I like my salsa "mild"

I was at first apprehensive and then glad to read Luker's chapter on Data Reduction and Analysis this week. I was apprehensive as I was reading it after writing the section of my proposal about data analysis, but I was glad to find that I had already considered and included much of what she was saying! The part that surprised me the most of this chapter was that of having someone else code your data after you do to ensure that you aren't being biased towards your hypothesis. This had never occurred to me as a possibility. I have several questions about this process. Who are these mysterious coders? Where do you find them? Do you have to pay them? If not, why would they want to spend their time coding for you? It seems to be lacking some context. I generally like the idea of coding, it makes qualitative data seem more quantitative in a way and definitely more manageable. As a generally numbers/logic oriented person, I think that this would be a soothing way to deal with a lot of words. As Luker states, patterns will also emerge and become clearer through this process.

 In the end, I think that my research proposal falls somewhere in the middle between the canonicals and the salsa dancers. I am not as free-flying as Luker would advocate, partially due to the nature of the assignment (needing our research questions solidified for the proposal before the research has been done), and partially due to my personal nature, which generally likes to have my ducks in a row and have things move linearly. I think that the nature of my research, though, is more exploratory and therefore needs some room to grow and shift as the data unfolds. Maybe I need a dance that is a little more contained than salsa... suggestions??