Information Research, Vol. 8 No. 4, July 2003

contents auindex subindex search home

Observing documentary reading by verbal protocol

Mariângela Spotti Lopes Fujita, Maria Isabel Asperti Nardi
and Silvana Aparecida Fagundes

Departamento de Ciência da Informação, Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP),
Marília, São Paulo, Brazil


Abstract
Verifies the applicability to research on indexers' reading strategies of the process observing technique known as Verbal Protocol or Thinking Aloud. This interpretative-qualitative data collecting technique allows the observation of different kinds of process during the progress of different kinds of tasks. Presents a theoretical investigation into "reading" and into formal methodological procedures to observe reading processes. Describes details of the methodological procedures adopted in five case studies with analysis of samples of data. The project adopted three kinds of parameters for data analysis: theoretical, normative, empirical (derived from observations made in the first case study). The results are compared, and important conclusions regarding documentary reading are drawn.

Introduction

Throughout the 1970s, researchers observed the activity of reading taking into account only individuals' answers to and product analysis of the comprehension of a text: however, as research developed, it was realized that it was also necessary to observe the reader when he turns the pages and runs his eyes over the text he is reading. That is to say, to observe reader's visible activities and record those thoughts that may influence his search for comprehension. These activities are properly called reading strategies.

In information science, "thinking aloud" techniques have been used in information seeking and interactive information retrieval research since the late 1970s, for example, in the work of Ingwersen, whose Information retrieval (IR) research line has adopted a cognitive approach to IR processes. In a project, which collected data from twenty librarians, Ingwersen et al. (1977) applied thinking aloud techniques to obtain data about the negotiation process in a reference situation of information searching. Ingwersen (1982) reports the main results of an investigation conducted by his research during the period of 1976-1980. The investigation, focusing on cognitive aspects of the information transfer processes in public libraries reference services, was partly experimental, with the use of thinking aloud techniques. It discussed the use of verbal protocols, its advantages and disadvantages, in connection with studies of the interpretation by users of retrieved texts, relevance assessments and search strategy shifts.

It is interesting to note that, in applying thinking aloud techniques, Ingwersen gave special attention to aspects of the technique and has carried out actions to guarantee data reliability and validity which have been observed in the research reported here: collecting data from subjects in a natural situation, in their own professional environment, without inserting any changes in their routines; supplementing thinking aloud data with observation of the subjects' behaviour and actions; and training the subjects to make them familiar with the technique.

Later the techniques have been applied often in library and information science research as well as in human-computer interaction studies worldwide, including processes of professional summarizing, for example, by Endres-Niggemeyer and Neugebauer (1998). However, it is important to make it clear that Ingwersen has made use of thinking aloud techniques in works that focus on information retrieval processes, while Endres-Niggemeyer and Neugebauer's have focussed on summarizing processes in general. Thus, the present research has its main value in its objective, which differs from the objects of the other authors and constitute a novelty in the information area: it focuses on reading processes for indexing purposes.

Observation of reading in documentary analysis is important since reading represents the first step, which establishes and influences all other performance operations. However, reading for documentary analysis is different from reading for other purposes because it is directed towards indexing. In this way, we believe that studying the process of reading for documentary purpose may bring some orientation to indexers and improve the use of indexing methodologies. Therefore, a project of integrated research called "Reading for Documentary Analysis", in which the indexer's reading is observed during the indexing process, is being developed at UNESP-Marília, coordinated by Dr. Mariângela Spotti Lopes Fujita. Two reports have already been published. (Fujita, 1996; 1998).

Our main premise is that reading is a fundamental activity of documentary analysis because it results in the selection of concepts and terms, which will represent the document for the user. Therefore, we give emphasis to the fact that the identification and selection of terms take place during reading, that is why observing reading strategies is important. Thus, investigation into reading in documentary analysis focuses on the indexer as a reader who reads documents in order to identify and select concepts. Reading made by an indexer with such a purpose will be called "documentary reading".

To begin with, a theoretical investigation into reading was carried out in order to describe different conceptualisations of reading, reading strategies and also formal methodological procedures to observe reading processes. Following the bibliographical review, it was possible to elaborate a theoretical foundation ranging from the view of reading as a linear process to reading considered as communication, revealing the notion of reading strategies as subsidiary to the study of reading strategies regarding documents. (Fujita, et al., 1998).

