology to engage in PL. During the session, one of the new teachers mentions that she is having a difficult time letting go – changing her focus from lecturing to computer-based work. Another teacher worries about finding good online resources. Most of the teachers, new and veteran, are alarmed by the time it is taking for them design lessons that integrate technology. Some admit only engaging in technology use in a shallow way – uploading worksheets to Google Docs, recording Powerpoints, etc.  A few months after the discussion in which teachers aired their fears and struggles, the principal leads the teachers in analyzing student data from that week and spends a bit of time highlighting the work of a few teachers whose students are doing particularly well and who have been able to use technology in everyday classroom practice. Those teachers are part of a small group of “pilot teachers,” each of whom have been experimenting with various technology-based practices, including testing new learning management systems, designing their own online modules with personalized student objectives, providing students with technology-facilitated immediate feedback, and using up-to-the-minute data to develop technology-guided small-group instruction.  Over the course of the next several months, administrators encouraged teachers to continue to be transparent about their concerns and share those concerns in regular staff meetings. Administrators conferred with the pilot teachers and administrators and teachers together set incremental goals based on the pilot teachers’ recommendations. In weekly staff meetings, the pilot teachers shared their progress, including concerns and challenges. They collaborated with the other teachers to find solutions and worked with the administration to get what they needed to enact those solutions. For example, after a push from the pilot teachers, administration increased funding for technology purchases and introduced shifts in the school schedule to allow for planning in order to help teachers manage the demands of a high-tech classroom. Because the pilot teachers emphasized how much time meaningful technology integration took, and knew what worked and what didn’t, they were able to train other teachers in high-tech practices and to make the case to administration for needed changes.  By BHS’s third year, teachers schoolwide were able to fully integrate technology in their classrooms. All teachers were using the same learning management system, which had been initially chosen and tested by a pilot teacher. In every classroom, teachers were also engaging online modules, technology-facilitated breakout groups, and real time technology-based data analysis – all of which were practices the pilot teachers had tested and shared in the second year. The consistent collaboration between administration and pilot teachers and pilot teachers and other teachers helped calibrate classroom changes to manage the conflict between existing practices and new high-tech practices. By focusing on student learning data, creating the room for experimentation, collaborating consistently, and distributing the leadership for technology integration, teachers and administrators felt comfortable with the increasing reliance on tech-heavy practices.

I developed this vignette as a composite from my field notes and interviews and used it to set the stage for the rest of the findings section.

4). Anchoring Quotes

Using exemplar quotes from your participants is another way to structure your findings. In the following, which also comes from Bingham et al. (2018) , the finding itself is used as the heading, and the anchoring quotes come directly after the heading, prior to the rest of the narrative discussion of the finding. These quotations help provide some initial evidence and set the stage for what’s to come.

School Infrastructure and Available Technology Do Not Yet Fully Align With Teachers’ Needs  “I know that computer problems are an issue almost daily.” (Middle school personalized learning teacher)  “If the data was exactly what we needed, it would be easier. I think a lot of times we’re not using it enough because the way we’re using the data is not as effective as it should be.” (High school personalized learning teacher) 

You can note the source next to or after the quote. This can be done with your chosen pseudonyms, or with a general description, as I've done above.

5). Anchoring Excerpts from Field Notes

Similarly, excerpts from field notes can be used to start your discussion of a finding. Again, the finding itself is used as the heading, and the excerpt from field notes supporting that finding comes directly after the heading, prior to the rest of the narrative discussion of the finding. The example below comes from a study in which I explored how a personalized learning model evolved over the course of three years (Bingham, 2017) . I used excerpts from my field notes to open the discussion of each year.

Year 1: Navigating the disconnect between vision and practice  Walking into the large classroom space shared by Ms. Z and Ms. H, it is not immediately evident that these are high-tech PL classrooms. At first, there are no laptops out in either class. Both Ms. Z’s and Ms. H’s students are completing warm-up activities that are projected on each teacher’s white board. After a few minutes, Ms. Z’s students get up and get laptops. Ms. Z walks around to students and asks them what lesson from the digital curriculum they will be working on today. As Ms. Z speaks to a table of students, other students in the room listen to their iPods, sometimes singing loudly. Some students are on YouTube, watching music videos; others are messaging friends on GChat or Facebook. As Ms. Z makes her way around, students toggle back to the screen devoted to the digital curriculum. Sometimes, Ms. Z notices that students are off-task and she redirects them. Other times, she is too busy unlocking an online quiz for a student, or confiscating a student’s iPod. 

This excerpt from my field notes provided an overview of what teacher practice looked like in the first year of the school, so that I could then discuss several themes that were representative of how practice evolved over that first year.

The key takeaway here is that there are many ways to structure your findings section. You have to choose the method that best supports your study, and best represents your data and participants. No matter what you choose, the findings section itself should be constructed to answer your research questions, while also providing context and thick description, and, of course, telling a story.

Writing a discussion section

Some tips for academic writing.

