What Is A Thematic Review?

What is a thematic review? A thematic review can identify patterns in data to help answer questions, show links or identify issues.

What is an example of a thematic review?

Consider organization – You’ve got a focus, and you’ve stated it clearly and directly. Now what is the most effective way of presenting the information? What are the most important topics, subtopics, etc., that your review needs to include? And in what order should you present them? Develop an organization for your review at both a global and local level: First, cover the basic categories Just like most academic papers, literature reviews also must contain at least three basic elements: an introduction or background information section; the body of the review containing the discussion of sources; and, finally, a conclusion and/or recommendations section to end the paper.

Introduction: Gives a quick idea of the topic of the literature review, such as the central theme or organizational pattern. Body: Contains your discussion of sources and is organized either chronologically, thematically, or methodologically (see below for more information on each). Conclusions/Recommendations: Discuss what you have drawn from reviewing literature so far. Where might the discussion proceed?

Organizing the body Once you have the basic categories in place, then you must consider how you will present the sources themselves within the body of your paper. Create an organizational method to focus this section even further. To help you come up with an overall organizational framework for your review, consider the following scenario: You’ve decided to focus your literature review on materials dealing with sperm whales.

This is because you’ve just finished reading Moby Dick, and you wonder if that whale’s portrayal is really real.
You start with some articles about the physiology of sperm whales in biology journals written in the 1980’s.
But these articles refer to some British biological studies performed on whales in the early 18th century.

So you check those out. Then you look up a book written in 1968 with information on how sperm whales have been portrayed in other forms of art, such as in Alaskan poetry, in French painting, or on whale bone, as the whale hunters in the late 19th century used to do.

Chronological: If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials above according to when they were published. For instance, first you would talk about the British biological studies of the 18th century, then about Moby Dick, published in 1851, then the book on sperm whales in other art (1968), and finally the biology articles (1980s) and the recent articles on American whaling of the 19th century. But there is relatively no continuity among subjects here. And notice that even though the sources on sperm whales in other art and on American whaling are written recently, they are about other subjects/objects that were created much earlier. Thus, the review loses its chronological focus.

By publication: Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on biological studies of sperm whales if the progression revealed a change in dissection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies.

By trend: A better way to organize the above sources chronologically is to examine the sources under another trend, such as the history of whaling. Then your review would have subsections according to eras within this period. For instance, the review might examine whaling from pre-1600-1699, 1700-1799, and 1800-1899. Under this method, you would combine the recent studies on American whaling in the 19th century with Moby Dick itself in the 1800-1899 category, even though the authors wrote a century apart.

Thematic: Thematic reviews of literature are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time. However, progression of time may still be an important factor in a thematic review. For instance, the sperm whale review could focus on the development of the harpoon for whale hunting. While the study focuses on one topic, harpoon technology, it will still be organized chronologically. The only difference here between a “chronological” and a “thematic” approach is what is emphasized the most: the development of the harpoon or the harpoon technology.But more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. For instance, a thematic review of material on sperm whales might examine how they are portrayed as “evil” in cultural documents. The subsections might include how they are personified, how their proportions are exaggerated, and their behaviors misunderstood. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point made.

Methodological: A methodological approach differs from the two above in that the focusing factor usually does not have to do with the content of the material. Instead, it focuses on the “methods” of the researcher or writer. For the sperm whale project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of whales in American, British, and French art work. Or the review might focus on the economic impact of whaling on a community. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed. Once you’ve decided on the organizational method for the body of the review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out. They should arise out of your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period. A thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue.

Sometimes, though, you might need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. Put in only what is necessary. Here are a few other sections you might want to consider:

Current Situation: Information necessary to understand the topic or focus of the literature review. History: The chronological progression of the field, the literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology. Methods and/or Standards: The criteria you used to select the sources in your literature review or the way in which you present your information. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed articles and journals.

Questions for Further Research: What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

Is a thematic review the same as a literature review?

It typically follows a transparent and reproducible protocol to minimize bias, and aims to provide a comprehensive summary of the existing evidence. A thematic literature review, on the other hand, is a type of literature review that focuses on identifying patterns or themes in a specific body of literature.

What is thematic in research?

What is thematic analysis? – Thematic analysis is a method for analyzing qualitative data that involves reading through a set of data and looking for patterns in the meaning of the data to find themes. It is an active process of reflexivity in which the researcher’s subjective experience is at the center of making sense of the data.

What are the 5 stages of thematic analysis?

You may move forward and back between them, perhaps many times, particularly if dealing with a lot of complex data. Step 1: Become familiar with the data, Step 2: Generate initial codes, Step 3: Search for themes, Step 4: Review themes, Step 5: Define themes, Step 6: Write-up.

What is a thematic approach?

Thematic Curriculum Approach Thematic Learning is an instructional method of teaching where the children work within a specific theme/topic title each term, but integrate a range of subjects together so that they can link their learning across the subjects and build a greater depth of understanding.