In addition to the theoretical foundation, it was necessary to choose a method to observe the indexer's documentary reading process. Although, in the original project, description of the documentary reading processes was intended to be founded only on interviews to be conducted with indexers, it was decided that observation of the process would also be important because it might add support to the interviewee's statements and should be the ideal method to identify different strategies of documentary reading.

Thus, the investigations also verified the applicability of the Verbal Protocol (Ericsson and Simon, 1987) This interpretative-qualitative research data collecting technique allows the observation of different kinds of processes during the progress of different kinds of tasks. Process observations can provide information about individual processing steps such as sequences of eye movements or spontaneous verbalization that can externalise mental processes, keeping the sequence of processed information.

In Brazil, the use of verbal protocols to observe reading processes for the purpose of indexing is novel. We have not heard about any other research that makes use of this methodology.

In foreign literature, the use of verbal protocols to observe indexing processes has been reported only by the Japanese researcher Gotoh (1983) in an article which discusses problems of information processing behaviour in the human indexing process. In that study, the author carried out an experiment with two indexers using verbal protocols.

According to Ericsson and Simon (1987), verbal protocols consist in recording the verbal externalisation of thought during an activity. This is possible because humans are able to externalise their mental processes while information is in the focus of attention. When they do it consciously, the authors consider that they are "thinking aloud". In this way, each subject's words are audio recorded and transcribed literally, resulting in verbal protocols. Protocols are generally defined as verbal reports of subjects' conscious mental processes.

According to Cavalcanti and Zanotto (1994), verbal protocols were introduced into qualitative research through psychology in 1980, and since then its validity in disclosing mental processes has been questioned. Following the triumph of behaviourism over competing viewpoints, verbal protocols have been regarded as suspect (Ericsson & Simon, 1980). According to Ericsson and Simon (1987), when cognitivism gained evidence as a new paradigm, they came again into scene as the main source of data for cognitive research. That revival occurred within the theoretical framework of information processing related to studies of problem solving.

Since then, they have gone beyond the limits of cognitive psychology, and have been adopted by the area of applied ;inguistics, in which they have become important in investigations of reading in a foreign language (Hosenfeld, 1977; Cohen & Hosenfeld, 1981; Faerch & Kasper, 1987). Undoubtedly, research on reading is the chief field in which verbal protocols are used (Cavalcanti, 1983;Paschoal, 1988).

In Brazil, particularly in the Postgraduate Programme in Applied Linguistics at the Pontifica Universidade Catolica de São Paulo, protocols have been used as research tools in research for many dissertations and theses. Among these researches, Nardi's (1993) was taken as methodological model for research in our Integrated Project. According to Nardi (1993), although controversial, verbal protocols are now the only available data-collecting instrument which enables researchers to observe the reader's processes during his activity of text comprehension, which accounts for our choice of the method.

Santos (1996), supervised by Nardi, opened the possibility of using verbal protocols to observe processes of documentary reading within the Documentary Analysis Research Group, and, in the first stage of the integrated project Fujita (1998) carried out a theoretical study on reading and documentary analysis reading strategies, and also the first case study. In the second stage, four more case studies were carried out with the same objectives and the same methodology. The results were compared, and important conclusions regarding documentary reading were drawn.

In this paper, the next section details the procedures for applying verbal protocol methodology: those carried out before audio recording reading sessions (research texts selecting; research subjects selecting; informal talk with subjects; and carrying out of individual sessions of familiarization with the "Think Aloud" technique); those carried out during the recording of protocols ("Think Aloud" recording during reading tasks), and those that followed the recording of the reading tasks (retrospective interview recording and literal transcription of the recordings). In this section, we also present the five case studies carried out by the project and some specific procedures relating to specific cases. The third section discusses the theoretical foundations for data analysis (theoretical parameters and normative parameters). The fourth section presents the analysis of the transcriptions of the protocols. The fifth section presents and discusses empirical parameters: strategies that are specific of documentary reading which were observed in the protocols of the first case study and which were used as parameters for the other case studies. The final section presents analytical comments on the applicability of verbal protocols for documentary reading research.

Applying verbal protocol methodology

The recording of "thinking aloud" for the observation of indexers' and summary writers' reading processes, in the five case studies, followed the same general methodological procedures.

