Welcome to my blog - a collection of thoughts and musings on the world of writing, books and all those wordy type things.

Tuesday 8 January 2013

Researching Tip

I'm in the process of researching for a project and I've been trying to think of the best way - for me - to collate all the info. Whilst reading up, I might come across something that should go in one chapter, and then immediately something else that should go in a different one. I had thought about one of those tabbed Project Notebook type things that places like Smiths sell, but I didn't really want to be handwriting all my notes.

So I've come up with a solution that I hope is going to work for me. For the moment, I'm just bunging various sentences, copies of report findings, and all the other goodies in a Word document, with a small gap between each item. When I'm done with each source, I will then print out the document in draft, and go through it, and slicing it into the separate bits of info. Then, with the aid of a trusty glue stick, I'll paste these onto some loose leaf papers I have and put them into a binder which is already separated into the chapter headings.

Well, that's the idea anyway. I'll report back later to let you know how (or if!) it's working.

Any thoughts?

Happy writing!

5 comments:

  1. I found this recently. http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2010/05/help-yourself.html
    You could amend it for research notes by having Chapters across and sources along the top then in the cells where they connect put the detail or page number etc.

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  2. The first part of your idea is good, and goi g through it with a pencil in hand - great - but after that ...!!
    You've got a Word doc, you've got the gaps, just rearrange you bits with cut and paste - the computer kind - and print it again for your files.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Lizy
      Thanks for the comment. Yes, I did think about that. It was a toss up between the two ways, but I wasn't sure if the more 'tactile' version mentioned might work better for me personally...I'll let you know!

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  3. Yours sounds as good a method as any, Maxi. I must admit I do like hard copies of things rather than everything on a computer screen (but that's probably showing my age!).

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  4. Well, I must be showing my age too then as I definitely like to have hard copies too. I find it much easier than switching between screens, etc. Thanks for your comment! :)

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