Today I watched the MAXDAYS 2025 session titled “Making Use of Word-Based Features in Your Research.” Michael Gizzi from Illinois State University and Certified MAXQDA Trainer presented. Gizzi noted that there are numerous word-based analysis tools in MAXQDA: text search, autocode, word explorer, word frequencies, word combinations, keywords in context, interactive word tree, and dictionary-based content analysis. Gizzi searched for a keyword in documents and several features available. For autocoding, Gizzi suggested coding the entire paragraph. Word Explorer allows a user to find exactly which documents and memos have that keyword. World Explorer can search for words and take into consideration case sensitivity or just search for starting letters. MAXQDA can also search for different types of words: you can obtain word frequencies for different types of words (nouns, adjectives, verbs…). Results can be visualized with word clouds. You can then click on individual words and autocode the segments. Gizzi also demonstrated how you can click on words in your word cloud and right-click to include in the stop list. Word clouds can be accessed and edited through a variety of tools/menus. Gizzi shared how you can create dictionaries. This process can help efficiently identify and code with multiple terms at once. Gizzi noted that a good dictionary takes time to create. This session gave me examples and use cases for MAXDictio and other tools. Gizzi suggested the MAXQDA Press book: The Practice of Qualitative Research Analysis.