Procedures before recording the verbal protocols

Selecting the research texts

Selecting subjects

Criteria for selecting subjects were years of experience in the information system and on indexing and/or abstracting activities. In addition to these criteria, "indexing or abstracting skills" set by number of documents indexed was taken into account.

Informal talk with the subjects

First, informal talks were held with the subjects in which individual appointments were made for the data collection session. During this talk, the research purposes were clearly stated, emphasizing the importance of the work for the development of the documentary analysis field. It was also made clear that the anonymity of the subjects would be preserved, so that they would feel comfortable during their performance on the reading task.

Becoming familiar with the "thinking aloud" task in individual sessions

In each session in which protocol data were collected, before handing the research text to the subject, the researcher read aloud instructions (Appendix 1) to the subject and modelled a "thinking aloud" task for him, aiming at making him understand the nature of the task. When the subject was not able to "think aloud", his data were rejected.

Procedures during verbal protocol recording

"Thinking aloud" recording during reading

The research text was handled to the subject and he was reminded that he would be expected to "think aloud" all the time during reading, which might be understood as him having to try to externalise his mental processes. Also, it was emphasized that the subject should try to forget the presence of the researcher in the room, for the researcher would be there only to remind the reader that he had to think aloud all the time, to call his attention back from digressions of attention and also to control the tape recorder.

Procedures following verbal protocol recording

Retrospective interview recording (optional)

Immediately after thinking aloud recording, in the same session, a retrospective interview was recorded, in cases where there was a need to clarify some points considered obscure by the researcher. (Such points were usually sequences of the reading and thinking aloud in which the researcher thought it difficult to identify which strategies the subject was using – and took note of the sequence in order to be able to ask the subject about it later).

Literal transcription of the recordings

Transcribing should be done so that the subjects' comprehension, doubts, mistakes, term identification and selection were visible. For better understanding of the processes of the subjects, we made use of specific notations adapted from Cavalcanti (1989)

[…] passage of the text verbalized by the subject at the first reading
Italic subject's comments showing his comprehension
… pauses and continuation of reading
< - - subject returns to previous passages of the text
bold terms selected by the subject
(- >) subject "jumped" (ignored) passage of the text during reading
/ auto-interruption of a thought
((SL)) subject speaks and laughs at the same time
((MT)) subject mutters (meaning irony)
((LG)) subject laughs
(-> -> ->) subject accelerates the reading rhythm
(~~~) subject reading at a slower speed, with attention
"…" word or expression commented upon by the subject
{} inclusion in the transcriptions of descriptions of the subject's meaningful gestures or the researcher's analytical comments
(….) omission of an irrelevant passage of transcription
Underlined relevance of the passage for the reader
Underlined and bold sequences that best express the phenomenon under analysis

As example, we have chosen the transcription of one subject in order to show the use of some notations (underlined) and their potential for making the analysis of data easier. It is important to note that the reader or indexer underlined some words, which he considered candidates for key words.

[…the contamination of the oceans by anthropogenic radionuclides…] well, the text presents an abstract which makes things easier… if the abstract is good, I can rely on it…well, let's take a look at this abstract…it should be very short indeed…here he {the author of the text} starts telling the objective of this paper (<-) (~~~) [This paper / summarizes the main sources of contamination in the marine environment and presents an overview covering the oceanic distribution of anthropogenic radionuclides in the FAO regions. A great number of measurements of artificial radionuclides have been carried out on various marine environmental samples in different oceans over the world, cesium-137 being the most widely measured radionuclide] here he does not explain if it has been the most measured because more experiments have been conducted or it has been the most measured because it has been the most found…this has become faulty somehow [radionuclide concentrations vary from region to region according to the specific sources of contamination. In some regions, such as the Irish sea, the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, the concentrations depend on the inputs due to discharges from reprocessing facilities and from Chernobyl accident]… Chernobyl accident…still? ((FR…My God!…when was this text written?… 1996?…not long ago.))…but those words are going to be selected, I'm sure…as I'm a chemist, I always like to choose some words of my specific field, when there's something to do with it… I always try to give emphasis to passages dealing with chemistry…here something from the area of chemistry is going to be selected…well, let's take a look at the artwork…

{the subject turns the page and continues}…[radionuclides behaviour in the marine environment]…{the subject examines the artwork}…[Radionuclides level in oceans], with some regions of the world, fish in some regions of the world (…). toxic material is important, is another key-word…marine ecosystem, another key word…here he says that it is important to monitor, but the subject is not exactly only about that.

