I’ve recently realized that my past strategy for managing sources--piles of books and printed out articles marked with post-it-notes--probably isn’t going to work for a dissertation. Even if it would, our place is small enough and configured weirdly enough that I don’t actually have a place to put all the books and articles. And, since I’m living 3000 miles away from my university, I don’t get the benefit of being able to check out obscure secondary sources for years at a time.
In pondering my problem, I came up with nothing, so I surveyed a few dissertation-writing friends. One handwrites all her notes into notebooks and types up some quotes as she’s reading, then reviews her notes to plan her organization and writes. This friend actually knows someone who uses the post-it-note method, but reviews her sources and types up all her notes and quotes at once before she starts a chapter. Two other friends use DevonThink for the Mac and a bibliography program called Bookends. Evidently DevonThink can manage, search, and group numerous documents and document types, and has a simple word processing program so you can type notes directly into the program.
I’m not a big fan of index cards or writing-then-typing, so I’m planning to check out DevonThink (and then cough up the $150 for it). Before I commit, how are you all managing the masses of information necessary to writing a dissertation?
In pondering my problem, I came up with nothing, so I surveyed a few dissertation-writing friends. One handwrites all her notes into notebooks and types up some quotes as she’s reading, then reviews her notes to plan her organization and writes. This friend actually knows someone who uses the post-it-note method, but reviews her sources and types up all her notes and quotes at once before she starts a chapter. Two other friends use DevonThink for the Mac and a bibliography program called Bookends. Evidently DevonThink can manage, search, and group numerous documents and document types, and has a simple word processing program so you can type notes directly into the program.
I’m not a big fan of index cards or writing-then-typing, so I’m planning to check out DevonThink (and then cough up the $150 for it). Before I commit, how are you all managing the masses of information necessary to writing a dissertation?
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