Research Tips, Please

October 13, 2007 7:05 PM

Academics - Teach me your research strategies!

I'm an MA candidate in Middle Eastern studies, I'm about to start working on papers that are a little longer and a little more serious than I've worked on before, and I'm looking for ways to keep my research organized.

My question to humanities and social sciences academics (who tend to trade in book research more than lab research) is: what's your writing process? How do you get from an idea to 20 pages? If you print out articles, how do you store them? What do you do with your notes? Do you write a little per day, or pound that sucker out all at once? For those who've been in the game longer, what research strategies, techniques, tricks did you learn that you'd pass on?

Please include minutiae / EndNote tricks / muttered incantations if you think they're relevant. What little things do you do that matter as you write?

My first papers aren't due for a little while, so this isn't a panicked help-me-I'm-drowning post. But in the interests of maintaining my future sanity, I'd like to learn how you preserved/lost yours.

posted by awenner to education (16 comments total)

My experience is writing 15-20 pages on psychology for a master's degree, so it might not be quite as intensive as you need. Anyway, this is my approach.

Most of my resources are journal articles. I usually have a photocopy or pdf I can print out so I highlight the articles as I read them.

Once I have the information more or less in my head, I start to make an outline, putting in quotes/facts from my pile of articles into the outline as I go. I also start my reference list and put an abbreviation( like QS p97 or Z02 p301) at the end of each quote or fact that tells me which source it came from.

Then I open a new document and start writing. I usually end up changing the outline as I go or using quotes to support a different point so I don't follow the outline exactly. If I need to quote something directly I can cut and paste from outline. If I just reference it, I put my abbreviation in so I know what I'm referencing. After I finish the first draft, I go back though the outline to see if there are quotes/facts I didn't use and decide if I want them or not. At the end, I fix up my references to meet APA standards.

This is what works for me - YMMV - Good luck!
posted by metahawk at 7:38 PM on October 13, 2007

If you have perfectionist tendencies, lose them now. The difference between finishing papers and getting them out the door, and being someone who never writes anything, is often in wanting to "make it perfect." Instead, you need to make it "good enough" and get that sucker out the door and get onto the next project.

I print articles that I am using right now, plus put the citations in Endnote. But that works because I am at any given time dealing with maybe 20 or so articles -- if I were constantly dealing with ten times that number, I wouldn't waste the paper printing them.

For me, idea to 20 pages goes through a lot of bad ideas and really cruddy 15 page drafts that get thrown out, keeping maybe a couple of good paragraphs. Better outlining usually means better drafts for me, but I haven't learned a shortcut past writing a really terrible first draft and moving on. The faster I can get that bad draft done and tossed, the faster I can go on to the real writing -- maybe someday I will learn how to bypass this step. It sure would save a lot of time and angst.

I have also learned that showing my writing to others is a necessary step in turning it from so-so to pretty good. Peers in grad school, your adviser, your partner, journal editors -- all serve the purpose of bringing fresh eyes to what you have written, and getting you past the need to keep explaining, "What I meant in this section was..."

I really liked Howard Becker's books, including Writing for Social Scientists, and would recommend reading them sooner rather than later.

But I sure don't have this writing stuff all figured out, and really envy the people who seem to have found iron-clad ways to avoid writer's block, who are consistently productive, and who have a good ear for writing to an audience. If I ever get halfway there, I will be a happy academic.
posted by Forktine at 7:38 PM on October 13, 2007

How do you get from an idea to 20 pages?

That's not really hard. What you'll find is that by the time you:

*Lay out the quickie version of what you're doing and why it matters
*Describe the relevant lit so far
*Describe the hole that you see, or the relation to something else that you've seen
*Talk about how you're going to go about doing whatever it is you're doing
*Talk about other people who've done things that way, and why it's an ever so smart way to do it
*Do whatever you're doing
*Explain again how it relates to the hole in the literature or whatever
*Explain why people should give a damn
*Speculate about related things

You're well over 20 pages.

If you print out articles, how do you store them?

Mostly I don't print things anymore, but when I do:

In a pile. When I'm done with the project, or with the lit-review part of a project, I pitch them in the recycling bucket. Printing is free for me.

What do you do with your notes?

I don't really take them any more, since I'm familiar with the literature in which I primarily work and only a few pieces come out every year. But I do not work in a field where having pithy quotes on access is terribly important.

