How can I use Memos?

How can I use Memos?

Create memos to write down your notes, ideas, and analytic insights, and organize your memos in groups from the Memo Manager.

Memos are crucial for your qualitative data analysis and provide a number of benefits. They offer a perfect way to capture your findings and draw conclusions throughout your entire analysis process. We also encourage you to use memos for your personal diary that accompanies you throughout your ATLAS.ti journey. Moreover, you use memos to keep an audit trail of your analytic decisions and emerging inferences alongside the relevant segments from your data. In addition to offering a space for you to write, you can insert any quotations (i.e., segments of data) from your project into a memo, so that you can easily develop and keep track of your emerging inferences.

Three great ways to use memos:

Define and adjust your data analysis goals
Keep track of your analysis process
Capture findings and conclusion

To create a new memo:

Go to the Memo Manager (click on the memo icon in the left-hand menu)
Click on “New memo” button in the upper-right corner
Name your memo
Start writing your memo

To delete a memo:

Select the memo(s) you want to delete by ticking the box to the left of each memo name
Click on the three dots at the bottom of the screen and then select Delete

Insert segments of data

As you read through your data and code relevant segments, you can bring your findings together in a code distribution views. Then, open up a memo to write out your thoughts, critical reflections, and emerging inferences. As you write, you can easily bring in any quotations from any of your code distribution reports, so you have data that supports or illustrates your analyses all in one place.

To insert quotations into a memo:

Make sure you have created a code distribution views to gather together relevant quotations
Open a memo, and click on the "+" button that appears when you click anywhere in the memo to type
Select the option "Insert quotation"
Go to views that contains your quotation(s) of interest
Scroll through the list of quotations and/or press ctrl+F to search for any text and tick the boxes located to the left of each quotation that you would like inserted (you can insert as many quotations as you would like)
Click the "Add quotation(s)" button

Now you have the full original quotation inserted in your memo, along with the name of the document from which that quotation comes. You can thus write out your analyses or draft your findings and insert relevant or illustrative quotations right there so you can easily see everything in one place.

Describe the purpose and/or contents of each memo

Each individual memo has its own comment space, and you can use this space to write additional information about that particular memo. For example, you can take advantage of the comment space to describe each memo (i.e., to note down the purpose or content of that memo).

To write (and edit) memo comments:

Go to the Memo Manager (click on the memo icon in the left-hand menu)
Click on Details to open the side bar
Click in the comment space (i.e., the space for text below the name of the memo) and begin writing

Organize your memos

To facilitate your analysis, you can create groups to organize your memos. You can create as many groups as you want, and any single memo can belong to more than one group, so that you can organize the pieces of your project in whatever way suits you (and your project goals) best. Take advantage of groups to filter your analysis and easily compare trends across groups.

To create memo groups:

Go to the Memos Manager (click on the memo icon in the left-hand menu)
Click on Details to open the side bar
To delete or edit the name a group, click on the gear cog icon "Manage Groups"

To add a memo to a group: If you have already created the group, simply select it from the list that appears.
To add multiple memos to a group, select them by ticking the boxes to the left of memo then click the three dots at the bottom of the screen, select 'Add to group,' and choose the desired group