From research idea to panel
Use this workflow when you want to turn a topic, mechanism, or empirical question into an auditable call-level panel.
Start with a topic
Write the research idea as a short topic statement before opening the tools. Define the firms, countries, sectors, and time period that matter for the analysis.
This first step matters because NL Analytics measures are query-dependent. A broad query can increase recall but add false positives. A narrow phrase can improve precision but miss relevant language.
Translate the idea into search terms
List the terms, phrases, synonyms, and exclusions that represent the concept. Use the Keyword Tool to find related terms and validate whether suggested terms fit the intended construct.
Record the final query string. Small changes to terms, plurals, exclusions, or Boolean logic can change every downstream metric.
Run an exploratory search
Use the Risk Tool to search English earnings-call transcripts over the relevant date range.
Review whether the topic appears often enough and varies across the firms, countries, sectors, and periods that matter for the project. Corpus coverage varies, so do this before interpreting trends or group differences.
Inspect matched sentences
Open matched text in the Snippet Tool. Check whether the sentences actually describe the intended concept.
Look for:
- False positives: terms that match but do not represent the construct.
- False negatives: relevant language that the query misses.
- Ambiguous terms that need exclusions.
- Useful synonyms, phrases, or plural forms to add.
Define the measure
After reviewing matched sentences, interpret the output using the approved metric definitions.
Exposure, Risk, Positive Sentiment, Negative Sentiment, and Sentiment are raw sentence-count measures. They are not causal estimates, forecasts, investment recommendations, classifier labels, or complete summaries of business risk.
Export and document the panel
When the query is defensible, export a research panel. Keep the exported file together with the query, date range, selected options, search metadata, export date, join keys, and normalization choice.
Use earningscallID as the primary document identifier in documentation. Use nr_of_sentences when normalizing raw counts by transcript length or including transcript length as a control.