Document analysis

This article explores the variety of ways that qualitative researchers have engaged with documents. Initially, it describes some general issues about conducting research on and around documents. This is followed by two sections looking at research that focuses on the content of documents: systematic reviews of qualitative research articles and discourse analytic work. Following these are two sections that focus on how people use and create documents, where the researchers rely on interviews, observations, audio and video recordings: ethnography and ethnomethodological ethnography. It is suggested that documents are an under-researched area and a prime topic for future investigation.