# Qualitative transcript concept rules

Sixty-two rules for turning interview quotations into verb-forward, participant-centered concept records that remain tied to exact transcript evidence.

This manifest governs one stage of qualitative analysis: selecting language that expresses what a participant was thinking, feeling, or guided by, separating distinct concepts, and drafting one verb-forward summary for each source-linked record. It configures how an agent handles boundaries, wording, cognition type, ambiguity, and failure conditions so a named researcher can inspect the quotation and proposed summary together. It is not intended as a shortcut around qualitative research or researcher judgment.

## Scope

### What it does

Turn transcript quotations into verb-forward, participant-centered, evidence-linked concept records for researcher review.

### What it does not govern

- Cross-participant grouping
- Themes or research findings
- Product requirements
- Recommendations

George Jensen created and maintains this configuration through qualitative research practice and study. Indi Young’s work especially informed its formulation, but it does not represent her method or imply her endorsement. To learn Thinking Styles from its source, explore training with Indi Young.

## Rules

### Quote to Summary Criteria

What makes a candidate admissible and a summary faithful.

- **QS-001** (IY-EDS-QS-001): Keep language that reveals inner thinking, an emotional reaction, or a guiding principle—not mere facts or scene-setting.
- **QS-002** (IY-EDS-QS-002): Give each distinct concept its own record.
- **QS-003** (IY-EDS-QS-003): Assign every phrase to only one record, splitting at phrase boundaries when concepts differ.
- **QS-004** (IY-EDS-QS-004): Label every record as inner thinking, emotional reaction, or guiding principle.
- **QS-005** (IY-EDS-QS-005): Start the summary with a verb that carries the cognition.
- **QS-006** (IY-EDS-QS-006): Follow the verb with the key point the participant is thinking or feeling about.
- **QS-007** (IY-EDS-QS-007): Extend the quotation only when more context is necessary to support the key point.
- **QS-008** (IY-EDS-QS-008): Retest the verb and cognition type rather than forcing the first interpretation.
- **QS-009** (IY-EDS-QS-009): Write from the participant’s viewpoint rather than explaining them from outside.
- **QS-010** (IY-EDS-QS-010): Prefer the participant’s own memorable words over researcher terminology.
- **QS-011** (IY-EDS-QS-011): Borrow a missing word only if the participant would plausibly use it, preferably elsewhere in the interview.
- **QS-012** (IY-EDS-QS-012): Write in first-person present tense with the implied subject omitted.
- **QS-013** (IY-EDS-QS-013): Reorder and prune freely while preserving the participant’s language and meaning.
- **QS-014** (IY-EDS-QS-014): Produce a verb-plus-key-point concept that can later stand in for the quotation.

### Words to Try

Rules for widening the field, never a controlled vocabulary.

- **WP-001** (IY-EDS-WP-001): Search for a verb that names the participant’s thought process.
  - Thought-process verbs: accept, acknowledge, adopt, agree, anticipate, assume, avoid, choose, decide, deliberate, ensure, figure out, forgive, justify, make sure, plan, ponder, promise, realize, recognize, struggle, suspect, think, weigh, wonder, and others.
- **WP-002** (IY-EDS-WP-002): Express emotional reactions with “feel + emotion” or a verb that already carries the emotion.
  - Emotion-carrying verbs: adore, appreciate, crack up, cry out, distrust, enjoy, envy, fear, hope, light up, marvel, panic, reel, tear up, worry, and others.
- **WP-003** (IY-EDS-WP-003): Brainstorm several emotions and move from a general label to the most specific one supported.
  - Specificity example: Surprised — startled, confused, amazed, excited, shocked, dismayed, disillusioned, perplexed.
- **WP-004** (IY-EDS-WP-004): Attach supporting details as phrases rather than adding a second sentence.
  - Connectors: about, after, although, as if, at, because, before, besides, beyond, by, despite, due to, even though, except, from, if, including, instead of, like, past, since, so that, that, through, when, whereas, while, who.
  - Use cautiously: “and” and “or” can invite a second sentence.
- **WP-005** (IY-EDS-WP-005): Treat vague, passive, exterior, and session-mode verbs as warning signs rather than banned words.
  - Vague — communicate, consider, deal with, do, expect, manage, organize, plan on, use.
  - Passive — be, discover, experience, find, get, have, hear, know, let, need, observe, read.
  - Exterior — approve, believe, explain, feel like, feel that, hate, judge, like, love, prefer, want.
  - Session mode — compare, complain, critique, remember.

### How the Work Goes

Practical checks used while shaping and reviewing the records.

