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Forgetting what you have read

T

A lot of the articles I read in the first year ended up being a bit irrelevant as my project developed. By the end of writing I had a "core" of about twenty articles which were really useful, and which I knew really well. Of course, I cited many other sources but it is not really necessary to remember every article you read!

C

It is good to hear you had a core of about twenty - I also find I have a small group of articles that have truly influenced my research, and a large group of others that either back up the same points or make minor additional points. I do sometimes worry about not including sufficient references to show that I've read around the field properly, and find myself trying to shoehorn others in!

T

I'm in the same position in that the components of my research each have a small core of about thirty articles, although that does mean I have about 100 core articles...

I have never used software for referencing or source management, so I'm sightly hesitant to start now but I'll have a look.

G

It's when I find (very occasionally!) that I've printed out the same article twice that I start to worry, especially when the first version is crammed with my marginalia. Hope I'm not alone in this!

T

I spent a week or so coming up with ideas and planning/reading around a topic for a new study in my PhD. It was sort of going OK and I had some good sound ideas. Then a few days later I found 2 pages (undated) where I'd outlined most of the ideas, references, and really good clear thoughts about it all. I was so shocked. It was as though I had amnesia. Couldn't remember writing it or thinking it, and basically had re-did the lots of work/thinking/planning/reading without any recollection of having done it before. And came to the same conclusions as well! Scary!

T

And came to the same conclusions as well! Scary!


Which must surely prove that they were good conclusions.

C

Quote From Tudor_Queen:
I spent a week or so coming up with ideas and planning/reading around a topic for a new study in my PhD. It was sort of going OK and I had some good sound ideas. Then a few days later I found 2 pages (undated) where I'd outlined most of the ideas, references, and really good clear thoughts about it all. I was so shocked. It was as though I had amnesia. Couldn't remember writing it or thinking it, and basically had re-did the lots of work/thinking/planning/reading without any recollection of having done it before. And came to the same conclusions as well! Scary!


Any time I go to write something in my thesis now, I have to do a search to see if I've already written and saved it somewhere. Past Me seems to have planted lots of mini-documents all over the place!

T

Yes - I am gonna have to start doing something similar to stop myself double working! And yeh, the conclusions do feel pretty robust now!

T

I had a similar experience on this site. I got stuck with the software I was working with and googled for solutions. It came up with a post of MINE on here, detailing how to resolve the problem! Not only had I forgotten how to solve the problem, I had forgotten even having the problem before!

C

Quote From timefortea:
I had a similar experience on this site. I got stuck with the software I was working with and googled for solutions. It came up with a post of MINE on here, detailing how to resolve the problem! Not only had I forgotten how to solve the problem, I had forgotten even having the problem before!


Haha, at least you'd been thoughtful enough to post the solution!

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