DEPTH @ LSHTM Research blog

Dialogue, Evidence, Participation and Translation for Health

How to present quotes from interview transcripts: the ‘tidying up’ dilemma (including: what do with your own less-than-perfect sentences)

Two members of the DEPTH team, Cicely Marston (supervisor) and Shelly Makleff (PhD student) discuss how best to present quotations from interview transcripts when writing up. We talk about how to present ‘untidy’ speech (e.g. ‘um’, ‘er’, repetition), how much to ‘tidy up’ quotes, and the implications of any ‘tidy up’.

Shelly’s interviews and analysis have been done in Spanish and the quotes she presents in the final write up are translated into English. Here we present a lightly edited version of a supervisory email interchange we thought might be useful to others. And we would love to hear your views in the comments – we certainly don’t have all the answers.

To leave a comment, make sure you’ve clicked on this article’s headline so you are reading the post itself, not the DEPTH blog homepage.

SM: How do you clean up a transcribed quote to present it in an article? Every time I cut some words, even just filler words, should I mark these omissions with an omission marker (such as […])? Or do I have the liberty to just cut those fillers without a […], in order to create a clean and readable quote?

CM: In my opinion all cuts should be marked with an omission marker (e.g. […]). I have argued about this with a journal before because newspapers use  ellipses to indicate omissions (rather than a specific omission marker that only indicates omissions). The issue is that when you do this, there is no obvious way to mark pauses in someone speaking so you would need to find another pause marker that won’t be confused with an omission marker. You could do this by writing [pause] every time, but this also makes quotes hard to read if there are a lot of pauses. When you are using translated quotations, it is less clear what to do because for instance, you might keep the translation ‘clean’ by not including every single one of the filler words (though I would recommend you keep them as much as possible where th ere is a direct translation (e.g. in Mexican Spanish, hesitation where people say ‘este…’ can be translated as ‘um…’ in English), or at least if there is no direct equivalent, make sure you keep the spirit of the original which might have involved hesitations).

For translations, where it is good practice to provide the original language version in an appendix, one way to get around this is to present the original language quotations with all the pause markers etc included, and then present ‘tidied up’ translations in the body of the article. If you do this, you should mention it in the methods section so the reader knows they can refer to the original language quotations. Note that ‘tidying up’ is particularly challenging when you are working in your non-dominant language, which is all the more reason to present the original language tra nscript excerpts verbatim.

SM: Ok, so sounds  like you’d always use […] to signify eve ry piece of cut text in the article. For a conference poster, do you think it’s ok to leave out the […] for filler words so it’s smoother to read?

CM: I would keep it precise i.e. show where you have edited – I assume you won’t cut all the ums and errs. I get quite suspicious when I see a perfect quote because very very few people speak in complete sentences with no hesitations. if you genuinely think the hesitations are unimportant in any given instance, then you *can* edit them, but make sure there is a note that you have done this somewhere on the poster, for transparency.

SM: If I’m adding clarifying info in [], do I do that instead of or as well as the words that are being replaced? In other words, would it be “So for them [the students]” or “So for [the students]”?

CM: I would go with the longer version so that it is clear what they actually said versus what is your interpretation/explanation.

SM: Can I add punctuation and make sentences to create more clarity, when the speech was transcribed as a long run-on sentence?

CM: Yes, definitely improve the punctuation – transcriptions are almost always badly punctuated, especially when the narrative includes reported speech, in which case transcribers often give up on attempting to punctuate it altogether – and to be fair it can take a while to get it right even if it is quite obvious without punctuation what the speaker has said. It is worth doing because it does make it much harder to read when transcripts not properly punctuated. If you are not sure how to punctuate the sentence from the transcript alone (e.g. it is unclear where the emphasis in the sentence was), you will need to go back to the original audio to ensure your ‘new’ punctuation correctly represents what was said.

SM: I wish there were guidelines for this! In a quick internet search, I didn’t find any, at least not that are clear per discipline. While looking for guidelines I did see an article about the diversity of perspectives among academics about how they edit qualitative quotes. One perspective in favour of editing out the filler words pointed out that if participants saw their own quote with all the filler words, they’d feel embarrassed, and it isn’t an expectation that everyone speaks perfectly but that as researchers we should present their ideas as clearly as possible in a way they’d feel comfortable with. And actually, in Mexico when we shared the transcribed quotes with the health educators, they felt embarrassed about it, joking that they needed diction classes. They even made a meme of their horrified reactions when they read their words on paper and heard how they talked (see below). For the presentation of the data, we hadn’t really cleaned up the quotes, it was mainly verbatim, but the idea still stands- the way we represented them didn’t make them sound eloquent, and that embarrassed them.

CM. I agree that if the quotes have names attached to them, the person might prefer a ‘cleaned’ version, but your quotes are anonymised and so from an individual perspective I don’t think that is too much of a concern.

Having said that, it’s true that origi nal, not tidied-up quotations might contribute to  a discourse of the ‘other’ being inarticulate. People who are looking for ways to find others inferior will likely find them regardless and so I’m not sure that compromising the integrity of the transcript will help (although I’m open to arguments to the contrary).

