An Example Verbatims report pulls example quotes from one open-ended question in your survey. Where a cross-tab tells you how many respondents said something, an Example Verbatims report shows you what they actually said — edited quotes with demographics and tags, so each verbatim carries the context of who said it and which topic it belongs to.
It works hand in hand with the platform's automatic open-end coding: the topics available in the report are the codes assigned to that question's responses. If you haven't read it yet, start with Open end coding in MX8 Labs.
Creating an Example Verbatims report
From the Reports tab of your survey (or a project's reports), click + CREATE. The dialog opens on Select Report Type — choose the Example Verbatims card ("Verbatim report with edited quotes, demographics, and tags").
The second step asks for the report basics:
- Name — the name of the report.
- Project — the project for this report.
- Respondent Statuses — which respondents are included: Complete, Unterminated, or All. Complete is the default and the right choice for most studies.
- Report window start and Report window end — optional date limits, useful for scoping a tracker to a single wave.
Click Save. The new report is selected in the report list and the Edit Report dialog opens on the Scope step so you can configure it straight away.
Configuring the report
The report editor for this type has four steps — Scope, Layout, Analysis, and Recategorization. (Unlike cross-tabs, there is no Statistical Significance step for this report type.) You can jump to any step later from the Edit menu on the Reports tab — Edit Scope, Edit Layout, and so on.
On the Scope step, the Questions field controls which questions are available to the report. Make sure it includes the open-ended question you want quotes from and every demographic question you want shown alongside the quotes.
The Layout step is where the report takes shape — choose a single open-ended question and optional demo breakouts:
- Open Ended Question — the single open end the quotes are drawn from. Only one question per report; run a second report for a second open end.
- Requested Demos — one or more questions whose answers appear with each quote, such as age, gender, or region. The chosen open end is excluded from this list automatically.
- Open Ended Topics — checkboxes for which topics are included with each quote. The list is scoped to the topics coded on the chosen question, and all of them are selected by default; untick a topic to exclude it from the report.
Topics come from open-end coding
The Open Ended Topics list is not something you type into this report — it is the code frame the platform built (or you refined) for that question. If the topics don't match how you want the verbatims grouped, fix the coding first and the report will follow. If no coding exists yet for the chosen question, the topics section shows No topics available.
For the report flow shared by all report types — scope, layout, analysis, and recategorization — see Reporting with MX8 Labs.