What I've learned from comments of others is that, at some earlier point of their journey, many dissertation writers tried to experiment with different note taking approaches and eventually came to the conclusion that the most important thing is to start (and keep) writing, plugging new sources in along the way when necessary. I also looked for advice on note taking on the internet. One of my favorite findings was Note-Taking - Learning Historical Research. This page contains discussion of various topics related to research and writing, which can be useful for instructors who assign research papers and want to provide better guidance to their students. Among those topics are keeping a research journal, finding new sources using library call numbers connections, acknowledging sources, etc. On the same page, I also discovered the following excerpt:
“The whole time I'm researching I'm keeping one file open on my computer all the time, which is, essentially, my notebook… Anything interesting I read, I'll copy it in, highlights from interviews I do, I'll copy it in, and I'll try out sentences and I'll try out leads and I'll try out conclusions and I'll make lists of points and reading lists and it's kind of a big mess. Usually there are about fifty single-spaced pages of this before I really start writing.” – Michael Pollan, environmental writer, as told to Pamela Demory.
This writing preparation description caught my attention and made me look for the entire interview, which is available at http://michaelpollan.com/interviews/its-all-storytelling-an-interview-with-michael-pollan/.
I generally enjoy hearing about research and writing of others and always take something useful out of that. Pollan's interview wasn't an exception. Although I didn't learn anything drastically new, it was interesting to read how he utilizes common writing suggestions (i.e., outlining, writing something every day, developing a writing routine, editing, etc.). I liked Pollan's idea of having one computer file of notes for each piece of writing. In my case, I decided on one file for each dissertation chapter. My next question was how to structure that computer file. I didn't want the file to be organized chronologically, like a journal, or by source, since the extensive amount of notes may make it difficult to navigate the file and to efficiently incorporate the information it contains into the chapter. Eventually, I came up with an idea to follow the headings of my identity chapter and to organize the file in a similar fashion. That probably makes sense because I'm happy with the current structure of the chapter and my goal is not to revise it, but to further develop, deepen, and enrich my argument. Hope that will work. What do you think?
Looking forward to reading your next insightful posts.
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