Overall, though, going along with the idea that there is a ‘better’ way to s peak brings its own problems. Should we all speak in perfect sentences? Who determines what is ‘perfect’ or ‘best’? This is especially difficult if you are trying to ‘tidy up’ sentences that were spoken in another language than our dominant language. As researchers we should commit to transparency. Interviewers who worry about their sentences should probably listen back to the interviews – they will hear that it sounds very normal, even if they hesitate, repeat words, use filler words, reframe questions and so on. It’s important to build rapport – if you don’t naturally speak in 100% full sentences in real life, why would you do so in an interview? Being inauthentic, or struggling to present a more perfect self, may well have a negative impact on the interview overall.

What do you think? How have you handled these issues? Let us know in the comment section below. If you can’t see where, click on this article headline and scroll to the bottom.

3 Replies to “How to present quotes from interview transcripts: the ‘tidying up’ dilemma (including: what do with your own less-than-perfect sentences)”

Thanks for the interesting article! Indeed I have always found it hard to know when to edit a quote or not…and I feel academics do not all agree on this! Personally I have a tendency to ‘tidy it up’ depending on the audience (e.g. PowerPoint presentation).

Really interesting points here that have got me thinking. There’s a good article by Baxter and Eyles (2004) called ‘Evaluating Qualitative Research in Social Geography: Establishing ‘Rigour’ in Interview Analysis’ about how readers (or examiners!) view ‘rigour’ in qualitative research. This is the link: https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0020-2754.1997.00505.x

Thanks for the blog!

I agree with your points, excellent post.

Comments are closed.

• UNC Libraries
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• Presenting Qualitative Research

Qualitative Research Resources: Presenting Qualitative Research

Created by health science librarians.

• What is Qualitative Research?
• Qualitative Research Basics
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• Help at UNC
• Qualitative Software for Coding/Analysis
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• Finding Qualitative Studies
• Assessing Qualitative Research
• Writing Up Your Research
• Integrating Qualitative Research into Systematic Reviews
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Presenting Qualitative Research, with a focus on posters

• Qualitative & Libraries: a few gems
• Data Repositories

Example posters

• The Meaning of Work for People with MS: a Qualitative Study A good example with quotes
• Fostering Empathy through Design Thinking Among Fourth Graders in Trinidad and Tobago Includes quotes, photos, diagrams, and other artifacts from qualitative study
• Examining the Use and Perception of Harm of JUULs by College Students: A Qualitative Study Another interesting example to consider
• NLM Informationist Supplement Grant: Daring to Dive into Documentation to Determine Impact An example from the Carolina Digital Repository discussed in a class more... less... Allegri, F., Hayes, B., & Renner, B. (2017). NLM Informationist Supplement Grant: Daring to Dive into Documentation to Determine Impact. https://doi.org/10.17615/bk34-p037
• Qualitative Posters in F1000 Research Archive (filtered on "qualitative" in title) Sample qualitative posters
• Qualitative Posters in F1000 Research Archive (filtered on "qualitative" in keywords) Sample qualitative posters

Michelle A. Krieger Blog (example, posts follow an APA convention poster experience with qualitative posters):

• Qualitative Data and Research Posters I
• Qualitative Data and Research Posters II

"Oldies but goodies":

• How to Visualize Qualitative Data: Ann K. Emery, September 25, 2014 Data Visualization / Chart Choosing, Color-Coding by Category, Diagrams, Icons, Photographs, Qualitative, Text, Timelines, Word Clouds more... less... Getting a little older, and a commercial site, but with some good ideas to get you think.
• Russell, C. K., Gregory, D. M., & Gates, M. F. (1996). Aesthetics and Substance in Qualitative Research Posters. Qualitative Health Research, 6(4), 542–552. Older article with much good information. Poster materials section less applicable.Link is for UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated users.

Additional resources

• CDC Coffee Break: Considerations for Presenting Qualitative Data (Mark D. Rivera, March 13, 2018) PDF download of slide presentation. Display formats section begins on slide 10.
• Print Book (Davis Library): Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldaña, J. (2014). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook, 3rd edition From Paul Mihas, Assistant Director of Education and Qualitative Research at the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at UNC: Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook (4th ed.) by Miles, Huberman, and Saldana has a section on Displaying the Data (and a chapter on Designing Matrix, Network, and Graphic Displays) that can help students consider numerous options for visually synthesizing data and findings. Many of the suggestions can be applied to designing posters (April 15, 2021).
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Beyond the default colon: Effective use of quotes in qualitative research

• The Writer's Craft
• Open access
• Published: 22 November 2019
• Volume 8 , pages 360–364, ( 2019 )

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• Lorelei Lingard 1  

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Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

In the Writer’s Craft section we offer simple tips to improve your writing in one of three areas: Energy, Clarity and Persuasiveness. Each entry focuses on a key writing feature or strategy, illustrates how it commonly goes wrong, teaches the grammatical underpinnings necessary to understand it and offers suggestions to wield it effectively. We encourage readers to share comments on or suggestions for this section on Twitter, using the hashtag: #how’syourwriting?

