It has been too long since any of us have written, so I'm here to cattle-prod us away from apathy. In all honesty, I'm only one step away from leaving the program - a horrible advisor, an impossible teaching schedule, no real place to work - and I need all the camaraderie I can get. And I'd like to see everyone avoid the many pitfalls I've encountered. That means a little every day. That means small, achievable goals with a larger plan. Part of the reason I didn't finish last year was that I was without a plan. I hadn't made the decision to finish by date X, and breakdown all of the many tasks on the calendar. So let's rally.
Furthermore, it took me a while to develop (and actually still am developing in my new habitat) my workflow. So I offer you the "sweet suite" of programs that have been helping me manage the large amounts of information I've accumulated and put it to good use. I'd love to hear what you think and how you work.
My Way:
First off, you need some way to capture, organize, and search out the research you encounter. After years of marking margins and even writing quotes and reflections in notebooks, which were often lost or piled in a forgotten corner of the closet, I decided to commit to electronic form. I purchased the mac program DevonThink. It essentially is a database program that can easily massive amounts of information. You can dump into it word or text files, pdf's, image files, pictures, graphs, sounds, etc. Most importantly, it has a sophisticated search engine (they call it Artificial Intelligence) that automatically finds similar documents and can group them together for you (see their tutorials). So after you begin dumping info into it, you can pull up a JSTOR pdf or some of your own notes, hit find similar items, and suddenly the program pulls up notes on books you forgot you read or quotes that have long since been buried. I have mine organized by authors, and I also replicate these files to go into corresponding chapter headings and subheadings. Steven Berlin has a useful post on how to use the program and why small chunks of text work better than dumping entire articles into the program.
Whenever I read something I take notes in the program. That way I can easily find it later and the program links it to other related notes or material. For each reference I also try to make sure I also put it into my bibliographic manager Bookends. I prefer this program over Endnotes, and it has the advantage of keeping all of my references together; it also attaches electronic versions to the reference if it's available. So, if you find an article on JSTOR you can download the bibliographic info and attach the actual document to the citation. This helps me quickly cite in chapters and easily generate a works cited page. It also organizes all the electronic research on my computer.
Next I have been experimenting with the drafting program Scrivener. Booth, Colomb, Williams' revision of Turabain's Manual for Dissertation Writers emphasizes the helpfulness of the storyboard when you are organizing a large, complex argument. Scrivener is of that mind and allows you to set up a virtual outline/storyboard and to see the argument visually (something I need). I usually set up a chapter's broad parameters, its major sections, and then begin to cull info from my DevonThink database and paste it into the growing outline. After I fill it out a bit, I then print out a draft of all the basic subheadings, my comments on their purposes, and any quotes/notes that correspond. It's just a step in refining my information and clarifying how I think it goes together. See their tutorial for more on how to use this drafting program.
The time spent up front in marrying a word processing program to a bibliographic manager will save you in the end. Word is the most popular program, but I've been using the alternative Mellel. I've found that Mellel and Bookends work very well together and I save time not having to worry about typing in the citations as I'm writing. The programs do it for you, and since the grad school requires a Works Cited page, it makes compiling that list automatic. Mellel is a bit strange and requires learning an unfamiliar platform; but the control you have over the program outweighs the initial discomfort.
It may sound a bit convoluted or having the effect of making more steps than required, and I'd be interested to hear from everyone on how you go about gathering and composing, but the habit of each step helps me refine and clarify what the point of the material is and how it's useful. I'm finding I'm much more of a process guy than I ever knew - I need those many steps to get at anything interesting or intelligent - and having these programs keeps me from going crazy with piles of folders. I still like having paper in front of me when I actually writing paragraphs, yet it is the programs that have helped me at first compile and organize notes into a rough, rough draft (what Bolker calls the "zero draft").
What works for you?
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2 comments:
Hi Kevin -
I have DevonThink but I never actually use it - I think because haven't wanted to take the time to learn how to work it or come up with naming conventions to make searching easier. For my areas, I've been using notecards - yep, notecards - but that is clearly not going to continue to work. You've inspired me to revisit my DevonThink!
And just for the record, I sympathize with your grad-life frustrations. I vacillate between thinking that having one eye on the door is counter-productive and thinking it's the only thing that keeps me sane. But I stick it out because I actually do enjoy the work. The accompanying headaches will, I assume, eventually pass.
I'm looking forward to being able to work on a long-term project of my choosing (i.e. my diss) but I bet there are all kinds of pitfalls I'm not anticipating. So thanks for the tips!
Hi Ann,
You know, I've actually considered going back to notecards. The Booth/Columb/Williams team (both in their Craft of Research and in their revision of Turabain) advocate strongly for the storyboard method of organizing, and I find it appealing. The boys suggest that even as you're typing in your notes, that you mimic the notecard style - in that you create a separate page for each quote or comment with keywords. I haven't followed this, however, b/c DevonThink does such a good job finding things for you.
Give it a try, but expect a somewhat steep learning curve. Or rather, a short time of not really being impressed with its capabilities until you add a substantial amount of material and begin to make better use of the organizational and search functions. If you google "dissertation" and "devonthink" there are also a number of grad students/asst profs out there that describe their own methods of using it. A lot of theology students, for example, seem to love it.
Let me know how it goes.
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