What are the 6 thematic analysis?

Inductive thematic analysis – Thematic analysis, which can include both deductive and inductive practices, was developed across disciplines throughout the twentieth century, including work in physics by Gerald Holton (1973), In more recent years, psychologists Braun and Clarke (2006) outlined a set of theme-building procedure for the social sciences, but thematic analysis remains a loosely defined practice with many varied applications across fields of study and across a “range of theoretical and epistemological approaches,” such as case study and ethnography ( Braun and Clarke, 2006, p.6).

Though some researchers argue that thematic analysis is a method in its own right, others, such as Morse and Cheek (2021) and Boyatzis (1998), consider thematic analysis a practice or a tool. As such, thematic analysis is not exclusively tied to a particular epistemology or paradigm. If we adopt a realist paradigm to assess the barriers of emergency medicine, we might construct themes that elucidate treatment barriers.

If we instead adopt a constructivist paradigm, we might develop themes to capture social structures evident in an emergency setting, such as how built environment “acts” upon patients. Though deductive approaches to thematic analysis, such as directed content analysis, are common ( Bingham and Witkowsky, 2022 ; Hseih and Shannon, 2005 ; Mayring, 2015 ), they are beyond the scope of this chapter.

Instead, this section focuses on inductive thematic analysis, whereby researchers do not begin with theoretical constructs or frameworks. They start only with provisional topics that work their way into an evolving codebook. During the initial review of data, called “open coding” or first-cycle coding, researchers generate numerous topics, both broad and specific ( Charmaz, 2014 ; Saldaña, 2021 ).

Open coding, often descriptive, invests in the language of the participant as well as the aims of the study. However, thematic analysis does not stay at the level of description or initial insight. Researchers move up the conceptual ladder from this vast array of ideas to develop conceptual clusters using evocative, condensed language.

Codes and themes occupy different semantic planes. A code is a container for a single topic, whereas a theme goes further in capturing dimension or meaning across multiple codes and in this way acts as an “argument” about the “phenomenon being examined” ( Braun and Clark, 2006, p.18). For this reason, topics such as barriers and facilitators are regarded as broad topics that do not adequately elevate ideas to a more compelling claim or theme, which tends to be more evocative, such as the family obligations intensify transportation barriers.

In other words, themes pierce the surface of data to evoke a higher-level story or abstract concept. They go deeper in unearthing participants’ tacit assumptions and pervasive logics and in connecting seemingly different topics, such as family and transportation in the above example, and naming this dynamic link.

There is no single agreed upon strategy for determining themes, but researchers might create clusters of seemingly related codes and then name the conceptual glue that holds them together. Hence, in a study on experiencing chemotherapy, descriptive codes for eating new foods, seeking new entertainment, and rethinking life choices might be tied to a theme, emerging self, that functions as a conceptual bridge between or among codes.

In studies using structured interviews, we often find ourselves with pre-existing topics. For example, in a study of indigenous people experiencing climate change in Alaska, we might have anticipated at the ouset topics such as physical health and mental health.

These are simply topics based on research questions.
They are not themes,
To construct a theme, we might review the quotations coded to each code and assess what we perhaps have not noticed in reviewing each code separately.
We might discern that across these codes participants address issues of the self as a marker of climate change, a thematic bridge that connects the separate notions of physical and mental health.

Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis method is an iterative process consisting of six steps: (1) becoming familiar with the data, (2) generating codes, (3) generating themes, (4) reviewing themes, (5) defining and naming themes, and (6) locating exemplars.

Becoming familiar with data refers to data immersion and iterative cycles of reading, with each cycle generating further insight.
Generating codes means coding for as many topics as possible and applying the code to a contextual segment, not just a phrase.
Generating themes means sorting the codes into higher-level topics.

Researchers might use tables, mind maps, or theme piles to cluster topics into these broader groupings. This phase ends with “candidate themes” and subthemes. Reviewing the themes means interrogating the candidate themes by revisiting the data coded to the component codes.

We may determine that the data do not sufficiently support the theme or that there is too much variation across text segments to justify the theme. This may mean renaming the theme or making it a sub-theme of a broader construct. The next phase entails refining the names of themes and ensuring that they occupy the same semantic plane, i.e., that they are conceptually parallel.

If the language of most of the themes is broad and abstract (e.g., collectivity and the communal self) but other ideas are more surface-level (e.g., keeping busy, reading a book, playing a game), this may require creating a higher-level construct to elevate the superficial topics to more abstract ones (e.g., suppression and distraction) (see Goodman, 2004 ).

Producing the report means telling the complex story of the themes, first describing the meaning within each theme, with illustrative examples, and then perhaps looking across themes to discern connective takeaways or meta-themes. Braun and Clarke (2006) state that a theme captures a prominent aspect of the data in a patterned way, “regardless of whether that theme captures the majority experience” ( Scharp and Sanders, 2019, p.1).

