Analytic Memos: Keep the Reasoning Behind the Codes

What Is an Analytic Memo?

An analytic memo is a short, dated note written during analysis. It records what you noticed, why you coded or compared as you did, what you are unsure about, and what you plan to check. Birks, Chapman and Francis describe memoing as helping a researcher move from raw data to the abstractions that explain a phenomenon, and note that, although often linked to grounded theory, it is useful in qualitative methodologies generally. They also stress that it remains flexible and depends on the researcher and the study.

A memo is not a summary of an interview and not a finding. It is the working note between an excerpt and a claim.

Decision This Supports

Memos support the decision to stand behind a claim. When a commissioner asks "where does this finding come from?", the memo trail lets you answer with excerpts, the code applied, the reasoning, and the cases that did not fit. They also make it possible for a second analyst, or a reviewer, to disagree with specifics rather than with an impression.

Before You Start

• A way to give each excerpt an ID (for example, interview number and segment number) so a memo can cite it.
• A simple place to keep memos with dates and a link to the codebook version in use. See qualitative codebook.
• A rule that memos with identifiable details are stored under the project's data management controls.

Kinds of Memo

A Small Worked Example

This example is fictional. The excerpts come from a made-up interview set about leaving an evening learning program.

• Excerpt E1 (P1): "The circle starts at 6. My shift at the market ends at 6. By the time I arrive they are on the second exercise and I feel behind."
• Excerpt E3 (P3): "My sister watches the children until 5:30. After that I have to take them with me, and the room is not for children."
• Memo M1 (dated): "E1 and E3 both describe a gap between work or care end-times and the 6:00 start. Possibly one pattern: the window around 5:30 to 6:00. Question: does feeling behind (E1) matter as much as being late? Check E2, where the person arrives late and stays. Not yet a claim."

Later, after reading E2, a second memo records the doubt: late arrival does not by itself lead to leaving. The claim that follows from the trail is narrower than the one the first memo hinted at. That narrowing is the value of the memo.

Limits and Cautions

• A memo is the analyst's interpretation at one moment. Keep it, but date it, and do not edit it to look more certain afterward.
• Memos are not evidence of the claim by themselves. The excerpts are the evidence; the memos show the reasoning.
• Memos can contain sensitive reflections. Decide who may read them.
• A tool that drafts memos does not do the interpretive work. See checking AI-assisted qualitative coding.
• Not every approach treats memoing the same way. Grounded theory makes it central; framework analysis uses it more lightly. State what you did.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Long Should a Memo Be?

Long enough to carry the reasoning, often a few sentences to a short paragraph. If a memo cannot be understood by a colleague a month later, add the excerpt IDs and the question you were asking.

Do Memos Go in the Report?

Not usually in full. Summarize the trail in the methods section and keep the memos available for review, subject to confidentiality. See the worked case from interview notes to findings.