Last week the ‘e’ key died on my laptop. It’s a first-world problem, I’ll admit, but it really threw my writing for a loop—a lot of words require an ‘e’ key. Reflecting on what other keys I could not do without, I made a quick shortlist: comma, ‘ly’ and colon. The comma because its absence would consign me to the sort of breathy, adolescent writing that fills social media. The ‘ly’ because without that duo I can’t make most of the adverbs that prop up my first drafts. And the colon because I’m a qualitative researcher. How would I introduce quotes if the colon key were out of order?

I’m only partly joking. Every qualitative researcher confronts the challenge of selecting the right quotes and integrating them effectively into their manuscripts. As writers, we are all guilty of resorting to the default colon as an easy way to tuck quotes into our sentences; as readers, we have all suffered through papers that read like a laundry list of quotes rather than a story about what the writer learned. This Writer’s Craft instalment offers suggestions to help you choose the right quotes and integrate them with coherence and style, following the principles of authenticity and argument.

Authenticity

At the point of manuscript writing, a qualitative researcher is swimming in a sea of data. Innumerable transcript excerpts have been copied and pasted into data analysis software or (for the more tactile among us) onto multi-coloured sticky notes. Some of these excerpts we like very much. However, very few of them will make it into the final manuscript, particularly if we are writing for publication in a health research or medical education journal, with their 3000–4000 word limits.

Selecting the best quotes from among these cherished excerpts is harder than it looks. We should be guided by the principle of authenticity: does the quote offer readers first hand access to dominant patterns in the data? There are three parts to selecting a good, authentic quote: the quote is illustrative of the point the writer is making about the data, it is reasonably succinct, and it is representative of the patterns in data. Consider this quote, introduced with a short phrase to orient the reader:

Rather than feeling they were changing identities as they went through their training, medical students described the experience of accumulating and reconciling multiple identities: ‘the “life me”, who I was when I started this, is still here, but now there’s also, like, a “scientific me” as well as a sort of “doctor me”. And I’m trying to be all of that’ (S15) .

This quote is illustrative, providing an explicit example of the point that student identity is multiplying as training unfolds. It is succinct, expressing efficiently what other participants took pages to describe. And it is representative, remaining faithful to the overall sentiments of the many participants reporting this idea.

We have all read—and written!—drafts in which the quoted material does not reflect these characteristics. The remainder of this section addresses these recurring problems.

Is the quote illustrative?

A common challenge is the quote that illustrates the writer’s point implicitly, but not explicitly. Consider this example:

Medical students are undergoing a process of identity-negotiation: we’re ‘learning so much all the time, and some of it is the science stuff and some of it is professional or, like, practical ethical things, and we have to figure all that out’ (S2).

For this quote to serve as evidence for the point of identity-negotiation, the reader must infer that ‘figure all that out’ is a reference to this process. But readers may read their own meaning into decontextualized transcript extracts. Explicit is better, even if it sacrifices succinctness. In fact, this is the right quote, but we had trimmed away the first three sentences where ‘figuring out identity’ got explicit mention. The quote could be lengthened to include these sentences, or, to preserve succinctness, just that quoted phrase can be inserted into the introduction to the quote:

Medical students are ‘figuring out identity’, a process of negotiation in which they are ‘learning so much all the time, and some of it is the science stuff and some of it is professional or, like, practical ethical things, and we have to figure all that out’ (S2).

Is the quote succinct?

Interview transcripts are characterized by meandering and elliptical or incomplete speech. Therefore, you can search diligently and still come up with a 200-word quote to illustrate your 10-word point. Sometimes the long quote is perfect and you should include it. Often, however, you need to tighten it up. By including succinctness as part of the authenticity principle, my aim is to remind writers to explicitly consider whether their tightening up retains the gist of the quote.

The previous example illustrates one tightening technique: extract key phrases and integrate them into your own, introductory sentence to the quote. Another solution is to use the ellipsis to signal that you have cut part of the quote out:

Identity formation in the clinical environment is also influenced by materials and tools, ‘all this stuff you’ve never used before … you don’t know where it is or how to use it, and don’t even get me started on the computerized record. … So many hours and I’m still confused, am I ever going to know where to enter things?’ (S7) .

The first ellipsis signals that something mid-sentence has been removed. In this case, this missing material was an elaboration of ‘all this stuff’ that mentioned other details not relevant to the point being made. The second ellipsis follows a period, and therefore signals that at least one sentence has been removed and perhaps more. When using an ellipsis, only remove material that is irrelevant to the meaning of the quote, not relevant material that importantly nuances the meaning of the quote. The goal is not a bricolage which cuts and pastes tiny bits so that participants say what you want them to; it is a succinct-enough representation that remains faithful to the participant’s intended meaning.