{the subject goes back to the first page} (<-) [… the oceanic distribution of anthropogenic radionuclides in (-> -> ->) measurements of artificial radionuclides have been carried out on (->->->) samples in different oceans over the world]…it would be a quantitative analysis here… [another radionuclide highly harmful and dangerous even in the smallest amounts is plutonium-239 …] yes, I cannot choose this term because it's too specific…it's got to be radionuclides because it is more general…(->) [Artificial radionuclides scattered in the oceans come from tests with nuclear artefacts, nuclear accidents and radioactive material liberation].

{the subject turns over the pages looking for the words he had underlined and reading them aloud as they were encountered}…radionuclides, anthropogenic contamination, oceans, quantitative analysis, radionuclides, ecosystem, food chain, toxicity… and maybe other words which could be added to those would be chemical, physical and biological interactions…but I don't believe there are descriptors such as those…

Description of some specific procedures according to the specific case study

The investigations on the process of documentary reading, from the documentalist's point of view, have focused on several aspects: a) different documentary processes: during document indexing and abstracting, b) different textual structures: scientific journal and newspaper articles, and c) different knowledge areas: odontology, nuclear energy and agronomy.

Thus, five case studies were conducted which have emphasized different aspects:

Counting all five case studies, verbal protocols were applied to fourteen subjects: nine were indexers with degrees in librarianship, and five were indexing and abstracting specialists in the area of nuclear energy. Figure 1 shows the studies carried out:


Figure 1: Case studies using the verbal protocol for documentary reading
Title of the Case Study Institution Number of subjects and their education Documentary typology Knowledge area of the document
Case 1
Documentary reading by indexers in the area of Odontology 		National Net of Oral Health Sciences (Sub-Rede Nacional em Ciências da Saúde Oral) Indexers with degrees in Librarianship (4) Scientific journal article

 Odontology
Case 2
Documentary reading by indexers of newspaper articles		 Filing Department of the newspaper "O Estado de São Paulo" Indexers with degrees in Librarianship (1) and journalism (1) Newspaper article Sports, police occurrences
Case 3
Documentary reading by indexers of the Area of Nuclear Energy		 Nuclear Information Centre (Centro de Informações Nucleares-CNEN) Indexers with training in Nuclear Energy (4) Scientific journal article Nuclear energy
Case 4
Documentary reading by abstractors in the field of Nuclear Energy 		Nuclear Information Centre (Centro de Informações Nucleares-CNEN) Abstractors with training in Nuclear Energy Scientific journal article Management
Case 5
Documentary reading by indexers in the field of Agronomy		 Coordenação Geral de Documentação em Agricultura- CENAGRI Indexers graduated in Librarianship (4) Scientific journal article Agronomy

The methods followed in all case studies were those already described as the Integrated Project general methodology. However, during the research, the need was felt to adapt some procedures to improve the methods. The procedures for the "selection of research-text" and for "selection of subjects" were adapted to the documentary typology and to the knowledge area of each case study. Other procedures did not have to be changed. The details of the procedures followed in the individual cases are set out in Appendix 2.

Analytical procedures of each case study according to specific objectives.

Case study 1

Transcription analysis of the first case study used the three parameters: theoretical considerations concerning meta-cognitive features of documentary reading, trying to identify the meta-cognitive strategies listed by Brown (1980); the normative aspects, associated with the strategies of ISO Standard and the Indexing Handbook of the Latin American and Caribbean Centre on Health Sciences (BIREME); and the empirical parameter. Thus, emphasis was given to the following aspects:

However, for case studies 3, 4 and 5 Kato's reformulation of the aspects listed by Brown (1980) was added to the theoretical considerations, and the normative parameter only took into account the ISO Standard, leaving out the BIREME Handbook.

Case study 2

In the data analysis of this case, we tried to verify whether indexers, during reading, make use of the meta-cognitive strategies listed by Brown (1980) in association with those described by the ISO Standard 5963 (1985), as described in case study 1.

