This week I learned that my ability to locate and retreive articles is way out of proportion to my ability to read them. I'm still plowing my way through a stack of material that I've collected over the last few weeks.
I have found that the text book's advice regarding "grading" articles based on thier applicability to the topic is very useful. Now, when I go back through the stacks if there is a "5" on the article, I know it's off topic and there may only be one or two highlighted items in it.
I also found that my research tends to drift between lanes: I'll be plugging away on my Master's Project and come accross an article that applies to my job rather than my college work. I end up "wasting" time by concentrating on my job. I suppose that's good news for the taxpayers who pay my salary, but it isn't getting me any closer to a good literature review!
I've also made a 3" binder divided into sections that coorespond to the bullets in Lit Review Outline. I'ts kind of an unscientific way of seeing which section needs more filling. I'm trying to print everything, because I'm not comfortable reading everything in Acrobat Reader.
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Great minds think alike! I created a notebook to sort articles also...but I haven't gotten the dividers yet! Regarding your question you left on my blog: If I left the impression that the lit review has to be 50 pages, I'm just thinking about the final lit review, not what is required for this class. And I don't know that it has to be 50 pages but that's sort of what I'm planning. I'm hoping to get the final thesis finished by mid-June. I may be over-ambitious as my job demands so much time.
Reading the articles/books is overwhelming as I'm already tired after teaching hormonal middle schoolers. Then there's feeding the family, doing laundry, planning for the next day. It's nice to know I'm not alone! %:-o
I'm also more comfortable reading my articles on paper than PDF because I can highlight the important stuff. Did you know you can choose the select tool, select all, then you can copy and paste whatever you want from your PDF article to Microsoft Word? Then you can read it in Word and make some highlights.
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