February LIB-495 Capstone

[vetvso]

Does anyone have any advice on how to organize/keep track of your research materials and notes?

From skimming through the sample papers, it seems that there are very few in text quotations and people are mainly citing sources to back up their statements.  This is much different than what I did for my SDC papers, and my the mentor made it clear that these citations need to be perfect, so I want to be sure I'm understanding the process.  When you're going through a resource, is it best to copy off quotes with their respective pages or general ideas and the pages?  Or perhaps write a paraphrase of key ideas and what pages they're from?  I'm trying to figure out the best way to keep track of things so I can cite them properly.  I am currently planning on sifting through a lot of sources from a place that doesn't loan out material, so I need to make sure I get it right so I don't have to go through the trouble of going back just to check a page number or figure out what source exactly I pulled it from!


Secondly, because there seems to be a lot of overlap between papers, would you recommend working on any of them as you come across the material or just work on one at a time?

You should be keeping page locations with your notes as to where you found the material. This will be needed for your references and citations if required. I did each chapter one at a time and added in all recommended corrections from the mentor as I went. Mistakes will happen and your mentor will give you feedback. These chapters are rough drafts to help you to be able to submit the final capstone at the very end. All of the feedback really helped me get to a final paper.