Though identifying a pattern might entail noticing frequency, it is primarily about meaning making, not underscoring quantity. There is no “hard-and-fast answer to the question of what proportion of your data set needs to display evidence of the theme for it be considered a theme” ( Braun and Clarke, 2006, p.10).

What are examples of thematic content?

Subject matter – These thematic elements may include abortion, addiction, animal cruelty, child abuse, corruption, coming-of-age issues, non-violent crimes, death, defiance, disability (physical and/or mental ), discrimination, disease, driving under the influence, dysfunctional families, dystopian societies, disasters, existential crises, hate, hazing, homelessness, gambling, infidelity, miscarriage, mental illness, politics, poverty, religion, self-harm, social issues, suicide, STDs, teenage pregnancy, truancy, verbal abuse, war and other serious subject matter or mature discussions that some parents and guardians feel may not be appropriate for their young children.

What is thematic format?

Thematic formatting is the process of automatically coloring objects in drawings based on the value of data fields in tables associated with the drawing. This capability is called “thematic mapping” in some GIS systems. Manifold refers to the process as thematic formatting since is simply changing the formatting of objects in a drawing or a map based on the value of a data field.

Foreground color Background color Style Size Rotation (for point styles and labels)

All four of the above formatting characteristics may be simultaneously changed via thematic formatting at the same time for areas, area borders, lines or points. In one drawing, for example, the foreground color of areas may be changed using one field while the style of areas may be changed using a different field. Change Foreground or Background Color : Color adjacent areas in maps with different colors so they more obviously stand apart. This effect uses the Color dialog for drawings. Change Size : Make points larger or smaller automatically to show larger or smaller populations, profit, number of customers or other data. Change Color : Color countries, provinces or other regions to show differences in population or other data fields. Change Point Style : Change point styles to show different characteristics at different locations. See Custom Point Styles for information on adding point styles created from images like those seen above. Change Area Style : Change area styles to set areas apart or show trends with different patterns. Change Size : Make lines thicker or thinner to show differences in data such as traffic volume associated with each line. All of the above illustrations are the same map and the same data with different thematic formats. Thematic formatting chooses a data field associated with the drawing and then assigns all the objects being formatted into the desired number of intervals based on that field.

Objects can be assigned to intervals using several different methods. We can then specify how each interval should be formatted. To Create a Thematic Format 1. Choose the drawing to be formatted by clicking it open or by clicking on its layer in a map.2. In the Format toolbar, click on the display characteristic to be formatted: for areas, lines or points choose the foreground color, background color, style or size.3.

In the pull-down choice dialog that appears, choose Theme,4. In the thematic formatting dialog, choose the controlling Field to be used.5. Choose the Method to be used to construct intervals. Equal Count, for example, will assign approximately the same number of objects to each interval.6.

Choose the number of Breaks between intervals. This specifies the number of intervals as well.7. Change the Align to value if even numbers of tens, hundreds, thousands, etc, values are desired for intervals. Change the Range if the default entire range needs to be extended or contracted.8. Press the Tally button to create the given number of intervals.

If interval numbers different than those created by the Method are desired, double-click into the interval numbers to change them.9. Either use a preset color palette or click into the interval color boxes to change colors to whatever range is desired. Color samples, like the two different examples shown, will attempt to show the range of colors used in the thematic format. Obviously, there is not enough room in a small toolbar sample to show many colors, so not all colors in a complex format will appear. The idea is to provide enough colors to refresh our memory of the thematic format specified. Characteristics such as style or size will be represented by the thematic format icon. When we see this icon in a format toolbar we know that the corresponding formatting characteristic is specified by a thematic format. Thematic Format Dialog The thematic formatting dialog is used to apply colors, styles and sizes automatically based upon the contents of a controlling field. In the Values pane the numbers at left are the numeric breaks between intervals. The color wells at right show the coloration that will be applied to each interval. The small numbers immediately to the left of the boxes show how many objects fall into that interval.

In the example above we thematically format provinces in Mexico by their populations using the Spectrum palette. The Natural Breaks method has assigned 7 provinces to the interval containing provinces with populations less than 580000 and only 3 provinces occur in the interval from 580000 to 1051000,

There are 11 provinces in the next interval and so on. The (default) color well shows the color that will be used by default for objects that are newly created that do not fit into any of the existing thematic categories. This is most important in cases where a thematic format has been created based upon individual values and then, after the format has been created, a new value is introduced when a new object is created.

