Quotes are where a reader meets your participants. A findings chapter can describe a theme carefully and still feel thin until the right quote arrives and shows what the theme means. Choosing those quotes, and deciding how much to tidy them, are small decisions that add up to a lot of the chapter's credibility.
This article covers both: how to choose illustrative quotes, and how to refine them for presentation while keeping the verbatim record intact. The examples come from the Working Well sample data, one of the sample studies in the Themescape demo, which is made up and contains no real participants.
Illustrative and analytic uses of a quote
Braun and Clarke describe data extracts being used in two ways in a write up (Braun & Clarke, 2022). Used illustratively, a quote shows the reader an example of the pattern the theme describes, and the analysis sits around it. Used analytically, the quote itself becomes the object of interpretation, and the researcher works through what it says and how.
Most findings chapters use both. Knowing which you are doing helps you choose. An illustrative quote needs to be clear and representative. An analytic quote needs to be rich enough to bear close reading, and may be longer.
Rate quotes as you go
Choosing quotes is part of writing up, but it is much easier if you have been noting strong examples all along. A simple rating is enough. The Themescape template has an illustrativeness column that takes a number from 1 to 5, and the viewer orders the quotes within each code by it, highest first.
Rating as you code or review also tells you something about the analysis. A code with no quote above a 2 may need another look. A theme where every strong quote comes from the same participant may be narrower than it seems.
Alongside the rating, the preferred column marks your favourite quotes. In the viewer these are starred in Work mode, and they rise to the top of their code in the reader. Present mode features up to three favourites for each code.
What makes a quote illustrative
An illustrative quote captures the central idea of its theme or code clearly, in the participant's own words, and makes sense on its own. It is often vivid, though vividness alone is not enough: a striking quote that sits at the edge of a theme can mislead a reader about its centre.
Take the code Missing Office Chatter in the Working Well data, defined as the loss of informal, unscheduled contact and its incidental value. Two quotes sit under it. P02 says: "It is the small talk by the kettle I miss most." P05 says: "Everything is scheduled now; you cannot just turn and ask a quick thing." Both fit. The first is warmer and more concrete; the second names the loss of the unscheduled more directly. Which to use depends on the point the paragraph is making, and a chapter might use one in the text and the other in a table.
Drawing quotes from across participants matters too. A theme illustrated by the same one or two voices reads as their story rather than a pattern across the dataset, even when it is not.
Verbatim and refined
Spoken language transcribed word for word is full of false starts, repetitions and fillers. That is what makes a transcript an honest record, and also what makes a raw quote hard to read on a slide or in a thesis. Many researchers tidy quotes for presentation. The question is how to do it without losing the record.
The answer is to keep two versions. The verbatim quote is the evidence, exactly as transcribed. The refined quote is the version you present. In the Themescape template they sit in separate columns of the same row, quote and refined_quote, so the two stay paired. The template's own example shows the idea: the verbatim "I open my laptop before breakfast and the day just bleeds into the evening." sits beside the refined "The day bleeds into the evening."
Verbatim quotes are never altered, with a separate refined column for presentation wording. Themescape never edits the quote column, in the viewer or in any export. Where a row has refined wording, the viewer shows it in the reader and in Present mode, and search looks through the wording on screen. Rows without refined wording show the verbatim.
How much to tidy
How much to change a quote is a methodological decision, and different traditions answer it differently. Some researchers keep quotes fully verbatim, hesitations and all, because the way something is said is part of what it means. Others remove fillers and false starts but change nothing else. Many mark omissions with an ellipsis and any words added for clarity with square brackets.
Whatever you choose, three principles hold. Do not change the meaning. Do not tidy a participant into an eloquence that is not theirs. And say what you did: a sentence in the method section describing your convention lets a reader trust every quote in the chapter.
Refined wording is also a good place to make quotes safe to share. A name, a workplace or an unusual detail inside a quote can identify someone even when the participant has a pseudonym, and the refined version can remove or generalise it, marked with square brackets, while the verbatim stays in your file.
A short routine
- Rate quotes from 1 to 5 as you code or review, and star your favourites.
- For each theme, choose quotes that capture its central idea, from more than one participant.
- Write refined wording only for the quotes you will present, in the refined_quote column.
- Check every presented quote for identifying details.
- Describe your tidying convention in the method section.
Further reading
- Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2013). Successful qualitative research: A practical guide for beginners. SAGE.
- Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2022). Thematic analysis: A practical guide. SAGE.
Charlotte Price is the founder of Themescape.
