Michael C. Gizzi from Illinois State University and a Certified MAXQDA Trainer spoke at MAXDAYS 2025 about working with summaries. I just watched earlier today a session with Gizzi about the use of AI Assist for literature reviews with MAXQDA. Gizzi said that there are four ways to summarize data: paraphrasing, code comments, summary tables (coded segments summarized using the Summary Grid), and document and code summary memos. Gizzi noted that there are several summarization tools in MAXQDA: documents in document memos, coded segments, summary grid… Gizzi demonstrated how you can highlight text, summarize it, save the summary. AI Assist can be used to summarize the highlighted text. Gizzi uses AI Assist and then edits that summary. Gizzi explained that AI Assist summaries can be copied into notes and memos. Coded segments with summaries turn green. Gizzi explained that this helps create a summary table. I can see the value of writing summaries of coded segments and using AI Assist with specific prompts. The tables, Gizzi noted, can be sent to a QTT worksheet for reports and analyses. Summaries and codes can then be visualized as code maps. Summaries can also be exported in different formats.