Field	The data field that controls the thematic format. All data fields available with this drawing will be available in this list box. Also available will be intrinsic fields that are automatically computed by the system.
Method	The method used to classify records into different intervals.
Palette	Preset color combinations that may be applied to intervals. Press Apply to apply the palette to the selected intervals. Palettes are scalable and will be interpolated to apply the color range to a greater or lesser number of intervals.
	Apply – Apply the chosen palette to the Values pane. This allows scrolling through the palettes without changing colors until we press Apply, Pressing Apply only changes the color scheme in use for values. It does not change the thematic formatting of the drawing until the OK button is pressed. To see a preview of how the applied colors will look, use the Preview check box.
	Reverse – Reverse the formats used in the values box from high to low.
	Interpolate – Change the colors or sizes used in the values boxes by interpolating between the top and the bottom boxes. A quick way of creating smooth gradients of colors or sizes.
	Lighten – Lighten all colors. Each click on the Lbutton lightens the colors a bit more.
	Darken – Darken all colors. Each click on the button darkens the colors a bit more.
	Grayscale – Convert all colors to grayscale.
	Move Up – Enabled when the Unique Values method is used and an interval (value) has been selected. Move this value up in the range of intervals shown.
	Move Down – Enabled when the Unique Values method is used and an interval (value) has been selected. Move this value down in the range of intervals shown.
	Load from File – Load a previously saved theme from an XML file. Works with all field types except lookup fields. See the Custom Palettes and Themes topic for information on how the XML file is structured.
	Save to File – Save this theme to an XML file. Works with all field types except lookup fields. See the Custom Palettes and Themes topic for information on how the XML file is structured.
Values	A display of intervals created using the specified Method, The Values pane is updated with each press of the Tally button. If a Palette is used, the color wells will be updated with each press of the Apply button. The values may also be changed by double-clicking into any value to edit the number. The (default) color well allows editing the default value that will be applied to any objects outside the thematic format specified, such as, for example, if a new object is added with a value outside the range of a range of Unique Values that have been specified.
(interval numbers in the Values pane)	Double-click on an interval number to set it manually. For a different arrangement of intervals, choose the desired Method and the desired number of Breaks and press Tally,
(color wells in the Values pane)	Double-click on a color, style or size sample to change it. Choosing a Palette and pressing Apply will apply the palette colors to the Values pane’s color wells. Press Interpolate to create a smooth gradient of color from the topmost well to the lowest. Press Reverse to reverse the order of colors.
Continuous Shading	Interpolate colors shown in the wells so that values between the numbers shown for the intervals will result in color shades that are taken from a continuous gradient of color.
Align to	Select the number of digits to align Values to even values of tens, hundreds, thousands, etc.
Range	Shows the lowest and highest values that occur in the controlling field. Change the values to specify the range over which intervals will be tallied. Values outside the range will be assigned to uppermost and lower intervals that bracket the intervals over which the method specified is tallied.
Reset	Reset the Range to the lowest and highest values that occur in the controlling field.
Breaks	The number of breakpoints between intervals.
Tally	Re-compute intervals by specified method using given number of breakpoints.
Preview	Temporarily shows the effect of the format when Apply is pressed.

Methods

Equal Count	Assign interval values so that each interval contains the same number of objects.
Equal Intervals	Assign interval values so that each interval contains the same range of values.
Exponential Intervals	Assign interval values so that each interval contains an exponentially increasing number of values.
Natural Breaks	Find clusters or groupings of objects by the given field and assign break values so that each cluster is in a different interval.
Standard Intervals	Choose break values so that each interval represents one standard deviation.
Unique Values	Used with text and enumerated fields. Assign a break value for each unique value that occurs in the field.

Thematic Formatting Capabilities Thematic formatting uses data fields to independently control:

Foreground color Background color Style Size

The above characteristics may be thematically formatted independently for areas, lines and points. In effect, it is as if we can set twelve different thematic formats for each drawing (four different types of formatting characteristics times three types of objects results in twelve different thematic formats available per drawing). The illustration above shows cities in Texas where each city has a population field in the associated table. In the default format all points are the same size. If we click on the Size button for points in the format toolbar and then choose Theme we can alter the size by the population field. Manifold will draw thematically formatted points by drawing the largest points first and then the next largest and so on to the smallest so that the smaller points are not covered by the larger points. If we click on the Background Color button for points in the format toolbar and choose Theme we can also alter the background color of the points by their population. This results in a map where both the size of the point and the color of the point are changed depending on the population. If desired, we can change Style with a thematic format. This is handy when preparing maps for black and white printers. Style can also be used to automatically vary point and line styles as well as area styles. All of the different characteristics at once can be thematically formatted. The above illustration shows foreground color, background color and style thematically formatted. To assure that maps do not confuse the viewer it is usually wise to use the same data field in the same manner for all thematic formats applied to the same class of objects.

That is, if thematically formatting the background color in areas based on a state’s population, refrain from simultaneously thematically formatting the foreground color using the number of houses in the state. The Controlling Field Thematic formatting works with drawings that have a table associated with them.

The thematic format is controlled by the value of a specified field in the table. This field is most often a numeric field, but it can be a text or other type field as well. Intrinsic fields will appear in the list box as available choices for controlling fields.

