PhD Tips: Note-taking Software for Writing a PhD

Introduction

In my previous post on the need for and uses of a bibliographic software, I mentioned that there were three indispensable tools for every researcher:

1. A writing tool
2. A bibliographic tool
3. A note-taking tool

NOTE: There may be others that more experienced researchers use, but these are definitely the ones that take up much of my writing energy.

Some folks use Microsoft Word for all three phases of writing.  I’m not an evangelist (well, not for software anyway), so if that works for you, then keep right on chugging along.  What ultimately matters is your progress and whether you can churn out quality writing with the tools at your disposal.  However, if you’d like to test out another procedure, then keep on reading.

The key is maximum flexibility

When taking notes you need ultimate flexibility.   Here is my minimum list of requirements for any software, which you are using to take notes:

• It must combine word processor and file management capabilities (this means you can look inside a document without having to “open” it.)
• It should allow you to create individual “folders” and /or “documents” that can contain text, links, images, or videos or a combination of all of them
• It should contain a navigation panel to allow you to move freely from folder to folder or document to document
• You should be able to view your data as an icon on a navigation panel, a page, as an outline, or as an index card and you should be able to move icons and index cards to different locations at will
• It should allow for multiple tags to be added to each “record” so you can search on any tag
• It should have the ability to search for text and save those searches for later use
• You should be able to attach documents or links to any “folder” or “document”
• You should be able to gather up any set of “folders” or “documents” into a collection and save collections for later viewing
• You should be able to e-mail files, documents or text to your note-taking software
• You should have the ability to sync with a server to access your folders or documents from any computer or mobile device

There are very few programs that do all of those things and do them well.  I have found two that are worthy of mention:  Evernote and Scrivener.  I currently use Scrivener because its word processor is more robust, but either is a good choice.

Here’s a video showing some of Scrivener’s useful features:

One drawback of note-taking software

One of the few drawbacks of using a non-word processor to gather your notes is that you will not be working in a final product environment.

If you prefer to insert your footnotes, tables, columns and images into your document exactly as they should appear the first time around, then you should probably stick with a regular word processor. I like the note-taking software for the flexibility it offers and for its ability to let me organize my thoughts.  I worry about the format later.

Organize From the Get Go!

Ultimately, whatever software you decide to use, you must take care to periodically review your notes and organize them in some fashion.

If you’re like me, you can sit down for weeks at a time, copying references out of secondary literature, jotting down notes from the biblical text, all the while thinking that you’ll go back later to make sense of it all.  However, you might just end up with hundreds of tiny references which can be time consuming to sift through. 

Review your notes often and categorize them appropriately.  Set up a little organization system from the start, either with tags or simply with an outline.  Indeed, having a broad outline, and then slotting your notes into these categories is probably the best way to go about it.  It works even better if your outline is quite detailed since you will begin to build up good content by adding notes to specific outline categories.

That’s about all for now.

Happy researching!