Teleseminar What do I do with this, where do I put this?

[lynnoc]

I thought of writing to you (at Connect) backchannel, but instead I'll try this here in the forum. Apology to everyone who has no idea of what this is in reference to.

Thank you so much for responding to my long-winded, complicated question --I was trying to give a picture of the chaos of information I take in and don't process well enough, and I think you got it. Your staff's first response "Get an assistant" is very timely, and points to another problem, that you hinted at. I have an assistant, and keep her away a lot of the time (she is not working for me regularly, meaning so many hours a week, although she would do a whole lot more if I asked her to). I couldn't figure out how to organize my work to make use of her. I also have wonderful UCB undergraduate students who work for free, as Research Assistants. I don't give them enough work, or don't know how to. I think this is where I need to put some effort and time now, figuring out why I don't use what help I have available, and what I need to figure out, in order to begin to use an assistant reliably.

My current assistant is also a graduate student in another field, and I worry that if I began to use her regularly, she would not be able to meet the need. In any case just posing the possibility is giving me some kind of insight into my organizational problem. I have a new grant coming in at some point, and I will be able to have someone helping me regularly. I don't have this figured out yet, but your response has sent me on the right path in terms of my thinking.

Also, the idea of using mindmanager as an organizing method for research with all the various articles, urls, etc, connected, is a good one. I do use Mindmanager, however I have not used it in the way you suggested. Reason: I don't trust it. I have so much old chaos on my computer (including numerous mindmaps in mindmanager) that I have started and dropped. I think I want to have everything in hard copy in front of me if I am actually going to end up using it. I don't trust myself to use a mindmap reliably at the center of a research project (for writing). But from your response I think it is time to try it again.

I appreciated your effort to tackle my organizational/reading mess, and for giving me permission to use those boxes again. Whew, what a relief. I got something new (again) when you discussed having those things somewhere as "I'll get to that sometime (someday)." This was a great teleseminar!

LynnOC

 

[mcogilvie]

While I thought David's answer was good, I think I may have more specific comments useful to a fellow academic. Part of the problem is that papers are not created equal, but front-end triage is not something we are typically taught. An expert is somebody who has read all the papers in a field, right? Not necessarily. Let me suggest some categories:

1) Core papers: these are important papers that support your research program. You know them well. Papers usually arrive in this category over time, and stay in this category for long periods.

2) Papers that have a clear relevance to current research.

3) Papers that have some relation to papers in categories 1) & 2). Referenced by, cited by, written by the same authors. These are essentially in your inbox, and you need to decide where they go (more on this later).

4) Papers that broaden your perspective, summarize, synthesize, review, bring you up to date. Papers by people whose research programs you follow, perhaps well-known people or people whose research interests are close to yours.

5) Papers with something that caught your eye. Ideas. Someday/Maybes.

6) Papers you should not be spending your time on.

What can you do with papers?
You can read them or not read them. Reading can be:

a) Reading in detail: notes, analysis, checking,..
b) Reading
c) Skimming
d) Reading for particular connections, e.g., does this paper say anything about that?

Whether read or not, papers need to be filed or pitched. They can be:
a) designated as relevant to current research- 1) & 2)
b) designated as reference- 4); former 1's and 2's
c) designated as someday/maybe- 5) & 4)
d) pitched

How you file depends on how you work. I keep paper copies of the most important papers for current projects handy. I have on-line access for everything in my field back to the early 90's, and for about half of the key journals all the way back. I keep local pdf's for some papers, but not all. Try all the well-regarded academic reference management programs for your platform of choice to see if they help you. You want something that easily downloads information and links to pdf's. My wife uses Endnote, which seems not worth the trouble to me. I am currently trying a 30-day trial of Papers (mac), which I like. You have to do whatever you can to speed it all up. If it's not fast and easy, I won't do it.

Hope this helps. Sorry it is so long.

 

[lynnoc]

Teleseminar Continued...

Thank you for the terrific response, an outline for the destiny of all the papers etc we take in, on a day after day basis. In some way I manage to do a bit of this (right now I have papers for specific manuscripts --those underway, those at completion, and those not yet started) in plastic folders that have room for large titles, that fit sideways on a shelf right in front of me. Each plastic sideways folder has a major project topic labeling it. Where I think I go badly astray is all the papers that are of interest, but perhaps tangental to my specific projects. I liked your outline, just thinking about that category of papers. I will think about it more, as it imposes a kind of clarity I am in need of.

About using a program --I know I need to do this, I began to try endnote about 15 years ago and it was way too much trouble. In the past few months I got a copy of Papers (I'm on the mac too) but have not yet learned to use it. I also downloaded a new program that is both on and off line, Zotero which seems very promising (you might want to check it out), but again I have not taken the time to learn how to use it.

Since listening to David's teleseminar, I have brought my assistant back to work (and actually put her to work), created a "project" mindmap with many (and growing) pieces, reviewed everything with my lab's co-director and statistician, and gave a close collaborator my book (almost finished) to read, as I was stuck on some organizational problems (chapters etc), and I'm ready to finish it as soon as they are resolved. She just got back to me and her response was very favorable.

Obviously I needed help and somehow getting David's response ("get help") encouraged me to do just that. Furthermore laying the problem out as I did, and again, getting an encouraging response, has allowed me to more squarely face the problem or set of problems, and start seriously thinking about solutions. Your response adds to my thinking here, and given that is what I am doing, it is particularly helpful. So thank you.

I am glad to read ideas from another academic. No matter what our specific fields are, I think we have a particular classification among knowledge workers. In a faculty meeting last week there was debate going on as to what constitutes evidence of "scholarship." I said that in my opinion, what is considered scholarship by anyone's standards (including accreditors, our conversation was in the context of accreditation) is the inclusion of many references to the "literature." This is what us academics are required to do, write a whole lot of stuff with a whole lot of references. This then requires of us that we collect and use a lot of references. Other knowledge workers don't have to reference everything. Thus we have a need for a way to hold our references so to speak. I need to consider that overall task, as I work on systematizing/organizing the onslaught of literature/references/stories that I take in daily. Again, thank you for your thoughtful review of "how to do it."

Lynn