Changing the wording of a quotation always risks violating the authenticity principle, so writers must do it thoughtfully. Two other situations, however, may call for this approach: to maintain the grammatical integrity of your sentence and to tidy up oral speech Footnote 1 . The first is usually not problematic, particularly if you are altering for consistent tense or for agreement of verb and subject or pronoun and antecedent, or replacing a pronoun with its referent. Square brackets signal such changes:

Participants from the community hospital setting, however, ‘[challenged] the assumption of anonymity when evaluating teachers’. (verb tense changed from present to past)

The second situation can be trickier: when should you tidy up the messiness of conversational discourse? Interview transcripts are replete with what linguists refer to as ‘fillers’ or ‘hesitation markers’, sounds and words such as ‘ah/uh/um/like/you know/right’ [ 1 ]. There is general agreement among qualitative scholars that quotes should be presented verbatim as much as possible, and those engaged in discourse and narrative analysis will necessarily analyze such hesitations as part of the meaning. In other applied social research methodologies, however, writers might do some ‘light tidying up’ both for readability and for ethical reasons, as long as they do not undermine authenticity in doing so [ 2 ]. Ethical issues include the desire not to do a disservice to participants by representing the um’s and ah’s of their natural speech, and the concern to protect participant anonymity by removing identifiable linguistic features such as regional or accented speech.

Finally, an emerging strategy for succinctness is to put the quotes into a table. Many qualitative researchers resent the constraints of the table format as an incursion from the quantitative realm. However, used thoughtfully, it can offer a means of presenting complex results efficiently. In this example, Goldszmidt et al. name, define and illustrate five main types of supervisor interruptions that they observed during their study of case review on internal medicine teaching teams (Tab.  1 ; [ 3 ]).

This is a nice example of how ‘Tab.  1 ’, conventionally used in quantitative research papers for demographic details of the research sample, can be re-conceptualized to feature the key findings from a qualitative analysis. Tables should be supplemented, however, with narrative explanation in which the writer contextualizes and interprets the quoted material. More on this in the section on Argument.

Is the quote representative?

We have all been tempted to include the highly provocative quote (that thing we cannot believe someone said on tape), only to realize by the third draft that it misrepresents the data and must be relinquished. Quote selection should reflect strong patterns in the data; while discrepant examples serve an important purpose, their use should be purposeful and explicit. Your quote selection should also be distributed across participants, in order that you represent the data set. This may mean using the second- or third-best example rather than continuing to quote the same one or two highly articulate individuals.

You must provide sufficient context that readers can accurately infer the meaning of the quote. Sometimes this means including the interviewer’s question as well as the participant’s answer. In focus group research, where the emphasis is on the group discussion, it might be necessary to quote an exchange among participants rather than extracting individual comments. This example illustrates this technique:

Interviewer: And, in your experience, how do the students respond to your feedback about how well they communicated? SP1: Oh, really well, it’s really important to the students, they listen to what we say about their performance— Interruption with overlapping talk SP4: Well, yeah, on a good day maybe, sure. But not every time. Lots of sessions I feel like we’re probably more like props to them, so how well we think they did, I’m not sure that matters. SP3: Don’t you find it depends on the student? (FG2)

Of course, such a long excerpt threatens the goal of succinctness. Alternatively, you could use multiple quotes from this excerpt in a single sentence of your own:

Some standardized patients in the group believed that their assessor role was ‘really important to the students, they listen to what we say about their performance’, while others argued that ‘we’re probably more like props to them, so how well we think they did, I’m not sure that matters’. (FG2)

Sometimes a quote is representative but also, therefore, identifiable, jeopardizing confidentiality:

One participant explained that, ‘as chair of the competency committee, I prioritize how we spend our time. So that we can pay sufficient attention to this 2nd year resident. She’s supposed to be back from maternity leave but she had complications so her rotations need some altering for her to manage.’ (CCC4, P2)

In this case, the convention of using a legend (Clinical Competency Committee 4, participant 2) to attribute the quote may be insufficient to protect anonymity. If the study involves few programs and the methods identify them (e.g., Paediatrics and Medicine) and name the institution (e.g., Western University), the speaker may be identifiable to some readers, as may the resident.

Quoted material does not stand on its own: we must incorporate it into our texts, both grammatically and rhetorically. Grammatical incorporation is relatively straightforward, with one main rule to keep in mind: quoted material is subject to the same sentence-level conventions for grammar and punctuation as non-quoted material. Read this example aloud:

Arts and humanities teaching offers an opportunity for faculty to connect with medical students on a different level, ‘we can share how we feel about the work of caring, what it costs us, how it rewards us, as human beings’ (F9).

Your ear likely hears that this should be two sentences. But quotation marks seem to distract us from this, and we create a run-on sentence by putting a comma between the sentences. An easy correction is to replace the comma with a colon.

Arts and humanities teaching offers an opportunity for faculty to connect with medical students on a different level: ‘we can share how we feel about the work of caring, what it costs us, how it rewards us, as human beings’ (F9).

Many writers rely on the colon as their default mechanism for integrating quoted material. However, while it is often grammatically accurate, it is not always rhetorically sufficient. That is, the colon doesn’t contextualize, it doesn’t interpret. Instead, it ‘drops’ the quote in and leaves the reader to infer how the quoted material illustrates or advances the argument. This is problematic because it does not fulfil the requirement for adequacy of interpretation in presenting qualitative results. As Morrow argues, writers should aim for a balance of their interpretations and supporting quotations: ‘an overemphasis on the researcher’s interpretations at the cost of participant quotes will leave the reader in doubt as to just where the interpretations came from; an excess of quotes will cause the reader to become lost in the morass of stories’ [ 4 ]. (p. 256).

