Book excerpt: A guide to the methods for the computer-based quantitative analysis of texts. The book concentrates on the methodological and practical issues of coding and handling data including sampling, reliability and validity issues. It focuses on three main approaches to text analysis: lexical, semantic and network. The author: provides an overview of the background and concepts in the field; introduces newer developments; and looks at the relationship between content analysis and other kinds of text analysis. The work concludes with an appendix of computer programmes for text analysis.