We also tried to observe whether indexers possessed knowledge about the textual structure of a newspaper text (Van Dijk, 1983), and if they explored it during reading. The following proposal for the conventional superstructure of news discourse was employed:

1. Summary/introduction
1.1 Headlines (with super-, main-, and sub-headlines, and captions)
1.2 Lead
2. Episode(s)
2.1 Events
2.1.1 Previous information
2.1.2 Antecedents
2.1.3 Actual events
2.1.4 Explanation
2.1.4.1 Context
2.1.4.2 Background
2.2 Consequences/reactions
2.2.1 Events
2.2.2 Speech acts
3. Comments
3.1 Expectations
3.2 Evaluation

Case study 3, 4 and 5

In these studies, concerning the theoretical parameter, we took into account Kato's (1987) reformulation of the meta-cognitive strategies listed by Brown (1980), which reduces all of Brown's strategies into two categories: a) defining objectives for reading and b) comprehension monitoring. As to the normative parameter, we considered only the ISO Standard, not the BIREME manual.

Theoretical foundations for data analysis

As may be seen from the transcription extract shown above, it is easy to observe the procedures of a reader who reads passages and makes comments about them immediately. However, identifying strategies depends on different parameters related to reading comprehension as a cognitive activity. Based on these parameters, it is possible to observe what kind of strategies the reader or indexer has made use of, and ,therefore, to determine the extent of his proficiency in documentary reading which will result in better identification of valid concepts for document retrieving. The Project adopted two kinds of parameters for data analysis:

Figure 2 shows the strategies typical of each parameter:


Figure 2: Reading strategies according to different parameters
Brown's meta-cognitive strategies Strategies specific to documentary reading proposed by ISO 5963
  • Making the reading objectives explicit and/or keeping them in mind;
  • Identifying important aspects of message;
  • Allocating attention to important areas: exploring textual structure
  • Behaviour monitoring by:
    • reviewing and self questioning in order to check if objectives are being reached; making corrections when mistakes of comprehension are detected;
    • recovering attention from distractions or digressions.
  • Analysis of the document with textual structure control;
  • Identification of concepts (systematic approach through questioning);
  • Selection of concepts

Theoretical parameter: different views of readers' behaviour towards the reading of a text and notions of metacognition and strategies

Text and reader interaction develops by means of the use of strategies, defined by Brown (1980) as any deliberate and planned control of activities, which lead to comprehension.

According to Giasson (1993), "the reader approaches reading activity with cognitive and affective structures of his own. In addition to that, he makes use of different processes which allow him to understand the text."

There are different kinds of processes of comprehension that take place at different levels and simultaneously. According to Giasson (1993) there are processes for understanding a sentence (micro processes - sentence level); for achieving coherence among sentences (integration processes – among sentences); for building a mental model of a text (macro processes – textual level); for allowing reader to grasp fundamental elements and raise hypotheses (elaboration processes – text comprehension).

Metacognition in reading allows the reader to have an understanding of his own comprehension, that is, allows him to follow and evaluate his own process of comprehension during the reading of a text and, furthermore, to take necessary steps when comprehension fails (Leffa, 1996).

Kato (1987) distinguishes two kinds of strategies taking into account the degree of consciousness involved in them: the meta-cognitive, understood as the reader's conscious actions, are directed towards an objective or towards the search for a solution to comprehension problems; and the cognitive, used during fluent reading, without obstacles, which are automatic subconscious actions.

The involvement of consciousness is the criterion generally used to distinguish cognitive activities from meta-cognitive ones: cognitive activities would take place below the level of consciousness; the meta-cognitive ones would involve conscious introspection (Brown, 1980). The use of strategies is not easily observable because mental actions, as connections and deductions during reading, cannot be seen, although they can be verbalized. To assign meta-cognitive character to mental actions, Brown (1980) lists the following activities:

and many more deliberate, planful activities that render reading an efficient information-gathering activity.

The use of cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies must tend to a balance, as according to Cintra (1987) who considers that, although any reading involves both kinds of strategies, a text is likely to be more legible if it requires fewer meta-cognitive activities. However, mere automatic reading is likely to lead to incomprehension.

Concerning this, Kato believes that there are moments in reading where a difficult passage requires careful and linear reading, and there other moments in which context-based inferencing allows fluent comprehension. Therefore, she considers proficient a reader who is able to use both kinds of strategies, the ascending ones (which depend on careful analysis of visual input, including language) and the descending ones (based on the reader's prior information and his ability of inferring and predicting), making use of each type of strategy, in a conscious way, at the moment where each of them is required. Moreover, we believe that proficient-strategic reader is the one who not only uses ascending and descending strategies properly but also keeps in mind the reading objective.