There are many techniques for achieving this balance between researcher interpretations and supporting quotations. Some techniques retain the default colon but attend carefully to the material that precedes it. Consider the following examples:

One clinician said: ‘Entrustment isn’t a decision, it’s a relationship’. (F21) One clinician argued: ‘Entrustment isn’t a decision, it’s a relationship’. (F21) One clinician in the focus group disagreed with the idea that entrustment was about deciding trainee progress: ‘Entrustment isn’t a decision, it’s a relationship’. (F21) Focus group participants debated the meaning of entrustment. Many described it matter-of-factly as ‘the process we use to decide whether the trainee should progress’, while a few argued that ‘entrustment isn’t a decision, it’s a relationship’. (F21)

These examples offer progressively more contextualization for the quote. The first example simply drops the quote in following the nondescript verb, ‘said’, offering no interpretive gloss and therefore exerting minimal rhetorical control over the reader. The second offers some context via the verb ‘argued’, which interprets the participant’s positioning or tone. The third interprets the meaning of the quote even more by situating it in the context of a focus group debate. And the fourth eschews the default colon entirely, integrating two quotes into the narrative structure of the author’s sentence to illustrate the dominant and the discrepant positions on entrustment in this focus group debate.

Integrating quotes into the narrative structure of your sentence, like the last example, offers two advantages to the writer. First, it interprets the quote for the reader and therefore exerts strong rhetorical control over the quote’s meaning. Second, it offers variety and style. If your goal is compelling prose, variety and style should not be underestimated. We have all had the experience of reading Results sections that proceed robotically: point-colon-quote, point-colon-quote, point-colon-quote …. If only to make the reader’s experience more enjoyable, your revision process should involve converting some of these to integrated narration.

Notwithstanding the goal of succinctness, sometimes you will include a longer quote because it beautifully illustrates the point. However, a long quote may offer opportunities for readers to focus on images or phrases other than those you intended, therefore creating incoherence in the argument you are making about your results. To guard against this, you might try the ‘quotation sandwich’ technique [ 5 ] of both an introductory phrase that sets up the context of the quote and a summary statement following it emphasizing why you consider it important and what you are using it to illustrate.

Finally, how many quotes do you need to support your point? More is not necessarily better. One quote should be sufficient to illustrate your point. Some points in your argument may not require a quoted excerpt at all. Consider this example, in which the first sentence presents a finding that is not illustrated with a quotation:

Residents described themselves as being always tired. However, their perceptions of the impact of their fatigue varied, from ‘not a factor in the care I provide’ (R8) to ‘absolutely killing me … I’m falling asleep at the bedside’ (R15).

The finding that residents are always tired does not require illustration. It is readily understandable and will not surprise anyone; therefore, following it with the quote ‘I’m tired all the time’ (R2) will feel redundant. The second part of the finding, however, benefits from illustration to show the variety of perception regarding impact.

If you do use multiple quotes to illustrate a point in your argument, then you must establish the relations between them for the reader. You can do this between the quoted excerpts or after them, as modelled above with the four examples used to illustrate progressively stronger quote contextualization.

In conclusion, quotes can be the life’s blood of your qualitative research paper. However, they are the evidence, not the argument. They do not speak for themselves and readers cannot infer what you intend them to illustrate. The authenticity principle can help you select a quote that is illustrative, succinct and representative, while the argument principle can remind you to attend to the grammatical and the rhetorical aspects of integrating the quote into the story you are telling about your research.

A third situation is beyond the scope of this piece: translating quoted material from another language into English. For careful consideration of this issue, please see Helmich et al. [ 6 ].

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Lingard, L. Beyond the default colon: Effective use of quotes in qualitative research. Perspect Med Educ 8 , 360–364 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-019-00550-7

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Issue Date : December 2019

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-019-00550-7

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[Guide] How to Present Qualitative Research Findings in PowerPoint?

By: Author Shrot Katewa

As a researcher, it is quite pointless to do the research if we are unable to share the findings with our audience appropriately! Using PowerPoint is one of the best ways to present research outcomes. But, how does one present qualitative research findings using PowerPoint?

In order to present the qualitative research findings using PowerPoint, you need to create a robust structure for your presentation, make it engaging and visually appealing, present the patterns with explanations for it and highlight the conclusion of your research findings.

In this article, we will help you understand the structure of your presentation. Plus, we’ll share some handy tips that will make your qualitative research presentation really effective!

How to Create a Structure for your Qualitative Research Presentation?

Creating the right structure for your presentation is key to ensuring that it is correctly understood by your audience.

The structure of your Research Presentation not only makes it easier for you to create the document, it also makes it simple for the audience to understand what all will be covered in the presentation at the time of presenting it to your audience.

Furthermore, having a robust structure is a great way to ensure that you don’t miss out on any of the points while working on creating the presentation.

But, what structure should one follow?

Creating a good structure can be tricky for some. Thus, I’m sharing what has worked well for me during my previous research projects.

NOTE – It is important to note that although the following structure is highly effective for most research findings presentation, it has been generalized in order to serve a wide range of research projects. You may want to take a look at points that are very specific to the nature of your research project and include them at your discretion.

