Close Home Forum Sign up / Log in

What notes do you keep?

M

I have made loads of notes on books and articles that I now consider irrelevant or off-topic to the way I see this research going. Is it still worth using them to form a small part of the literature review or would that just be a tangent? I am wondering whether to just file them away incase they ever come in handy again (I don't see that happening right now though), or just get rid?

S

I think I would just file them incase I ever needed them in the future - no point throwing away work until you are sure you will never use it?

S

NEVER throw anything away! Lost track of the number of times I've had to come back to something I thought was totally irrelevant, but turned out to be very important later on.

J

Keep everything, but make sure you have note of the note, if you see what I mean. I've got stuff filed away that I used ages ago, but some of it I've forgotten about until I've been searching for something else- or occasionally I've come across the article again and printed out another copy .

L

I have two filing cabinet drawers for this purpose -one for photocopies/PDFs filed by surname and then one for synthesis documents (I write a mini essay on what I have read)/rough notes also filed under surname. I then use my endnote to know where I am up to. You can attach word documents and PDF to the endnot reference s I always have a copy linked to the reference and a hard copy printed out with extra handwritten notes on. I find this invaluable as sometimes only a small section of an article is relevent but I always know I have the information somewhere!! I worked in admin for two years so had organisation instilled in me!

8685