Step 2: Write Margin Notes

Margin notes are a useful and foundational analytic tool that can be viewed as a dialogue with yourself about the data you are reading. You might think of margin notes as “scribbles” or “jottings” that will lay an analytic foundation for topics or themes of interest during the later phases of your analysis.

Types of margin notes will vary from project to project but may include

• Your/the researcher’s relationship with participants
• Second thoughts about what a participant was “really” saying
• Doubts about data quality
• A new hypothesis that might explain a puzzling observation
• A mental note to pursue an issue further

On the next page you will see examples of margin notes from another transcript of a focus group conducted with HIV positive women in Brooklynville.