Here’s my recommended structure to create your Research Findings presentation –

1. Objective of the Research

A great way to start your presentation is to highlight the objective of your research project.

It is important to remember that merely sharing the objective may sometimes not be enough. A short backstory along with the purpose of your research project can pack a powerful punch ! It not only validates the reasoning for your project but also subtly establishes trust with your audience.

However, do make sure that you’re not reading the backstory from the slide. Let it flow naturally when you are delivering the presentation. Keep the presentation as minimalistic as possible.

2. Key Parameters Considered for Measurement

Once you’ve established the objective, the next thing that you may want to do is perhaps share the key parameters considered for the success of your project.

Every research project, including qualitative research, needs to have a few key parameters to measure against the objective of the research.

For example – If the goal of your project is to gather the sentiments of a certain group of people for a particular product, you may need to measure their feelings. Are they happy or unhappy using the product? How do they perceive the branding of the product? Is it affordable?

Make sure that you list down all such key parameters that were considered while conducting the qualitative research.

In general, laying these out before sharing the outcome can help your audience think from your perspective and look at the findings from the correct lens.

3. Research Methodology Adopted

The next thing that you may want to include in your presentation is the methodology that you adopted for conducting the research.

By knowing your approach, the audience can be better prepared for the outcome of your project. Ensure that you provide sound reasoning for the chosen methodology.

This section of your presentation can also showcase some pictures of the research being conducted. If you have captured a video, include that. Doing this provides further validation of your project.

4. Research Outcomes (Presenting Descriptive Analysis)

This is the section that will constitute the bulk of the your presentation.

Use the slides in this section to describe the observations, and the resulting outcomes on each of the key parameters that were considered for the research project.

It is usually a good idea to dedicate at least 1 or more slides for each parameter . Make sure that you present data wherever possible. However, ensure that the data presented can be easily comprehended.

Provide key learnings from the data, highlight any outliers, and possible reasoning for it. Try not to go too in-depth with the stats as this can overwhelm the audience. Remember, a presentation is most helpful when it is used to provide key highlights of the research !

Apart from using the data, make sure that you also include a few quotes from the participants.

5. Summary and Learnings from the Research

Once you’ve taken the audience through the core part of your research findings, it is a good practice to summarize the key learnings from each of the section of your project.

Make sure your touch upon some of the key learnings covered in the research outcome of your presentation.

Furthermore, include any additional observations and key points that you may have had which were previously not covered.

The summary slide also often acts as “Key Takeaways” from the research for your audience. Thus, make sure that you maintain brevity and highlight only the points that you want your audience to remember even after the presentation.

6. Inclusions and Exclusions (if any)

While this can be an optional section for some of the researchers.

However, dedicating a section on inclusions and exclusions in your presentation can be a great value add! This section helps your audience understand the key factors that were excluded (or included) on purpose!

Moreover, it creates a sense of thoroughness in the minds of your audience.

7. Conclusion of the Research

The purpose of the conclusion slide of your research findings presentation is to revisit the objective, and present a conclusion.

A conclusion may simply validate or nullify the objective. It may sometimes do neither. Nevertheless, having a conclusion slide makes your presentation come a full circle. It creates this sense of completion in the minds of your audience.

8. Questions

Finally, since your audience did not spend as much time as you did on the research project, people are bound to have a few questions.

Thus, the last part of your presentation structure should be dedicated to allowing your audience to ask questions.

Tips for Effectively Presenting Qualitative Research Findings using PowerPoint

For a presentation to be effective, it is important that the presentation is not only well structured but also that it is well created and nicely delivered!

While we have already covered the structure, let me share with you some tips that you can help you create and deliver the presentation effectively.

Tip 1 – Use Visuals

Using visuals in your presentation is a great way to keep the presentations engaging!

Visual aids not only help make the presentation less boring, but it also helps your audience in retaining the information better!

So, use images and videos of the actual research wherever possible. If these do not suffice or do not give a professional feel, there are a number of resources online from where you can source royalty-free images.

My recommendation for high-quality royalty-free images would be either Unsplash or Pexels . Both are really good. The only downside is that they often do not provide the perfect image that can be used. That said, it can get the job done for at least half the time.

If you are unable to find the perfect free image, I recommend checking out Dreamstime . They have a huge library of images and are much cheaper than most of the other image banks. I personally use Dreamstime for my presentation projects!

Tip 2 – Tell a Story (Don’t Show Just Data!)

I cannot stress enough on how important it is to give your presentation a human touch. Delivering a presentation in the form of a story does just that! Furthermore, storytelling is also a great tool for visualization .

Data can be hard-hitting, whereas a touching story can tickle the emotions of your audience on various levels!

One of the best ways to present a story with your research project is to start with the backstory of the objective. We’ve already talked about this in the earlier part of this article.

Start with why is this research project is so important. Follow a story arc that provides an exciting experience of the beginning, the middle, and a progression towards a climax; much like a plot of a soap opera.

Tip 3 – Include Quotes of the Participants

Including quotes of the participants in your research findings presentation not only provides evidence but also demonstrates authenticity!

