2.4 Reading and Organizing Research

Once you start finding research, it's going to be really important to keep it organized. When you are only dealing with one or two sources, it can be easier to keep track of what you read where, but once that number starts going up, it's easy to forget which source had certain information. 

Here are the main things you need to do to effectively read and keep track of your research:

1. Save your research

Saving your research ensures that you won't lose it and if the website becomes unavailable you still have access to it. 

• • Whenever possible save a backup of the PDF on your computer or on the cloud (like Google Drive).

  • Create a separate folder for each project/paper to save your research in on your computer or cloud drive. 

  • Name your PDFs something that makes sense, like: Author Last Name_Partial Title of Article

2. Read your research

It's often more effective to read journal articles "out of order." This will help you understand the overall point and research of the article and also quickly determine if it's usable for your topic. The following video explains how to prioritize what to read in a research article first. 

It's okay if you don't understand everything in the articles that you are reading. While you should skim the methodology and any other sections that are more complex (if applicable) to look for issues like small sample sizes or other problems, you're not expected to understand these fully at this point in your college career.

Focus on understanding the introduction, background, discussion, and conclusion sections for more complex studies. While the abstract is important for understanding what the article is about, you should not be citing the abstract—make sure to read the conclusion and more developed sections later in the paper fully to understand the findings and/or argument of the paper. 

3. Annotate your research

Annotations help you become a more active participant in your reading. When you highlight, underline and put notes in the margins, you not only will have quicker access to those important parts of the article later, it will help you synthesize the information as you read it.  See the video below for more. 

• If you are working off PDFs on your computer, you can use Adobe Acrobat to add annotations (notes in the margins) of your papers.

• There are also Chrome browser extensions that allow you to create an account, annotate directly on the internet (so you can annotate web-hosted PDFs and web pages), and keep track of your research through that program.

  • Macomb pays for premium access for PowerNotes for all students.

    • PowerNotes is a Chrome extension that allows you to highlight, annotate and organize your research. It can also help you keep track of your citations. 

    • More information on how to use PowerNotes can be found on their help page here. 

    • If you decide to use PowerNotes, use your Macomb email address to sign up to get the full premium access. 

  • Here's a breakdown of other software you can use to annotate as well. 

4. Copy the APA citation information 

As soon as you find a source you are going to likely use, copy the source information and create your APA citation. 

• • If you are using Google Scholar, you can copy the citation information directly in your search by clicking on the quotation mark icon underneath the article description. 

  • If you are using JSTOR, Academic OneFile, or any other database through the library, you can download the citation either from the search page or from the index page that has the description of the article. Keep an eye out for links that say "Citation" on any of these databases. You can often copy the pre-made one from right on the article page. 

  • If you are using a website, you may have to manually create the citation, use a Chrome extension, or use a citation maker.

5. Save the citation information

• • You can add it as an annotation directly to the file in a comment, or you can save it in a separate word file. 

  • Keep it somewhere you can find it, and keep it organized. 

6. Summarize your sources

After you have read an article, write a 3-sentence summary either in the document with your citations, as an annotation, or in another document. 

• • This will help ensure the following:

    • That you actually understood the article enough to use it as research. If you are struggling with your summary, you may need to go back and reread parts (or all) of the article to ensure you understand the main points/arguments/findings. 

    • That you can easily remember what that article was about when you go back to write your paper. 

  • Additionally, this summary will be needed for the Annotated Bibliography assignment. 

7. Keep notes on your research

I strongly recommend having a Word or Google Doc where you take and keep your research notes organized. If you go this route, it's important that you keep your notes well organized and clear. I recommend the following:

• Keep the sources organized. Make sure for every point or quote you add to your notes document that it's clear to you which source it came from. 

• Jot down the main ideas in short bullet points in your own words. This will make paraphrasing easier down the road.

• If you copy any direct quotes into your notes, use quotation marks! Make sure that it's clear that was a quote and note your own words so that you don't accidentally plagiarize down the road. 

• Consider using color coding or a system to keep track of main topics or how you want to use your research in your notes.

8. Use a Research Organizer Matrix

After you've read and annotated your sources, I recommend using a research organizer, like the example below to help keep track of what sources you want to use where and what main sub-points you want to use. This can be done in word, or you may want to consider using Excel or Google Sheets to keep your research organized. If you use a spreadsheet, you can use separate sheets/tabs for separate purposes (such as for keeping track of the main points of each source and then also creating a table like below).  

The below table has been partially filled out just to show what this might look like. It's unlikely that every source will cover every sub-point, however, you should ideally have more than one source for each sub-point (there should be more than one study or article that supports that point).