- **TC-001** (IY-EDS-TC-001): Use the participant’s own verb immediately when they have already supplied a good one.
- **TC-002** (IY-EDS-TC-002): Brainstorm two to five verbs or emotions, generating more when the interpretation is uncertain.
- **TC-003** (IY-EDS-TC-003): Let the best-fitting verb help determine the cognition type.
- **TC-004** (IY-EDS-TC-004): Prune the quotation before typing it so the concept becomes visible.
- **TC-005** (IY-EDS-TC-005): Restore pruned language when it turns out to contain the memorable wording.
- **TC-006** (IY-EDS-TC-006): Before keeping an implied concept, test your confidence, why it was mentioned, and whether it belongs to the remembered moment.
- **TC-007** (IY-EDS-TC-007): Require stronger evidence for the concept itself than for supporting details.
- **TC-008** (IY-EDS-TC-008): Separate emotions by what they concern and when or where they occurred.
- **TC-009** (IY-EDS-TC-009): Join repeated expressions to the existing concept record instead of duplicating it.
- **TC-010** (IY-EDS-TC-010): Include supporting details only when they will help someone remember the concept and participant later.
- **TC-011** (IY-EDS-TC-011): Repair an unclear key point when writing the details exposes a dangling reference.
- **TC-012** (IY-EDS-TC-012): Read the summary aloud and revise wherever the wording makes you stumble.
- **TC-013** (IY-EDS-TC-013): Preserve personal context until the later grouping stage.
- **TC-014** (IY-EDS-TC-014): Keep one final summary per record.
- **TC-015** (IY-EDS-TC-015): Enrich thin summaries using vivid language found elsewhere in the transcript.
- **TC-016** (IY-EDS-TC-016): Move memorable material from the details into the key point when that is where the cognition really sits.

### Judgment Calls

Choices the method does not reduce to a single automatic answer.

- **JC-001** (IY-EDS-JC-001): Accept that several faithful summaries may be valid, with clarity and recall deciding between them.
- **JC-002** (IY-EDS-JC-002): Hold cognition type loosely because the same concept may support more than one type.
- **JC-003** (IY-EDS-JC-003): Choose a verb that matches the shape of the thinking, not merely its subject matter.
- **JC-004** (IY-EDS-JC-004): Cite where the participant used any word borrowed from elsewhere in the interview.
- **JC-005** (IY-EDS-JC-005): Preserve uncomfortable participant language rather than substituting the researcher’s preferred term.
- **JC-006** (IY-EDS-JC-006): Add a qualifier only when it helps distinguish this concept from others.
- **JC-007** (IY-EDS-JC-007): Reduce genuine double verbs to one main verb, unless dropping one loses real meaning.
- **JC-008** (IY-EDS-JC-008): Keep “try to” only when the participant is genuinely struggling, working at, or aiming toward something.
- **JC-009** (IY-EDS-JC-009): Replace a non-emotional adjective with the emotion behind it when the evidence supports one.
- **JC-010** (IY-EDS-JC-010): Look behind descriptions of another person’s action to find the participant’s actual emotion.
- **JC-011** (IY-EDS-JC-011): Let self-description emotions stand when a more precise recasting becomes forced.
- **JC-012** (IY-EDS-JC-012): Treat bodily responses as supporting details rather than emotions themselves.
- **JC-013** (IY-EDS-JC-013): Split the record when candidate emotions scatter across different concepts.
- **JC-014** (IY-EDS-JC-014): Use “wish” and “hope” freely unless they are merely disguised preferences.
- **JC-015** (IY-EDS-JC-015): Favor clear, faithful wording over mechanical conformity to the rules.
- **JC-016** (IY-EDS-JC-016): Resist granting motives or considerations the participant never expressed.
- **JC-017** (IY-EDS-JC-017): Prefer over-splitting to over-merging because separate concepts can be regrouped later.

### Fail Conditions

Conditions that send a record back or remove it instead of polishing it.

- **FC-001** (IY-EDS-FC-001): Drop language spoken to the interviewer now rather than from inside the remembered moment.
- **FC-002** (IY-EDS-FC-002): Drop approval, preference, description, and fact unless they conceal genuine interior cognition.
- **FC-003** (IY-EDS-FC-003): Return any summary whose verb has no clear key point.
- **FC-004** (IY-EDS-FC-004): Rewrite gerunds as direct verbs.
- **FC-005** (IY-EDS-FC-005): Split compound sentences containing two subject-and-verb concepts.
- **FC-006** (IY-EDS-FC-006): Rewrite third-person summaries into implied first-person, present-tense language.
- **FC-007** (IY-EDS-FC-007): Enrich generic summaries from the transcript rather than inventing specificity.
- **FC-008** (IY-EDS-FC-008): Reject researcher analysis and rewrite directly from the participant’s quotation.
- **FC-009** (IY-EDS-FC-009): Loosen summaries that preserve the participant’s original word order too rigidly.
- **FC-010** (IY-EDS-FC-010): Record insufficient evidence and drop the candidate rather than manufacturing a concept.