Managing your information: a workshop for first-year Ph.D. students Session 2 Emma Coonan & Isla Kuhn Cambridge University Library

Course content Session 1: managing found/published information Session 2: managing the information you generate Store – organise – retrieve – synthesize

Session content Active reading: notemaking and recording Creativity vs. project management Keeping track: road maps, the big picture and lightbulb moments Learning styles: how do you work?

Feedback What resource or strategy did you try out? How did it meet your expectations? How does it fit your needs and workflow? Will you keep using it – and would you recommend it to others?

Active reading “The art of reading is to skip judiciously” ~ P.G. Hamerton

Step 1: Why are you reading? To understand a concept? To gather specific facts? To identify the structure of an author’s argument? To find alternative views so you can challenge an argument?

Step 2: What’s in it for me? What’s relevant/useful for my own argument? What other work does this piece mesh with? What lightbulb moments does it spark? What might be a blind alley (a white rabbit)?

Step 3: Notemaking and futureproofing ‘Gut’ your text: highlight, underline, strikethrough Annotate, use symbols Leave yourself clues about the content, e.g. on the cover page/in your referencing system When extracting information, distinguish between direct quotation, paraphrase and your own ideas

Useful tools: highlighter and pen PDF-Xchange Viewer/Foxit

Base document (Teresa)

Index cards

Mind mapping

Activity: interrogate your text Choose an approach …. colour-code, mark up and annotate by type of information/what’s in it for you produce a 25-word summary think of two questions that Jeremy Paxman would ask the author represent the argument as a mind map

Information issues

Tools for keeping on track Research diary Road map Big picture

Research diary “The research diary can be seen as a melting pot for all of the different ingredients of a research project - prior experience, observations, readings, ideas - and a means of capturing the resulting interplay of elements.” ( The "vehicle for ordered creativity" (Schatzman & Strauss 1973: 105)

Road map Fundamental structure of your research project: why – how – what? Why are you doing what you’re doing? How have you chosen to answer the question? What have you found out? What does this mean? Giles Yeo, Clinical Biochemistry/Wolfson College

Road map Fundamental structure of your research project: why – how – what? Why are you doing what you’re doing? How have you chosen to answer the question? What have you found out? What does this mean? Research proposal

Road map (Jamie)

Road map: time management

Big picture (Sandra)

Big picture

Learning styles

Final tips Where to start Time and space Help and support

Where to start

… not with the introduction! Road map/research proposal should give you structure Keeping a research diary and making summaries will get you writing Write modularly, then link up chunks

Time and space Time of day: creative thinking vs. repetitive work (e.g. proofing, bibliography checking) Time out to relax and reflect Ph.D. research is a snapshot in time – not never- ending! Working space: the right environment for you Enough room for a spatial overview of your work

Help and support University sources: GDP, CPPD, Skills Portal, Graduate Union Supervisors, research groups, librarians Friends and peers Online forums, e.g. Graduate Junction ( Postgraduate Toolbox (

Thank you!