Link memos and hashtags

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Using memos and hashtags

Memos

Qualitative coding usually involves making notes and memos, and you can do this in Causal Map too.

This toggle opens both additional statement info, i.e. info for any fields which start with #, for example you might have a field #gender in your statements table, and also shows the boxes to edit the memos. (In this example, there is no additional information.)

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Link hashtags

There is no need to actually use a hash # at the start of a link hashtag, though you can if you want. Just use any unique single word which is easy to search and filter on, like #nutrition or nutrition# or nutrition–.

Link hashtags are available as a special kind of memo when coding a link: you can use them to provide any kind of additional information.

As usual in Causal Map, you can apply one or more hashtags, and you can either select existing hashtags or create new ones on the fly.

Later, you can filter the map to show only links containing or beginning or ending with specific hashtags (or parts of hashtags), and also for links which do not contain specific hashtags or parts of hashtags.

Conceptually, there are two kinds:

Ordinary link hashtags

You can use any hashtag which does not begin with a ? to record any other information about the link, e.g.:

• respondent doesn’t like this connection
• respondent feels good about the outcome
• for you, the analyst, e.g.
  • respondent is answering a different question
  • to tag links you want to come back and review.

🧪Weak hashtags

Weak hashtags are a special kind of hashtag aka link hashtag. They are caveats. If you use weak hashtags, you should make sure that by default your maps do not include any link with a weak hashtag.

They begin with ? and are used to mark any link which you are not sure is always valid across the global context for the whole global map, for example:

• the causal connection is only valid for a specific context, e.g.

  • the respondent says this is only true for their village, not for other villages e.g. ?village X
  • a link is only projected for the future e.g. ?future

• you are unsure about the claim about the causal connection

  • a link is only a hypothesis e.g. ?hypothetical

  • you as the analyst are not confident in the claim e.g. ?doubtful

  • the source themselves are not sure e.g. ?source seems unsure

  • to add other qualifying information e.g. ?probably hearsay

  • to mark the fact that a connection is weak or non-existent, e.g.

    • Respondent makes a substantive claim that X does not influence Y, e.g. ?zero influence
    • Respondent makes a substantive claim that X only insignificantly influences Y, e.g. ?weak

Weak hashtags in quickfields.

If you are using quickfields for (some of) your link hashtags, you can usually put the ? at the start of the hashtag as normal:

?context:village-A

?context:village-B

However the “weakness” only applies to one of the values of the quickfield, in which case we recommend the following kind of format, in which the ? comes before the second part of the hashtag:

strength:?none

strength:strong

or

confidence:?low

confidence:high

This makes sense because in your default maps you would only want to exclude one, not both, of each of the pairs in these examples.