4/19/2019 Read 4 answers by scientists with 5 recommendations from their colleagues to the question asked by Diarmuid O'Briain on Oct

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Discussion Started 6 months ago

Diarmuid O'Briain
Institute of Technology, Carlow
Howto reference pseudonyms in qualitative research reports
For obvious reasons it essential to protect participants identities in qualitative research, otherwise
they may not be motovated to participate. So assuming each participant is assigned a pseudonym,
i.e. 'Mary Magdaline' is coded as 'Gerald'. How do you reference a quote from 'Mary Magdaline' ? i.e.

"It was after the the cow jumped over the lazy dog said (Gerald, 2018) ?" What about different writing
styles ? i.e. Harvard vs IEEE vs APA ?
Qualitative Research Anonyms and Pseudonyms Research Report

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Karen Bayne 6 months ago

added a reply

Hi Diarmid

Usually these are just "Participant x" or "Mr. Y", but if you have pseudonyms from the
study in question, then you can just use those directly, without needing the date. As an
example:

" It was after the the cow jumped over the lazy dog " Gerald.

Often there would then be a footnote with Gerald's name stating that names have been
changed to protect the identity of individuals.

If you are citing a quote from a participant in an earlier writeup study, then I would
propose something like: "In 2016, Smith & Brown''s participant Gerald, stated " It was
after the the cow jumped over the lazy dog " (Smith and Brown, 2016)."

Karen

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Michael W. Marek 6 months ago
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4/19/2019 Read 4 answers by scientists with 5 recommendations from their colleagues to the question asked by Diarmuid O'Briain on Oct 16, …

In qualitative research, we do not usually use the kind of citation and reference style we
would in our literature reviews, etc.

In most cases, I simply say "one participant said....."

If you need to use pseudonyms so that readers can track the comments of participants
across quotes, explain in your methodology section that pseudonyms were assigned,
and then just say "Gerald said....."

Maybe the rst time you introduce comments from each participant, you might say "The
participant identi ed as Gerald said......." or something like that, as a reminder to readers
that they ARE pseudonyms.

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Muhammad Abdullah Avais 6 months ago
added a reply

You can use

1. " Participant 1m or 2 fm said.

2. A male participant Mr. A said.

3. One participant said.

4. You may change the name due to persons con dentiality

You may go through mentioned below link for more better understanding:-

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2805454/

Best of luck for your research

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Diarmuid O'Briain 6 months ago
added a reply

Thanks everyone, that clears it up for me.

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Marini Budiarti
University of Newcastle
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