Intrinsic fields are automatically computed by Manifold for each object in the drawing. Intervals are created and objects are assigned to them using the given method. For example, the intervals can be created with breakpoint numbers so that each interval ends up with an equal number of objects. This is a useful method to use if we wish to avoid a situation where there are six intervals / color settings but all the objects end up in only one interval so our map is colored with only one color.

If the controlling field is a text field the only choice available for methods is Unique Values Breaks and Intervals Thematic formatting divides the objects into intervals that are set by the number of breaks, Each break is a value that specifies between the border between two intervals.

The minimum value and the maximum values are always taken from the lowest and highest value in the data set. The break point values specify how the range from minimum to maximum is to be split up into intervals. The following examples use a map of the United States that’s linked to a table that has a series of fields giving educational achievement for each state.

We will use a field that gives the percentage of the population that has advanced degrees (that is, some graduate degree beyond college). If we specify three breaks as shown above we end up specifying four intervals. The first interval is the range from the minimum value in the table (the red box) to the first break point (at about 7.63%). The red color will be used to color the first interval.

The blue color will be used to color the second interval starting at the blue break point of 7.63% and so on.
Methods: Automatically Choose Break Values Once we choose the number of breaks we want we can either have Manifold choose the values for each break point or we can set the value for each break manually.

Manifold has several different methods it can use to automatically choose values for each break. The numbers for the three breaks shown above were computed by Manifold using the Equal Intervals method. This method chooses numbers for the breaks such that the total range from minimum to maximum value for the controlling field is split into intervals of equal size. We’ve added the boxes and color bar to the illustration above to illustrate how colors are used within intervals. The red box shows the interval from the minimum found in the data set (in this case, about 4.45% of the population) to the first break at about 7.63%.

The minimum, red color is used to color states from the minimum to the first break. From 7.63% onward the blue color specified at the 7.63% break is used to color the interval. The green color specified for the second break takes over at 10.82% and is used to color objects until we get to the third break, after which yellow will be used.

Note that the Equal Intervals method makes the intervals the same size: that is, the range from 7.63 to 10.82 is the same size as from 10.82 to 14.01. In this example, because there are four intervals each equal interval represents one quartile. The number of objects in each interval can be quite different. The default theme uses default color for all intervals. To apply a palette, choose it in the Palette box and press Apply, In the example above we have chosen the Savannah palette and will now press the Apply button. Colors will be applied to the interval color wells as seen above. Palettes will usually have a wide range of colors available. Only some colors from the palette will be used if the number of intervals is small. To change the order in which colors are used we can press the Reverse button. The Reverse button reorders the colors so that the uppermost color is now the lowest and vice versa. Note how the blue color well is now at the bottom of the range. We can also use the Interpolate button to rapidly create a gradient of colors from white to blue. Interpolate is a handy way of creating gradients. It creates a smooth range of color from the top box to the bottom box. A rapid way of creating custom gradients is to double-click into the top box and choose a color and then choosing a color for the bottom box and pressing Interpolate, To align intervals to even thousands, for example, we choose 3 digits in the Align to box and then press Tally, The interval numbers will be changed to even thousands and the objects in each interval will be re-computed using the method assigned, as adjusted for the aligned values of the intervals. Very important: Re-tallying intervals, even by just aligning them to even numbers, requires a re-application of the color intervals.

For example, the illustration above was created by reapplying Interpolate after changing the Align to value. The usual workflow is to create the intervals desired (including any Range, Breaks and Align to options) and then apply colors. Lighten and Darken Some of the standard palettes provided may result in garish colors depending on the setting.

For example, the Spectrum palette provides a continuous range of rainbow colors that may be too bright in some drawings. Use the Lighten button to automatically lighten colors. Use the Darken button to darken colors. Using Range An important use of Range is to assure that two drawings that appear together in a map have the same formatting over the same range of values. By default, Manifold takes the lowest and the highest values that occur in a drawing and uses those values to compute methods.

Using Range can override these values. Suppose for example we have a drawing of counties in California with a percent achievement scale on a standardized test where each county has a value on a scale from 0% to 100%, Suppose we also have a drawing for Oregon with results from the same test. If the California drawing has test results that range from 5% to 85% and we thematically format it using Equal Intervals into 4 breaks the default formatting calculation will use the range 5 to 85,

Using this range will create 4 intervals of 5 to 25, 25 to 45, 45 to 65 and 65 to 85. If the Oregon drawing has test results that range from 10% to 90% and we thematically format it using Equal Intervals into 4 breaks the default formatting calculation will use the range 10 to 90,

Using this range will create 4 intervals of 10 to 30, 30 to 50, 50 to 70 and 70 to 90. If we use the same colors for both California and Oregon, counties with a test result of 27% will have different colors in the California and Oregon drawings, providing an inconsistent visual presentation if the two drawings are shown together in a map.

We can avoid this inconsistency by telling Manifold to use a Range of 0 to 100 when thematically formatting the California and Oregon drawings. If we use a Range of 0 to 100 and Equal Intervals with 4 breaks then each break will be the same in both drawings.

