Starting into this weeks readings, I was under the impression that content analysis had some similarities with open coding. One just simply defines the research prior to consulting the text. Of course I fell into a trap of confusing simple with easy. Although Krippendorff’s writing style is fairly clear, I miss the more inviting prose style of Charmaz in the prior week’s readings. It is possible that my own state of mind was the culprit in my confusion on how to perform content analysis. On a whim I thought it would be interesting to compare text from two different mediums (hard-bound book, and blogs) written by the same author on the same topic. Both have a reflective quality while discuss an approach to performing woodworking tasks and the underlying personal philosophy of the craft. The blog tends to be more immediate and has an added element of readers responses. So now I have my text squared away, it is time to carve out some research questions. I immediately forget this interesting concept and start creating some good yet dull questions. This set me down a path to ignore the comparison of mediums that open coding would let me (re)discover. For some reason I found the analyst’s context step confusing. If I understand this step correctly, then this step requires the researcher to understand how the text fits into the greater conversation as well as state the researcher’s understanding of the topic. Since I have read many woodworking books (here I am referring to books that are more involved than simple Ikea style construction plans), I had plenty to write about. The following steps, analytical constructs and inferences seem very “sciency” with its testable mini-theories and computer-aided dictionary of tags. This appears to be a precarious and slippery slope that one will start counting and turn the task into a quantitative project. However, it does seem to aid efficiency when compared to the “fishing expeditions” of open coding. The validation of evidence appears to be a daunting yet necessary task. This step keeps the findings in-line with the original questions thus keeping the project consistent. This provides confidence against critics who want to argue about the findings. This exercise has given me an appreciation for individuals that use this method. I feel that it is too tempting to create a structure that counts things especially if all of the text is already in a computer-readable format.