| 
Manage your information
Writing a Masters or doctoral thesis involves accumulating and managing a large amount of information:
- bibliographic information about the references you read
- notes from your reading
- data from your research
- successive drafts of your thesis
From the beginning plan systems for storage and retrieval - it will be much easier to find the information as you need it.
Your systems will depend on the kind of research you are doing, the resources you have, and the ways you work best.
Here are some tips:
- Use a bibliography management tool, like EndNote
- These programs can be used for storing notes as well as bibliographic information.
- Keep computer files in folders with names that correspond to aspects of the research or chapters of the thesis.
- Folders for paper notes can have the same names as the electronic ones.
- Create a file naming protocol which allows you to keep track of successive drafts, because you never know when you might want to restore something you cut from an earlier version. For example:
- introduction v1.doc; or:
- ch1draft3.doc
- Whatever system you create, be consistent!
Remember all those warnings to back up your work regularly!
Keep backup copies of all your computer files - computer disasters can occur, and you would not want to lose critical material. In fact, you would not want to lose any of your writing, data collection or notes. It is all valuable.
Make sure that as the thesis progresses you have backup copies of thesis drafts in different locations. Even though the notion of theft or fire may seem remote, protect yourself against an unexpected eventuality in which years of work could disappear.
Download a printable version of this page. Problems? Questions? Comments? Please provide us feedback.
