Remember life before word processing programs? Neither do I - at least
not if I can help it. The sharp smell of White Out at 3 in the morning (I'm
speaking as a former graduate student here), or the pure panic that could spring
instantly to life when the dog accidentally stepped on a freshly typed page
that blew off the table when my mother breezed into the room . . . I shudder
just thinking about remembering those (and many others of similar ilk) moments.
Some aspects of earlier phases in our careers, I think, are best forgotten.
That is why Freud invented repression, you know: a much welcomed invention,
too, I might add, particularly where the typewriter is concerned.
In fact, the word processor was only the first of many software innovations
welcomed by writers - especially research writers. Since then,
software programs have been introduced that offer to help you with
nearly every aspect of the research writing process, from eliminating
typos to
getting your haceks in place to automating qualitative data analysis to
underscoring the right bits of your bibliographies. Even so - most
research writers stick to their word processors, spellers - and forego
working with additional programs. Why? The answer is easy.
For many writers asked to prepare reports and scholarly papers,
figuring out how to integrate these little technological wonders into
their own research process sometimes requires as much (or more) research
than the paper itself! (1)
Okay, that's probably an exaggeration. The point I was trying to make is that it
is often difficult to find documentation or tutorials that tells you how to use some of these helpful
research software tools as you are working your way through a research project.
So I thought I'd try this approach in this article -
describing how a bibliographic database program like Citation (along with a few other programs)
can be integrated into the steps writers go through
as they are preparing studies, reports, papers for classes, scholarly articles,
legal memoranda, treatises - or any other sort of reseach writing. For purposes of organizing
the essay, I've defined five separate phases in this process:
Once you have the bibliographic information in your database, enter note records
for the passages you’ve highlighted as possibly useful for your discussion. Make sure
you include specific page references for quotes (this is essential to citing the
passage properly), and enter keywords to tag the sources and notes
as having to do with particular aspects of your topic.
Last, take a quick look at the footnotes and bibliography for this work. If any of them
look like works you need to read, add them to your reading list.
Last remarks
The thing is - fundamentally, the process of researching an issue and then writing
about it hasn't changed much since the introduction of research software --
and finding a way to shift some of the less gratifying tasks in this process to a software
program can be very gratifying, and save you time & frustration as well.
Ingenta is a free service on the internet that allows you to search over 28,000 periodicals in all disciplines.
You can also order fax delivery for most articles with a credit card. It's a good place to start looking
for materials published in periodicals.
The Library of Congress is another good place to start researching a topic, though here you will find
only books. Every book published in the US is listed, though, so you'll have a lot of material to help
with your search for a topic.
The National Library of Medicine indexes article published on medical and biomedical subjects.
Searching the publications database is free to the public.
