How do you do research?

[schneefink]

It occurred to me today that I should have asked this much sooner: How do you do research for papers? If you have multiple sources (books, journals, printed and online) for multiple chapters, how do you make sure you find the references you need?

In the beginning I used colorful stickers for books, but that doesn't make it easy to find that one specific quote among the thirty or forty stickers.

Then I started making notes on paper, topic + site, which brought the problem that all the sheets were lying around on my desk and it took very long to find the one I needed.

This time I'm making notes on my computer, source + topic + page, and then I made a new document and sorted all the references by topic under the respective chapter headlines. It looks quite useful, but I haven't started writing yet.

Maybe there's an even better method that I'm missing? How do you do it?

Comments

[jae]

First I search and search and search for sources, until I have hundreds of potential ones. Then I read them, all in a row. While I read them, I take notes, usually in a Microsoft Word document. Before I read each source, I put the full reference in the document, and then every time I take a note, I put in the page number. Lather, rinse, repeat. I usually end up with a Microsoft Word document of between fifty and sixty single-spaced pages, but it's pretty easy to sort through and find quotes and references, and definitely more 'übersichtlich' than trying to cope with hundreds of books and articles.

Caveat: I do this for a living. It's possible that this is too elaborate for a student!

-J

[schneefink]

Thanks! It sounds similar to what I'm doing now, only I have "only" five pages of references (for this chapter.) Maybe I need to take more detailed notes, because atm I have to go back and read each page again to remember what exactly they talked about. I'm glad I don't need as many sources as a "full" academic work!

[jae]

My "notes" actually often just consist of retyping little (and sometimes longer) bits, actually, rather than short notes or paraphrases. It sounds inefficient, but I actually find that forcing myself to type pieces that will be useful to me get me to think about those bits in new ways that help me synthesize them into something larger later.

For what it's worth!

-J

[schneefink]

Sounds useful, I'll try that for the next chapter! :)

[busaikko]

The outlining/organizing program All My Notes Organizer, which I got as a freebie and loved so much I paid the $20 or so to keep forever.

It allows you to use files and pages to keep track of stuff, and also search within it. (I use it for fandom, and it's like a prosthetic canon brain, but for keeping mountains of data easy to manipulate, it's a lifesaver.

[schneefink]

That looks interesting. I might check it out, thanks :)