Each drawing will have 4 intervals of 0 to 25, 25 to 50, 50 to 75 and 75 to 100 and all counties in both drawings will be colored using the same scheme.
Another use for Range is to exclude unusually high or low values from the main thematic coloring.
For example if we have a lot of data that is evenly dispersed through the range 30 to 80 and but a handful of scattered values from 0 to 30 and from 80 to 100, we might tell Manifold to use an Equal Count method using a Range of 30 to 80,

Intervals will be assigned so the bulk of data is divided into even intervals between 30 and 80 with the scattered values in the lowest and the highest intervals. The lowest and highest intervals can then be clicked by hand and changed to less prominent colors. Without checking the Continuous shading box, all states use one of the colors specified for the intervals. Without the Continuous shading box checked it looks like the entire country is not highly educated with California, Colorado and New Mexico in the West and a handful of states in the Northeast providing some slightly elevated educational achievement. When the Continuous shading box is checked, each state gets a color that is interpolated between the colors specified for each break. The Continuous shading box allows us to specify a relatively small number of breaks and colors yet still see some visual differences within the intervals. With the Continuous shading box checked we see that the situation is more complex that it initially appeared. Most states are still in the low-achievement range with Arkansas leading the way in low educational achievement. The blue states are now seen to divide into two classes of states: lower-end states like California that are more like the low-achieving mass of states, and a few higher-end states like Colorado, Virginia, New York and Massachusetts. A better way to reveal groupings is to use the Natural Breaks method. This method allows Manifold to find clusters of similar values within the field and to choose break points so that each cluster is in an interval. The above example shows Natural Breaks working with 5 breaks to create six intervals.

The natural breaks thematic map shows the highly irregular distribution of populations with higher education in the US.
Most states fall into one of four groupings having less than 7% of the population having higher degrees.
For the most part, states are clustered into different levels of mediocrity around the 5.7% level.

A handful of states fall into a cluster above 8.27% and are shown in green. The Manifold Natural Breaks algorithm works remarkably well. People who are familiar with these states would say that California, Washington, Illinois and New Hampshire are definitely in the same bucket when classing states by percentage of highly educated people. Legends for thematic formats not using continuous shading will show the range of values to which each color applies. If the Continuous shading box is checked the legend will show the discrete values and colors between which a continuous range of colors is interpolated. Automatic legends will use the same number of digits beyond the decimal point that are specified for that column in table column formatting.

Example: Use Thematic Formatting to Show Territories Suppose we have a Territory field in our table of US States.
This is a text field and contains the name of the sales territory that includes that state.
Sales territories have names like “Northeast” and “West Coast”.
Step 1: Click open Thematic Format Dialog,

Click open the drawing to be formatted, or click on the drawing’s layer tab in a map to make it the active layer. Click on the format toolbar’s Background Color well for areas. Choose Theme to launch the thematic formatting dialog. Step 2: Choose the Controlling Field and Method In the thematic formatting dialog, choose Territory as the controlling field and Unique Values as the method. The breaks and intervals part of the dialog will automatically change to the list of unique values found for the territory field. There are only six different strings (that is, six different territories) found in this particular example. Step 3: Choose Colors to be Used Double-click into each color well and choose a color or use one of Manifold’s preset color arrangements. Click OK, The resultant thematic format colors the background colors of each state area by the value found in the Territory field. Example: Use Thematic Formatting to Show Population We open a drawing of Mexico showing provinces. The drawing’s table has a field called Population that we would like to use to color the provinces by their populations. The “body” color of the provinces is set by their background color. Click on the format toolbar’s Background Color well for areas. Choose Theme to launch the thematic formatting dialog. Choose Population as the controlling Field, Choose Equal Count as the Method, This will assign approximately the same number of provinces to each population interval. Choose the Red to Yellows palette and press Apply, Those are nice colors, but we note that the lower population intervals are colored red and higher population provinces will be colored yellow. We would like to reverse this so that provinces with higher populations will be colored red. To do so we press the Reverse button. From experience we know that the very bright colors used in the Reds to Yellows palette will result in a garish map. To lighten the colors we press the Lighten button twice. That results in a more muted palette that will still show variations in the provinces well. The final product is a drawing of Mexico that shows provinces colored by the contents of their Population field. Provinces with higher populations are colored red. Those with lower populations are colored yellow. Right away it is obvious that much of the population of Mexico is clustered in a small band of provinces in the middle of the country.

Relative palettes, where colors from the palette will be “stretched” and interpolated as necessary for use in the number of breaks specified in the Format dialog. The examples above all use relative palettes. Fixed palettes, where colors are associated with specified intervals. When a fixed palette is used in thematic formatting, applying the palette will automatically create as many intervals as are required by the numbers specified for the palette.