Quotes function as a platform to include the voice of the target group and provide a peek into the mindset of the target audience.

When using quotes, keep these things in mind –

1. Use Quotes in their Unedited Form

When using quotes in your presentation, make sure that you use them in their raw unedited form.

The need to edit quotes should be only restricted to aid comprehension and sometimes coherence.

Furthermore, when editing the quotes, make sure that you use brackets to insert clarifying words. The standard format for using the brackets is to use square brackets for clarifying words and normal brackets for adding a missing explanation.

2. How to Decide which Quotes to Consider?

It is important to know which quotes to include in your presentation. I use the following 3 criteria when selecting the quote –

• Relevance – Consider the quotes that are relevant, and trying to convey the point that you want to establish.
• Length – an ideal quote should be not more than 1-2 sentences long.
• Choose quotes that are well-expressed and striking in nature.

3. Preserve Identity of the Participant

It is important to preserve and protect the identity of the participant. This can be done by maintaining confidentiality and anonymity.

Thus, refrain from using the name of the participant. An alternative could be using codes, using pseudonyms (made up names) or simply using other general non-identifiable parameters.

Do note, when using pseudonyms, remember to highlight it in the presentation.

If, however, you do need to use the name of the respondent, make sure that the participant is okay with it and you have adequate permissions to use their name.

Tip 4 – Make your Presentation Visually Appealing and Engaging

It is quite obvious for most of us that we need to create a visually appealing presentation. But, making it pleasing to the eye can be a bit challenging.

Fortunately, we wrote a detailed blog post with tips on how to make your presentation attractive. It provides you with easy and effective tips that you can use even as a beginner! Make sure you check that article.

7 EASY tips that ALWAYS make your PPT presentation attractive (even for beginners)

In addition to the tips mentioned in the article, let me share a few things that you can do which are specific to research outcome presentations.

4.1 Use a Simple Color Scheme

Using the right colors are key to make a presentation look good.

One of the most common mistakes that people make is use too many colors in their presentation!

My recommendation would be to go with a monochromatic color scheme in PowerPoint .

4.2 Make the Data Tables Simple and Visually Appealing

When making a presentation on research outcomes, you are bound to present some data.

But, when data is not presented in a proper manner, it can easily and quickly make your presentation look displeasing! The video below can be a good starting point.

Using neat looking tables can simply transform the way your presentation looks. So don’t just dump the data from excel on your PowerPoint presentation. Spend a few minutes on fixing it!

4.3 Use Graphs and Charts (wherever necessary)

When presenting data, my recommendation would be that graphs and charts should be your first preference.

Using graphs or charts make it easier to read the data, takes less time for the audience to comprehend, and it also helps to identify a trend.

However, make sure that the correct chart type is used when representing the data. The last thing that you want is to poorly represent a key piece of information.

4.4 Use Icons instead of Bullet Points

Consider the following example –

This slide could have been created just as easily using bullet points. However, using icons and representing the information in a different format makes the slide pleasing on the eye.

Thus, always try to use icons wherever possible instead of bullet points.

Tip 5 – Include the Outliers

Many times, as a research project manager, we tend to focus on the trends extracted from a data set.

While it is important to identify patterns in the data and provide an adequate explanation for the pattern, it is equally important sometimes to highlight the outliers prominently.

It is easy to forget that there may be hidden learnings even in the outliers. At times, the data trend may be re-iterating the common wisdom. However, upon analyzing the outlier data points, you may get insight into how a few participants are doing things successfully despite not following the common knowledge.

That said, not every outlier will reveal hidden information. So, do verify what to include and what to exclude.

Tip 6 – Take Inspiration from other Presentations

I admit, making any presentation can be a tough ask let alone making a presentation for showcasing qualitative research findings. This is especially hard when we don’t have the necessary skills for creating a presentation.

One quick way to overcome this challenge could be take inspiration from other similar presentations that we may have liked.

There is no shame in being inspired from others. If you don’t have any handy references, you can surely Google it to find a few examples.

One trick that almost always works for me is using Pinterest .

But, don’t just directly search for a research presentation. You will have little to no success with it. The key is to look for specific examples for inspiration. For eg. search for Title Slide examples, or Image Layout Examples in Presentation.

Tip 7 – Ask Others to Critic your Presentation

The last tip that I would want to provide is to make sure that you share the presentation with supportive colleagues or mentors to attain feedback.

This step can be critical to iron out the chinks in the armor. As research project manager, it is common for you to get a bit too involved with the project. This can lead to possibilities wherein you miss out on things.

A good way to overcome this challenge is to get a fresh perspective on your project and the presentation once it has been prepared.

Taking critical feedback before your final presentation can also prepare you to handle tough questions in an adept manner.

Final Thoughts

It is quite important to ensure that we get it right when working on a presentation that showcases the findings of our research project. After all, we don’t want to be in a situation wherein we put in all the hard-work in the project, but we fail to deliver the outcome appropriately.

I hope you will find the aforementioned tips and structure useful, and if you do, make sure that you bookmark this page and spread the word. Wishing you all the very best for your project!