research

elizabeth

elizabeth

dose any one have any hints as in whats the best way to about taking notes and filling ect and how do you go about doing your research i always end up in a guddle.

cooper

Elizabeth.  Love that word, guddle.  Definition please and I want to see it as a new dictionary entry.

elizabeth

lol well guddle as in puddle did  you never guddle in a puddle and get told of for the mess you made of your shoes and socks

elizabeth

guddle-by groping with hands under the banks  or stones of a stream? there u go

Daisy

Research:  book or screen on one side, note book on other, pen in hand.  Jot down main points of what you're reading/researching.  Use headings, bullet points etc.
Filing:  I have a box with labelled sections in which I keep different things.
Result: limited guddle.

elizabeth

lol thanks daisy.x

Marc.B

Elizebeth, no offence intended but were you intoxicated when you posted your message?  It made me laugh as I had to read it twice.

Woll22

Why not print the article out then you can take notes at your leisure from the print out. That way you don't clock up too many pounds. Make a note of the actual source, the pages and the author of the article so you can give a reference for the editor. Remember your university days - that way you cannot be accused of cribbing.  Now even teachers can tell if students are passing someone else's work as their own - cannot be too careful. Same goes if you are using books, make a note of the source.

elizabeth

Are u picking on me marc lol.

Daisy

Hey, Elizabeth!  Marc spelt your name wrong!

Jenny

Stand in the corner Marc and think about what you did!

elizabeth

lol so he did silly boy.

Jools

I find it easier if I print off the page with the relevent research and use a highlighter pen so it jumps out at me later. Can't be bothered to long hand the bits I need. I also bookmark the web page/article for future use if it was a good one.

cooper

Some research methods sound just too sensible.  Give me a good guddle any day.

sal

I keep chapters, photos, notes in individual numbered files and find it makes it easy to work on different parts of the text and drop in additional notes.

Marc.B

It's the Jewish spelling,  hey already I should know.

cecilia

Maybe it is too late to be of use to you in your research, Elizabeth (which in my family is spelled Elisabeth) but I found the following useful in a large research project:

If you have umpteen sources saved on your hard drive, give each one a hyperlink, and create a master index document on your desktop which contains a list of each source and its hyperlink. That way, no matter which folder you saved the wretched half-forgotten source in, you can jump to it from your index document.

Also, Endnote or Procite help enormously, and one can usually save a citation straight out of a database into one of those bibliographic programmes. I can hardly reference by hand anymore :-)

dorothyd

for the Earl's biography I printed off all the articles I could find, put them in plastic sleeves so I don't tear them with constantly turning over the pages, and then separated all the information into three big lever folders for the three parts of the biography. Any new information, and it turns up all the time (thanks to Google alerts) is filed in the appropriate folder. Even doing that, I lost track of the sheet which said his brother Edward, hero of my Island book, was knighted by Richard of Gloucester during the Borders campaign in XXXX and in the end I had to write to Debretts and get the information!

elizabeth

thank you.x