At first I went through all of my field notes and Grace's summary of interviews, highlighting parts that seemed to relate to the framework and my research focus. I began to think about how bits of highlighted information related to each other, and started to add headings to categorize the information.

I sorted the highlighted bits according to the headings I'd made, then resorted and adjusted headings. Meanwhile, I re-read materials that had helped me identify a framework for understanding power. I revised my understanding of the readings, based on the information I'd analyzed. I re-sorted information and reviewed the tape recording transcripts, as a check against my field notes. As I wrote about my learnings, I continued to go back and forth between my information, the readings, and my writing. Gradually I built an understanding about my attempts to share power with the conference committee. I reviewed my research report with committee members and incorporated their elaborations into a revision. (pp. 167-168)

In the next example, Fay Holt Begg (2002) describes how she analyzed her notes in her study about a particular tutoring approach:

To analyze my volumes of notes, I first read through them to find similarities, so findings could be sorted in categories. Then, thanking the technology gods for my computer, I grouped paragraphs on the same topics together. Classifications included progress indicators, skills taught, learning theory, phonics information, Carol's thoughts, my thoughts, and questions. Sorting the information made it possible to see accomplishments more clearly; it also helped me realize that I still had plenty of questions. I could see that there were times in our work together where I had no idea what Carol was thinking, and we spent quite a bit of time going over the notes together. I discovered that she was not used to "thinking about thinking" and needed time to reflect. We repeated this review process three times, as I found more questions from the new information Carol provided. I then added further reflections about both the tutoring and the research process. (p. 5)

Rebecca Still (2002) used her data collection questions as general categories, then searched her transcripts for key ideas to include in each category:

The interviews were transcribed and analyzed. I grouped the information for each participant into three or four themes based on the interview questions. The groupings were purpose of reading, concepts and views of readers, tasks/strategies of reading and for the tutors, supporting reading. I read through the transcripts and noted concepts which corresponded with the categories. In order to compare tutors and students' responses, I organized responses for each pair into a chart with tutors' responses in one column and students' responses in another. The interviews also provided background knowledge about tutors' and students' early learning experiences. I then interviewed each participant a second time to clarify certain aspects of the first interview.