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Word Analysis View
This view provides basic capabilities to perform analyses around individual words. The focus of this view is the Word List, which contains an entry for each word found in the project. The primary purpose is to assist in uncovering themes by surfacing words that appear to be keywords. It is based on the notion that Comments may refer to the same theme when they contain words that are in moderate use by a number of Respondents. In other words, if a word is used occasionally by Respondents, it is more likely to be a keyword in context, and therefore important to the expression of a given idea -- or at least similar ideas. The word "plant" for example has a contextual meaning in manufacturing, and if it appears sufficiently often in content pertaining to manufacturing, it is likely to be referencing a factory, and therefore the containing comments would warrant inspection to see what they have to say about the factory.
The mechanics of producing the word list is slightly more complex than parsing text into discreet words. Symphony first attempts to reduce each word to its "stem". This ensures that words containing qualifying suffixes or variations of tense are treated as the same word. For example, ran, run, and running are recognized as the same word. This significantly improves the "hit rate" for words, and usually produces better results when performing analysis such as is available in the Comment Cluster Analysis view.
After the words are identified, Symphony assigns values to assist in surfacing those that may be useful in analysis. For details on the calculations, please refer to the Word List on this page.
 Filter Group
The Filter Group enables you to specify criteria for determining which Comments to include in the analysis.
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 Word List
This list includes an entry for each word used in the project or filtered project if a filter is applied. The list can be sorted on any column by clicking the column header. The sort order toggles between ascending and descending when the header is clicked multiple times. When a word is selected in this list, the Comments containing the word appear in the Matching Comments list. If more than one word is selected, the comments in the Matching Comments list will be those that contain all of the selected words To select multiple words, hold the Ctrl key down while clicking each word.
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 Matching Comments
The list of all Comments containing the word or words selected in the Word List. To be included, the Comment must contain all selected words. The Comment that is currently selected in this list is displayed in the Content Editor.
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 Sources
The number of Respondents using the word.
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 Frequency
The total number of Comments containing the word. If a word appears more than once in a Comment, it is still counted only once.
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 Score
A calculation based on the number of sources and the frequency of use. The larger the value, the more likely the word is to be useful as a keyword. Symphony's algorithm for calculating the score rewards a word that is used by more Respondents, and penalizes it for over-use. This tends to cause words that are useful for analysis to float to the top, while words that appear very little or are overused and uninteresting for analysis (e.g. the, it) to sink to the bottom.
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 Content Editor
The Content Editor displays the currently-selected Comment from the Matching Comments list.
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 Synonyms List
A list of synonyms for the currently-highlighted word in the Word List.
Synonyms that are found in the project appear in blue, with the number of occurrences enclosed in parentheses. Double-clicking a synonym
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 Content Tree (Codes Only)
A Content Tree. Comments can be coded by dragging them from the Matching Comments area onto the target Code.
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 Word/Phrase
The word that was found in the analysis. There is one row for each word in the Work List.
Words are not necessarily exact matches with words in the project. Symphony makes an effort to "normalize" variations of the same word into one common variant. For example, if the project contains both "run" and "running", only one of these two words will be included in the Word List, and all occurrences of both words will be attributed to it. This assists analysis by increasing the chances that Respondents using different sentence structures to express similar ideas will appear together.
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 Go To Word
By default, this is the word that is highlighted in the Word List, and is the word for which synonyms are listed in the Synonym List. You can replace this word either by double-clicking a synonym, or by typing in any word. If you type a word, you can see what synonyms exist for it by clicking the magnifying glass.
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 Exclusion Checkbox
You will find that certain words that add no value to an analysis come up frequently. You can permanently exclude them from this list by checking the Exclusion Checkbox, then choosing Tools/Add Checked to Exclusions from the Symphony menu. This will cause Symphony to ignore the checked words in future analyses.
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