The theoretical conception of reading strategies on documentation presented by Cintra (1987) is in accordance with Cavalcanti (1989) when it states that reading for documentary purposes requires author-reader cooperation, inasmuch as the author cannot foretell who will read what he has published. Moreover, it does not recommend linear reading, letter-by-letter, word-by-word, but that the reader should skip parts of the text based on what he is able to predict from his knowledge of text structure. In addition, Cintra (1987) believes that a reader who easily recognizes textual superstructures can understand the main ideas of a text better than a person who only performs linear reading. Relying on textual structure and his prior information about the subject, the reader can infer meanings and raise hypotheses, which help him to grasp the global thematic coherence.

Theoretical studies of the field show that indexers understand the text in the same way as fluent readers do, but are influenced by specific conditions (very limited time, text comprehending for the purpose of indexing, great number of different types of texts and knowledge areas, repetitive element in his work, etc). In addition to this, when indexers have to choose concepts (which will require exhaustivity and specificity), they will be directly influenced by their awareness of the needs of their usual clients and by their familiarity with the system's indexing policy.

The documentalist reader, even when he is not a specialist in the subject matter of a text, interacts with the text using his knowledge of a specialized documentary language, of different textual structures and of the nature of the information system with which he works. This interactive aspect of documentary reading echoes general reading theories such as those of Cavalcanti (1989) and Giasson (1993), which have described the process of reading as involving the interaction of different knowledge sources.

Normative parameter: strategies associated with the ISO Standard 5963

The ISO Standard 5963 (1985) on methods for examining documents, determining their subjects and selecting indexing terms, suggests the following stages for indexing: examination of the document, identifying concepts and selecting concepts. Particularly with regard to identifying concepts, it suggests a "systematic approach" to the text through questioning. In this way, the Standard suggests a method for document analysis in which the document analysis and synthesis are processes that involve the following stages:

Examination of the document: at the same time as it indicates the necesssity for an overall reading of the text for a full comprehension, the standard points at the unviability of such a procedure; for this reason, it suggests that the indexer can be successful if he pays attention to the following important parts of a text:

At the end of that item, the Standard points out that it is not possible to analyze a subject only through reading the document title or summary.

Identifying concepts: after examining the document, the indexer must follow a systematic approach to identify concepts, which are essential elements for subject description. Therefore, the Standard suggests the use of some questions prepared to accomplish that aim:

According to Lara (1993), documentary reading has the objective of "identifying and extracting references from original texts to transform it into a documentary text". The author cited the "essential concepts" of the ISO Standard, which we consider as documentary reading strategies of a meta-cognitive nature.

In the item "identifying concepts ", the Standard approaches the issues of term selection by suggesting that "indexers do not necessarily need to represent all concepts identified during document examination making use of indexing terms. Concepts will be selected or rejected according to the purpose for which they will be used."

Then, the Standard mentions exhaustivity and specificity as aspects, which may define the choice of concepts. However, it recognizes that those aspects are related to and dependent on two influencing variables in identifying and selecting concepts: the documentary system and the user of that system.

Exaustivity and specificity are two very important principles that guide both the indexing process and the retrieval process. In indexing, these principles are part of an indexing policy, which influences the quality of retrieval. Exaustivity, in indexing, is related to the number of terms attributed to the content of a document, which has to be proportional to the information required by the users of a system of information retrieval. Specificity relates to the specific content of each term attributed to each topic of the document and involves the decision of selecting only the most specific terms, not the generic ones, to represent the content of the document.

We understand that the "Indexing stages" of the Standard (first the document examination and then the identification of concepts) may be considered as meta-cognitive strategies of reading, since the first one suggests exploring the textual structure and the second may correspond to identifying important aspects of the message, as pointed out by Brown (1980). Moreover, selecting concepts, meant by the ISO Standard as following the identification of concepts, may be considered as the "outcome" of the indexer's reading.

Analysis of the protocol transcriptions

Considering the theoretical and the normative parameters and also those derived from the observation of data of the cases studies, we will now present examples extracted from the transcription of verbal protocol data of the third case (Rubi, 1999), which can clearly show the readers making use of different strategies: