kareina

One of my apprentices just told me that they will be starting a Master's program, and, in addition to much enthusiasm and joy on my part, I also lectured a bit about one of the many advantages of using Scrivener for one's research, saying (in part)

"Especially for research, because I also have literature topic cards, with links to every paper/book I have on a given topic (and, of course, links on every paper's card to all of its relevant topics), which is golden now, as I am going through my topic cards one by one and making certain I have either cited everything listed therein in the right thesis section, or there is a reason that it isn't worth citing."

To which they replied "Yeah, all of that sounds way more reasonable than I'll ever be"

At which point I couldn't help but say "If you are going to do a thesis, I STRONGLY recommend that you do this for everything AS you download them, it will make your future self love your now self for making their work easier... basically this is the equivalent of doing the prep work for an art project--sanding the wood before you paint, drawing the linen thread to reveal the straight line before you cut, carding and putting the wool onto a distaff before you spin, etc.) more time is needed for the early stages of the project, but less time elapses from start to finish, and less effort/struggle is required."


I was so happy with that analogy, that I couldn't help pause from my own thesis writing to put this here (slightly edited, for clarity) where others can see it.

When I first started my first PhD the university provided EndNote free to all students, and I was delighted not to need to worry about doing the formatting for citations myself. At the time I thought it enough to just download the citation details for each paper as I got them, adding a "label" that matched the name of the folder I had downloaded it to, so I could find them later. Over time I realized that it would make sense to add a note telling my future self when and why I had downloaded each paper.

When I started my second PhD and also started using Scrivener I exported all of the citations I had in endnote and made scrivener cards for each, so that I could link to the card if I cited them in something I was writing. I also started taking reading notes directly on the cards (I was really bad about taking notes before, since if I did they would wind up being hard to find later, so I wouldn't look at them anyway, so I didn't see the point).

The longer I use Scrivener the more and more organized I am becoming. Therefore I thought I would record my current work flow for adding a new card for a paper:

1) find out about a paper. (the three most common reasons are A) seeing a scopus alert mentioning it from a previous search I had set up, B) Doing a new database search on a specific topic, C) seeing it cited in a paper I am reading.

2a) If the source is scopus (or any other on line source with the option to export the citation information export it and import the data into EndNote. Add a "label" for the primary topic, add "research notes" stating today's date and why this paper is interesting enough to make note of (this will include mentioning how I found out about it). Copy-paste the "preview" of the citation, including the research notes onto a new Scrivener card.

2b) If the source is a paper I am reading copy-paste (or re-type if the paper is so old the pdf doesn't have copyable text) the relavant quote into my reading notes for today, then make a new scrivener card, copy the citation information from the reference list of the articles and, in the notes about why I am adding the card, copy the citation quote, and add a link to the paper containing the quote. Then, add a link on the first card to the new citation. At this point either leave the new citation's card with a note that says "card added, but not downloaded", and give it a status "add to endnote" and resume reading the first article, or go looking for the article on line, download it, add it to endnote.

3) once the new paper has a card give it a list of topics, linking each one to a topic card of the same name. On each topic card include a link back to the card for the new article. Add a parenthetical note next to the link. For example my topic card "3D images" has the following list:

* Badiu, et al 2015 (pottery profiles)
* Williams et al 2019 (poster Roman cattle skulls/target practice) (see also our Email exchange on the topic)
* Williams et al 2019b (paper Roman cattle skulls) (see also our Email exchange on the topic)
* Frangione et al 2019 (automated scaling techniques-photogrammetric micro measurements)

Were each author/date is a link to that card, and the "see also our email exchange" is a link to that card. A single paper may have quite a few topics.

This is all a fair bit of extra work, but my future self will thank me for it. Indeed, I am already thanking my past self for having done this--if I am writing a grant proposal and need a citation for why a specific technique is perfect for the proposed project I need only look at the topic card for that technique, click on the links to see which of the papers that address that topic is the best one to make my case.

However, since at first I wasn't using topic cards, I am finding that as I work on my literature review and start papers I am having to go back and add topics to papers I have had for a longer time. I also have a topic card for "papers I have cited", which has come in handy when writing new papers, as I can quickly go look "what did I say last time I cited this paper?"

I suspect that my work flow will continue to evolve as I get even better at keeping good records. However, even at the first stages of using Scrivener it was already so much better than anything I had tried before. Sometimes I wonder how I managed to do research without these tools.