When I was in your position as a grad student, I just put my notes in notebooks. Sometimes this meant copying relevant notes from one notebook to another -- okay, so it did. That's an excellent way to learn those notes.

Do you write a little per day, or pound that sucker out all at once?

Some of each. I make an outline and start filling in the outline however it makes sense -- often the lit review is last because that's the part I find most boring. But the outline does not get filled in evenly.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:01 PM on October 13, 2007 [2 favorites]

I'm at the tail end of my MA thesis (in a historical topic), which when complete will be in the 150 page range. I confess to killing a lot of trees for my research. Are you doing a thesis? If so, get a topic narrowed down as soon as possible. Pick a topic that is at least a little bit fun or interesting for you personally so you don't get bored. As you write those 20 page papers, try to have them be about topics related to your thesis...doing this will save you a bunch of time if you can plug them into your thesis.

I have printed off tons of articles from JStor and newspaper archival sources. I keep them in one of those accordion files with a handle. They are somewhat organized by topic. Instead of lugging home tons of journals from the library, I photocopy only what I need.

I got an outline established pretty early on in my research and set up a separate word document on my computer for each section of the outline. As I find useful information or feel inspired to write, I just open up a section and start working on it. I write a bit every day. It's pretty common for me to have 5-7 documents open on my computer and flip back and forth between them. I tend to overwrite and then revise the hell out of it at a later point. I use RefWorks for organizing my citations. Pay close attention to the formatting rules set up by your school. Figure out early which style guide you need to use.

Keep a notebook with you at all times so you can jot down random ideas as you think of them. I carry a moleskin book for this purpose. Also, write as many notes, questions and observations as possible as you are reviewing your sources. Back-up your computer files on a regular basis (weekly is good). I back my stuff up onto an external hard-drive and keep it at my office on campus.

Hang out with other grad students who are working on thesis and papers, read each other's work and support each other. It helps to have people in the same situation to talk to. One of my colleagues graduated a last semester and I learned so much by hanging out and listening to him talk about the experience of defending his thesis, but also by reading his proposal and final document.

Good luck with your studies and research!
posted by pluckysparrow at 9:22 PM on October 13, 2007

Thorough, thorough lit review. I try to also include papers from hard sciences that deal conceptually with what I am working on. It helps keep my epistemological considerations in check. Reality often gives way to your Great Idea, so take a small part of that Great Idea and run with it. I read somewhere that picking apart journal articles and doing journal reviews really helps a lot. I have started doing this now, and it does help, though this may be obvious to you.
posted by geoff. at 9:58 PM on October 13, 2007

I'm finishing a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Writing, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but the best trick is to accept the fact that there is probably going to be no one heuristic, or set of tricks to writing more organized papers that are going to benefit you in a majority of situations. You are getting good advice here as far as writing process, rhetorical structure, and so forth, but only so much of it will apply to your own sense of organization, discipline in writing, etc.

So, first, know that you will learn to be a better writer slowly, and only through much hand-wringing. You will rarely write at your best, so you need to be writing, even when it's just not working for you. Only a fraction of the text you generate will be "great," but save it all...after a while, you start seeing strange congruences and patterns in your thinking and you end up going back to saved stuff and using it somehow.

Next, I'll be more vague....What is good is to acknowledge the fact that your writing context has changed from your last degree and that you will need to develop a (much) stronger discipline...but that's okay, because you really don't have a choice, so you will...at least the graduate committee (who are rather good at determining these things) thinks you will. In doing this, you will need to be open to the invariably new and, at times, onerous demands of the new discourse in which you are writing.

If you haven't already, you will need to accept failure as an integral part of your writing process...not in the grand and totalizing sense (getting an F), but in the sense that you are a student (as much as you are expected to be a professional as well) and that you will not know how to do everything, or even most things. This is your time to work on that craft. You are "professionalizing," so make that identity work for you. Do so conscientiously. Consult often with your peers and professors. Model what you like from professional articles in the field, from peers, from mentors, from wherever, but understand that you are not that writer, as much as you admire their strengths. Be engaged with the ideas...and even when you can't be, appear to be.