Fixed palettes are most frequently used to color surfaces that show terrain elevations. They allow a standard color scheme to be applied for specific elevations that is the same from surface to surface. Manifold includes a few fixed palettes for use with surfaces.

Altitudes are predictable since the general elevation of the Earth is known and covers a fairly narrow range. Standardized palettes may therefore be created for altitudes and incorporated into Manifold. Fixed palettes are less frequently used with thematic formatting in drawings since normally the range of values that may be displayed in thematic rendering covers a very wide range.

It is usually faster to create fixed intervals by specifying the Breaks option, tallying the desired number of intervals and then applying a relative palette. We can then “clean up” the breaks to desired interval numbers. However, for some applications such as land classification a specific, fixed palette may be desired for use in thematic formatting. Press the Save button to save a theme to an XML format file. Themes for color, size or style may be saved. Press the Load button to load a theme from an XML format file. When attempting to load a theme file for a different type of theme (for example, trying to load a theme file that saved a thematic format for different point styles when working in a thematic format dialog to set color) the system will load the formatting breaks from the saved theme and will reset formatting to default.

When loading a file containing value-based formatting such as Unique Values the system sets the formatting method to Unique Values since this method is supported by columns of any type. When loading a file containing interval-based formatting such as Equal Intervals the system checks if the current column supports interval-based formatting (that is, if the current column is not a Date, Text or Boolean type field) and if the current formatting method is value-based. If so, it sets the formatting method to Equal Intervals,

Customization Palettes used in thematic formats may be customized, and new palettes may be added to Manifold. See the Customization topic. The Color Dialog The Color dialog makes it easy to automatically apply a thematic format to a drawing that colors each adjacent area using a different color.

When applied to a drawing that contains adjacent areas, the color dialog will add an integer field called Color to the table. (If a field exists that is already named Color the system will create the new field using a name like Color2 ). The drawing is then examined using Manifold’s internal graph theoretic algorithms to assign a small number to each area in the Color field so that no two adjacent areas have the same value in their Color field.

The Color field is then used in a thematic format to specify both foreground and background color. The colors used are made slightly darker in the foreground color so that the borders of area styles will be distinct. It’s easy to change the color scheme after applying the color dialog to automatically color areas.

Simply click on the color well to be changed for areas and choose theme and then apply one of the preset color schemes. The color applied by the color dialog is simply a thematic format using the Color field with a unique values method. Note that the word theme is used both for the application of a palette of colors to a drawing or a theme and is also used as the name of the theme component.

We apologize for this minor lexicographic inconsistency, but it seems clear which is which in actual usage. ColorBrewer Palettes Users with experience in thematic formatting know that it can be sometimes difficult to choose colors for thematic formatting that do not result in a miserably garish display.

Manifold includes ColorBrewer palettes, beginning with a CB in the name of the palette, which are arrangements of colors that have been cleverly picked by Cynthia Brewer to work well together.
Using one of the CB palettes almost always results in a pleasant and legible effect.
See the Miscellaneous topic and http://www.colorbrewer.org for more info on the ColorBrewer project.

The CB palettes are each designed with a fixed number of colors, the number of colors being indicated by the number at the end of the palette name. For example, CB Pastel 4 is a palette of four colors. The number of colors should be the same as the number of breaks used in the thematic format.

What are the 6 types of literature review?

What’s the difference between reviews?

REVIEW TYPE	TIMEFRAME	NO. OF REVIEWERS
Traditional (narrative) literature review	1 – 4 weeks	1
Rapid review	2 – 6 months	2
Scoping review	1 – 4 weeks	1 – 2
Systematic review	8 months to 2 years	2 or more

Is thematic analysis a systematic review?

Thematic analysis is a method of qualitative analysis that is often used for both primary research and systematic reviews.

Is thematic Qualitative or quantitative?

What is thematic analysis? – Thematic analysis is a qualitative data analysis method that involves reading through a data set (such as transcripts from in depth interviews or focus groups), and identifying patterns in meaning across the data to derive themes.

Thematic analysis involves an active process of reflexivity, where a researcher’s subjective experience plays a central role in meaning making from data. Thematic analysis was widely used in the field of psychology as well as other fields that use qualitative research methods. Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke outline their approach to thematic analysis in their 2006 paper Using thematic analysis in psychology,

Thematic analysis in psychology can also be used in a variety of other social science fields. This post is inspired by their paper, and includes a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of thematic analysis and a walkthrough of thematic analysis steps.

What is thematic analysis in literature review?

A thematic analysis is used in qualitative research to focus on examining themes within a topic by identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within the research topic. It is similar to a literature review, which is a critical survey and assessment of the existing research on your particular topic.

Is thematic analysis a methodology?

Published on 5 May 2022 by Jack Caulfield, Thematic analysis is a method of analysing qualitative data, It is usually applied to a set of texts, such as an interview or transcripts, The researcher closely examines the data to identify common themes, topics, ideas and patterns of meaning that come up repeatedly.

