Wordcraft: Applied Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA):

Book excerpt: Wordcraft: Applied Qualitative Data Analysis: Tools for Public and Voluntary Social Services is a practical text that helps students and social service personnel better evaluate agency programmes through the use of various qualitative documents which most agencies currently have readily available. In order to fully evaluate an agency programme, qualitative and quantitative methods should be considered. Agencies have a wealth of data in narrative and textual format which also must be evaluated in order to gain a complete picture of the agency's performance. These documents include case intake forms, exit summaries, social histories, case progress notes, and more. This book aims to provide a straight forward guide to performing meaningful qualitative analysis, in a step-by-step approach. The second half of the book contains actual case illustrations of the various methods with actual published articles from SAGE journals. Each case will contain margin notes, introductory remarks, and a complete discussion following the case.