Spradley (in Ryan and Bernard, 2003) recorded conversations among tramps at informal gatherings, meals, card games, and bull sessions. As the men talked to each other about their experiences, there were many references to making a flop. Spradley combed through his recorded material and notes looking for verbatim statements made by informants about his topic. On analyzing the statements, he found that most of the statements could fit into subcategories such as kinds of flops, ways to make flops, ways to make your own flop, kinds of people who bother you when you flop, ways to make a bed, and kinds of beds. Spradley then returned to his informants and sought additional information from them on each of the subcategories.

The coordinator made an announcement, “Only the first 100 applicants will be interviewed today. The others would have to come back tomorrow.”

One way to identify new themes is to examine any text that is not already associated with a theme.

“One area of this research is to record particular challenges that cancer patients face after chemotherapy. Could you tell me your experience?”

Much can be learned from a text by what is not mentioned.

Bisogni, et. al. (2005) studied the conceptual understanding of how management of food and eating is linked to life course events and experiences. Individual qualitative interviews were conducting to adults in upstate New York, particularly 14 men and 11 women with moderate to low incomes. A conceptual model of food choice capacity emerged. Food choice capacity represented participants' confidence in meeting their standards for food and eating given their food management skills and circumstances. Most participants had faced challenging and changing circumstances (income, employment, social support, roles, health conditions). Participants linked strong food management skills with high levels of food choice capacity, except in the case of extreme financial circumstances or the absence of strong standards.

The research assistant wrote an anonymous name in the list.

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