Familiarisation Coding Generating themes Reviewing themes Defining and naming themes Writing up

This process was originally developed for psychology research by Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke, However, thematic analysis is a flexible method that can be adapted to many different kinds of research.

What is the difference between content analysis and thematic analysis?

Content analysis focuses on the systematic classification of data using coding to identify the key categories issues within it. Thematic analysis focuses on the search and generation of themes from the dataset.

What are the three approaches to thematic analysis?

What are the types of thematic analysis? – Now that you’ve got an understanding of the overarching approaches to thematic analysis, it’s time to have a look at the different types of thematic analysis you can conduct. Broadly speaking, there are three “types” of thematic analysis:

Reflexive thematic analysis
Codebook thematic analysis
Coding reliability thematic analysis

Let’s have a look at each of these: Reflexive thematic analysis takes an inductive approach, letting the codes and themes emerge from that data. This type of thematic analysis is very flexible, as it allows researchers to change, remove, and add codes as they work through the data.

As the name suggests, reflexive thematic analysis emphasizes the active engagement of the researcher in critically reflecting on their assumptions, biases, and interpretations, and how these may shape the analysis.
Reflexive thematic analysis typically involves iterative and reflexive cycles of coding, interpreting, and reflecting on data, with the aim of producing nuanced and contextually sensitive insights into the research topic, while at the same time recognising and addressing the subjective nature of the research process.

Codebook thematic analysis, on the other hand, lays on the opposite end of the spectrum. Taking a deductive approach, this type of thematic analysis makes use of structured codebooks containing clearly defined, predetermined codes. These codes are typically drawn from a combination of existing theoretical theories, empirical studies and prior knowledge of the situation.

Codebook thematic analysis aims to produce reliable and consistent findings.
Therefore, it’s often used in studies where a clear and predefined coding framework is desired to ensure rigour and consistency in data analysis.
Coding reliability thematic analysis necessitates the work of multiple coders, and the design is specifically intended for research teams.

With this type of analysis, codebooks are typically fixed and are rarely altered. The benefit of this form of analysis is that it brings an element of intercoder reliability where coders need to agree upon the codes used, which means that the outcome is more rigorous as the element of subjectivity is reduced.

How long does thematic analysis take?

I believe if you work really hard and really want to do it fast, you can do it within a week. However, if you want to do it properly, give it a month, or even two. Elide – as Lihong suggests – it is difficult to answer. Do you mean just the analysis – or also transcribing the collected data verbatim?

What are the benefits of thematic analysis?

Advantages and disadvantages of Thematic Analysis – The advantage of Thematic Analysis is that this approach is unsupervised, meaning that you don’t need to set up these categories in advance, don’t need to train the algorithm, and therefore can easily capture the unknown unknowns.

The disadvantage of this approach is that it is phrase-based. Sometimes phrases cannot capture the meaning correctly. For example, when theer is a complex narrative. For example, let’s say the piece of feedback says: “It’s the last time I’m calling you about this issue. No more!”, This feedback indicates that the customer is likely to stop using the service, but capturing it is difficult.

In supervized categorization, you could train a model that could recognize this theme. But it is still tricky to build. The good news is that Thematic Analysis works exceptionally well in 95% of feedback cases since most people try to be clear when they provide feedback.

Thematic Analysis is difficult to implement correctly from scratch. A perfect approach must be able to merge and organize themes in a meaningful way, producing a set of themes that are not too generic and not too large. Ideally, the themes must capture at least 80% of verbatims (people’s comments). And the themes extraction must handle complex negation clauses, e.g.

“I did not think this was a good coffee”.

What are examples of thematic content?

What is an example of thematic narrative?

Thematic patterning – Thematic patterning means the insertion of a recurring motif in a narrative. For example, various scenes in John Steinbeck ‘s Of Mice and Men are about loneliness. Thematic patterning is evident in One Thousand and One Nights, an example being the story of “The City of Brass”.

According to David Pinault, the overarching theme of that tale, in which a group of travelers roam the desert in search of ancient brass artifacts, is that “riches and pomp tempt one away from God”.
The narrative is interrupted several times by stories within the story.
These include a tale recorded in an inscription found in the palace of Kush ibh Shaddad; a story told by a prisoner about Solomon; and an episode involving Queen Tadmur’s corpse.

According to Pinault, “each of these minor narratives introduces a character who confesses that he once proudly enjoyed worldly prosperity: subsequently, we learn, the given character has been brought low by God, These minor tales ultimately reinforce the theme of the major narrative”.

What is an example sentence for thematic?

Relating to or based on subjects or a theme: In her study, the author has adopted a thematic rather than a chronological approach.

How do you write a thematic statement example?

When you write a theme statement, start by listing some of the topics of the text ; for example, alienation, prejudice, ambition, freedom, love, loyalty, passion, etc.). The topic can also be a longer phrase, such as the relationship between love and hate. Can the meaning of a work be love? hate?