Experiment with your seminar papers as much as your professors will allow to get to know your own strengths, and weaknesses as a writer. Write from day zero on a project - use EndNote, or whatever to attempt synthesizing concepts, arguments, theories, what-have-you...from the first thing you read. Be engaged with the ideas as a writer...generate text...generate text...generate text. You should be "writing" from your marginalia, annotations, notes, all the way through to the published document. Don't just revise your drafts, *re*vision them...significantly. Be flexible. Almost last, but certainly, not least important, consider who you are as a writer and as an intellectual and work to articulate that through your work. Think about these things, experiment with them. By the time you finish that Master's degree, you should know exactly what is working for you, how it works, why it works, what doesn't work, and in what circumstances. If you have done that, you will be ready (as a writer) for the next step.

Lastly, all of this is based on my own experience as a writer and may not apply to you at all and that's not just equivocation...though equivocation can be useful too. Your is a problem of anxiety, not ability...do whatever makes you feel better about the situation.
posted by mrmojoflying at 10:11 PM on October 13, 2007

I tend to use the sources I'm citing as scaffolding. I lay out the argument in outline form and plug in my citations as I'm going along. When I'm finished, I have the skeleton of my paper laid out, complete with lit review, analysis, discussion and conclusion. Then I begin putting bones on this skeleton by turning outlines and bulleted points into prose. In these early stages be careful not to overedit, because invariably you'll need to move things around. Once this is finished, I have a rough draft, and I can then concentrate on making it read pretty. I'm a firm believer in writing slow. I am often amazed at the insights I get when I return to a piece after letting it sit for 3 or 4 days while I'm working on something else. A fresh look at your work will always improve it. That's why I think budgeting your time and working a little each day is far better than marathon sessions. Anyway, I learned how to organize a scholarly writing program under the tutelage of this guy, and he's been kind enough to share his insights in print.
posted by Crotalus at 11:06 PM on October 13, 2007

Scientist here but there are commonlities.: 2 tips

If you have a writers block, or cant seem to get an idea out, just start writing. You can always erase. Often the act of putting down ill formed thoughts clarifis stuff. Don't get it right, get it written.

---

Also, if your institution has access to ISI web of knowledge, use it ! That sucker's costing them a lot of money and it's an amazing resource.

Do a lliterature search for all your favorite authors. Mark every article. Download them along with their abstracts to your computer. You now have an accurate, searchable database of every article your person has written. Follow citation trails forwards and bacward in time. Soon you'll have a databse of your entire field.

A program like endnote (ca. $50 to students) will organize this database and automatically generate accurate bibliogaphies from this citation data, saving you entry time and accuracy. The great thing is that you can reformat biblioraphies to any journal format with the fick of a switch. Prestigious Studies Quarterly rejected your article? Endnote will Reformat to the Shmuckville review in about 5 seconds.

Your database grows, you can quickly turn out well referenced work. You should never manually write a bibliography again.
posted by lalochezia at 12:03 AM on October 14, 2007

PS For endnote to do bibliographies well, you need microsoft word: it acts as a plug-in.
posted by lalochezia at 12:04 AM on October 14, 2007

A pretty much “drowning” PhD student here. Plan the paper first. Have sections that need to be there. Assign numbers of lines/pages in advance for each section to avoid overworking on something that would be cut out later (yet keep anything you cut out in a scratch file). Use mind-mapping if it is helpful (most probably it will be). Use a paper-based journal to jot down your ideas as they come when you are away from computer. Track your sources. Have as much as possible in one single place (like a USB memory, I use a single folder for all articles that I print into .pdf files fist with name format author_year-title of the article, and only place shortcuts to specific .pdfs in separate folders that denote specific topics/issues). Anything that comes in paper-only version: scan into .pdfs. Print your sources onto paper only when you actually use the paper version. Endnote, yeah! Do all citations with a use of citation manager of your choice from day one. Again, use only one file for all sources for your entire degree, not just one paper, tag/group (Endnote X1 made a great leap in allowing grouping, finally!) them appropriately to classify. Resources allowing, synchronize all your data in few separate places, carry the file with your manuscript with you everywhere you go (use synchronization software, minimize manual work). Never leave your work on college lab computers / network drives without sensible password protection. Keep up-to-date with 1) majour journals in your area of research, 2) methodology and methods employed in your discipline. Finally, I use zorro for maintaining concentration (I accept it might be a bit extreme). And. Be committed to what you do, enjoy it! Should be enough at this point. ..
posted by Jurate at 4:31 AM on October 14, 2007

First, get over the idea that you can write only one draft of a paper and have it be perfect. It's just not the way professionals do it. Your first go at a question is never as good as it could be.

