Formatting page numbers in Word 2008

You might be writing a document (a dissertation, a thesis, a book) that requires different types of page numbers for different sections.  In dissertations, for example, you want the first three pages (Title page, Signature page, Abstract page) to have NO page numbers, then you want the fourth page (Table of contents) to have Roman numerals, and you want to have Arabic numerals (1,2, 3…) for the main body of your manuscript.  Here’s how you do this in Word 2008 for Mac.

Insert section breaks (specifically, “NEXT PAGE” section breaks) in between the types of pages.  Using the example of the dissertation above, insert a section break after the text on the abstract page, and again after the text of the table of contents.

Now switch off the default settings linking the sections.  Start from the last section and work your way back to the start of the document.  For example, in the body of your dissertation document, double-click in the footer area to show/open it.  (Alternately, use View->Header and Footer.)  The Header/Footer should be activated now.

Now go to View and click Formatting Palette.  This will activate a new pop up window with options for formatting different parts of your document, including the header and footer area.  Click on the Header and Footer section of the pop-up Formatting Palette to see the options.  Now DESELECT the checkbox that says “Link to previous.”  (This is the heart of all the page number/section formatting problems you’re likely to encounter.)  Use the “Go To” buttons to navigate to the headers and footers of the other sections and make sure to DESELECT this check box again such that the headers/footers of the separate sections are no longer linked to one another.  (It’s fine for them to be linked within a section, but not across sections, if you see what I mean.)

You can now insert page numbers of different sorts into the different sections, or you can have some sections with no page numbers at all.

This sort of formatting is easy once you know how to do it, but it’s not very intuitive, and those default settings can really throw a wrench in the works.

And now back to dissertating.

PARC blog posts on ethnography in industry

Here are two interesting and thought-provoking blog posts on ethnography in industry from the folks over at PARC.

The first one speaks to some of the ways in which private industry can utilize and benefit from ethnographic research.  The second one provides an overview of some of the methods that ethnographers use to collect data.

i-conference 2011

The next i-conference will be held in Seattle, WA from February 8-11, 2011.  It is being hosted by the University of Washington’s Information School (aka i-school).  Go team!

The conference blurb says:

“The iConference is an annual gathering of researchers and professionals from around the world who share the common goal of making a difference through the study of people, information, and technology. …we seek to showcase diversity in research interests and approaches, with an eye to demonstrating how the field creates leadership and impact on a global scale.”

Should be a fun and productive event.  See you there!

Coding Analysis Toolkit (CAT)

Today I attended a data collection + analysis workshop led by UMass Amherst professor Stuart Shulman.  The workshop focused on two web-based tools developed by Dr. Shulman – an old one (CAT) and a new one (Discover Text).

Here’s a thumbnail sketch of CAT and some of its potential uses.

Coding Analysis Toolkit (CAT)

CAT is a web-based system into which you can upload text files for team-based qualitative analysis.  It is intended primarily for Atlas.ti users who are working on collaborative projects involving a number of coders.  The idea is that you upload your Atlas.ti HUs (“hermeneutic units,” which is just a complicated name for “projects”) into CAT, and then run reliability tests on your coders’ work.  CAT users are probably asking questions like these:

• Is there consistency in how my project’s coders are labeling, categorizing, or otherwise coding particular data?
• Is there consistency across codes?
• Is there consistency across coded excerpts?
• What are the codes or excerpts for which there is strong pattern of disagreement?

If you do not have Atlas.ti data, but are looking for a platform for team/collaborative coding, CAT could also be useful to you.  The key thing here is that CAT is well suited to quickly coding very large batches of texts that are short and highly consistent.

Let me explain.

In a program like Atlas.ti you highlight and code small bits of text (for example, a word, sentence, paragraph, exchange, etc.) that are contained within a larger piece of text (such as an interview, an interaction transcript, an article or news story, etc.)  You are constantly highlighting and “tagging” contextualized data.  You are also able to see visual representations of the codes present in whichever file you are working on.

CAT, on the other hand, seeks to do away with the clicks and drags of selecting, highlighting, and tagging data with your keyboard and mouse.  Instead, CAT allows you to import broken up (or “demarcated”) data, which then gets separated into “pages” on the UI.  That is, instead of seeing one long interview transcript on the screen, I see just the first paragraph on the UI.  In one open field I type in a code (or multiple codes) for that paragraph.  Alternately, I can select a code from my list.  Once this paragraph is coded, I do a simple click to get to the next paragraph.  Again, instead of seeing the whole interview (or article, or transcript, etc.) I just see one piece of it at a time.  It’s like flipping through a book in which each “page” is a small piece of data.

This sort of approach would be well suited to examining archives of Twitter posts, or Facebook status updates, memos, interviews – any type of texts that are limited in size OR can easily be broken up into smaller pieces, and which have a consistent format.

As you can imagine, this would probably not be the ideal tool for you if you needed or wanted to keep your data embedded in its larger context as you were analyzing it.  CAT seems to be less suited to fine-grained analysis than Atlas.ti or other similar programs, but I can certainly see how it would be useful for doing concerted, rapid, first-run group analyses of very large data sets.

Using CAT is free, but you do need to create accounts for yourself as well as your coders.  You can also assign the coders on your project various permissions.

For more, see this introduction and this overview.

Next post:  Discover Text

Transcription services

If anyone is looking for fast and reliable transcribers who charge affordable rates, please contact me — I have a couple of transcribers to recommend.

In the meantime, has anyone tried using callgraph.biz‘s transcription services?  Any reports and/or reviews would be greatly appreciated.