Dear all, I am happy to be with you in this forum, this is my first participation,
I am a PhD student in international law in Geneva University, I started last March.
My problem is how to taking notes or how to save them to be able to use them later. I read an article, and find a lot of information relating to various chapters of my thesis, so I cannot read about each chapter separately.
My Prof advised me to use excel for writing the notes and then when I want to writ about a specific point, make search for it in all articles. It is good way but it takes long time and boring. So can you advise me what is the best way to save notes

Thank you in advance

i use microsoft one note. Its essentially a scrap book on the screen, so you can have different pages for different chapters/theories etc. and you can do anything. Write notes on the screen, put screen prints, links to articles etc. I often use google books, but just want to put one quote to use later - so I screen print, copy it into my one note, and then add the link and a quick note to say what it was about and why I am putting it there. This has proved invaluable! Especially for those brainwave moments, when you just need to get it down, and then find it again 6 months later!

thank you very much for your answer, unfortunately I use macbook and cannot use Microsoft one note.
please if anybody knows similar programme.

tbh, I guess you could just set something similar up in any word processing programme. The only different thing about one note is that it appears like a folder on your screen - with tabs for each page - so like the tabs you would get in a filofax. and also it is always in your windows toolbar. But if you always had the programme running anyway it wouldn't matter

one note looks like:

http://vic20.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/onenote.jpg

http://www.scip.be/ImagesScreenshots/ArticleOfficeLINQ%20-%20OneNote_Hierarchy.png

Where are you I need more ideas

======= Date Modified 02 Dec 2009 16:00:28 =======
Emaa, try to write a skeleton structure of chapters for your PhD, and simply add the relevant notes within that structure. When it comes to law, you can easily overload yourself with literature, and it starts to become impossible to sift through it all. Once you have a general idea of you thesis, start writing it, and add the notes directly into it. You may end up with 200/300,000 words, but then it's all there, and you can delete/edit it down. DON'T make separate notes on articles, because if you return to them one/two years later, you'll have no idea what you're going on about, and will end up reading the original article again. I have loads of typed notes from articles, and I haven't used any of them when writing-up, I always refer to the original article (basically I've wasted months and months from reading and note-taking).

I organise my articles according to subject (eg I have piles of articles/filed articles for different headings and these all cross-reference into a long bibliography). I then work through a pile of articles as I write my chapter. If an article cross-overs with another topic, I make a note or make another copy and stick it in the relevant file.

I've tried Excel and Onenote, and I just end up wasting time. The old-fashioned way seems to be best for law (in my experience anyway).

Perhaps you can start by creating few folders. Title the folders as Chapter 1, 2, 3, … etc. Whenever you come across anything related to your chapter, all you need to do is, just dump it into the required Chapter. Hence, when you start to work on the chapter, you could easily refer to it. Additionally, you can just create a blank chapter and save it into each Chapter folder. Then, whenever you come across any good phrases or statement that you think relevant to one of your chapter, just cut and paste to your blank chapter. Please don't forget to add full reference on whatever you are copying before saving onto your blank Chapter. Hopefully, it works for you. Cheers, Happy researching.
;-)

Having always taken detailed notes by hand, my supervisor is encouraging me to photocopy and write on/highlight the photocopies. I frequently end up referring to original articles instead of my own scrawl so although it's expensive and bad for the poor trees I do see her point.

missspacey, thank you very much, it is a very good idea, I'll use it, hope it would be practical.

How come I've never used this before! It's been sat here under start->programs all this time. 'til now I've been e-mailing quotes/ideas etc. to myself using gmail - never did seem ideal.

ah ha the dunce has become the smart one mwahahahaha

Sorry feeling in a very silly mood today.

One note is brilliant - spesh as its always in your toolbar so you can call it up at any time and you can use it for screenprints from there. I daresay the programme is more useful than I will ever discover but I get the basics

Sre292 thank you , I think this way can be used with missspacey's way. (up)(up)

Just to say, I do like Onenote, just not for my thesis. But it's great for smaller projects eg. writing an article. Especially importing webpages etc. and making spider diagrams.

Noticed quite a few forumites use NVIVO software. What kind of tasks do you use it for? Relevant here at all?

thank you , really NVIVO is very good programme, but I cannot use it on macbook , I need to use PC.