Take Forktine's advice and borrow a copy of Howard Becker's Writing for Social Scientists. It is a great book to read before you get into bad writing habits. And grad school is the place where many of us hone those bad habits into a high, impenetrable art! Many people never finish their degrees because they get caught up in the writing (not writing) process.

One critical reading skill that I find useful is interrogating the articles I read. Once you've finished, review the author's argument and findings and try to explain why she has come to those conclusions (without looking at your notes). Do you agree with her? Why? Why not? What could make the work better or convince you of the author's argument? Or are you simply not buying what she's selling? Learning to offer constructive advice and think abstractly are some of the most important skills to take away from grad school. It will help you to identify gaps in the literature and good future article topics.

Like ROU, now that I'm a professional, I rarely print articles. Everything I do is electronic (though I mark-up .pdfs just like I would on paper). The truth of the matter is that there is no magical organizational technique. Sad, but true. Always back your work up and you'll be fine.
posted by B-squared at 6:04 AM on October 14, 2007

After you read a paper, make a summary and record it in end note or in ink on the copy you've printed out. So much time is lost trying to remember where you read what.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 7:10 AM on October 14, 2007

You've reached this point successfully, so you don't need to do anything radically different, just maybe add some activities or refine your existing process to make it more manageable for longer (and then longer) projects.

What works for me: I keep electronic copies of sources but still do print all sources, read them in hard copy and mark them up -- notes, underlining, highlighter, whatever. I do a brief summary of the argument, purpose, key results of each source I read. All my research notes go into WordPerfect files (formatted to be notecard-sized). That includes all summaries, paraphrases, and quotations of source material, my own responses/comments on sources, my own ideas, etc. If I'm going to quote a source exactly, then I usually copy-paste the info from the electronic text into my note file since it's fast and helps avoid transcription errors. Then I print out the cards. Only ONE piece of information goes on each card.

For big projects, I use different colored cards for different kinds of information -- primary vs secondary vs my ideas (or one color for each subtopic). Once I've read, noted, processed, thought through, jotted some prewriting, etc., then I write an informa list outline and organize my stack of cards in the order I intend to use them but leave myself open to some shuffling, adding, deleting, of course. As I draft, I keep my outline at the ready and make my way through the stack of cards. I tend to write a first draft in as few sittings as possible since getting started is very difficult for me; once I've been able to get myself past the blank screen panic/tedium and generate focused, engaged, happy momentum, I try to go with that as long as I can, sometimes recursively revising while I draft -- but I give myself permission to do that only after the piece is coming together nicely onscreen and is pretty much fully fleshed out in my head. Forward movement is still the #1 rough-draft priority.

After I've got a whole draft, then the real work begins: rethinking ideas, sometimes reorganizing, fleshing out the development, and then hours and hours and hours and hours of copy editing because we English majors are pathologically obsessed with style over substance.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:07 AM on October 14, 2007

I found the search function on Mac OS X to be great for finding information when I could remember it, but couldn't remember which paper it was in (maybe it didn't seem important when I first read it, so I didn't note where it was). I find the standard Windows search function dodgy, so consider putting Google Desktop onto your computer for searching the electronic copies of your resources.

If I need to get on with writing but feel stuck, I set a kitchen timer for 10 minutes and write for that long, then have a 5 minute break. This helps me get into it, and I start setting the timer for longer (eg 20 mins).
posted by AnnaRat at 4:51 PM on October 14, 2007

When I'm doing research, I transcribe quotes I think I'll use and arguments that pop into my head into an evolving outline of the essay, writing out draft paragraphs as inspiration strikes. I constantly revise the structure and flow of the essay, writing each section individually but then rearranging them as necessary and writing linking sentences.

I find that I'm less likely to be overwhelmed by the prospect of writing a few 500-word points than a 6,000-word essay. This way I also ensure that I have several ideas, rather than just having one point or waffling on too long about one thing.
posted by Lucie at 5:42 PM on October 14, 2007

this may or may not be helpful to you. i make tables in word and use a smaller left side column for my outline/points I want to make. I am not the best outliner at all, but by having the outline on the left and my writing on the right side, I am doing well and it keeps everything together. helps with paragraph flow. i am new at this college thing, but since i started doing it..why stop a good thing? just started using Endnote and I like it so far. never want to do another bibliography again. I am now trying out the "Research Notes" field and I hope it works well.

I'm open to any advice for improvement for my post.
posted by veggiluvah at 10:12 PM on December 1, 2007