Absolutely love this, Lucy. There are some brilliant PhD students on UA-cam, but they nearly always seem to be researching in scientific areas... Research style in the Humanities can be so different, so it is hard to find styles and tips that are helpful to our research. Great video, especially the mind maps!! Keep up the great work :)
You are brilliant! I am pursuing my PhD in literature and I’ve been trying to figure out a simple and useful way of organising my reading and this is the best system I’ve found so far without all the unnecessary clutter. Thank you!!
Thank you for this! I'm finishing my LLB this month and have been hired as a research assistant for my lecturer's socio-legal LLD. I'm super excited but daunted because I've obviously never done such a volume of research before. This video has really helped me visualise the processes that will help. Thank you! 💗
Super helpful, Lucy! I found it especially valuable how you mentioned that there'll be heaps of info I find interesting but which I don't need to take notes on (especially if I have a million other things to read) because its not relevant to my thesis.
I was searching for ways to organize and I loved the end part where you showed us a sample of your outline. It has given me an idea as to how I will form and organize mine. The mindmap tip was especially useful. Now, I have an idea how I am going to complete my first research paper. We failed the oral defense and might have to do over the whole paper since it was too chaotic. I am thankful for this video.
I know this video is old but I just want to let you know that it helped me a lot. All through my studies at uni I have been drowning in my research whenever I need to write a paper, because I never learnt how to organize the stuff that I read and my notes. I just highlight a bunch of stuff and hope I remember it when I need it (which obviously isn't working well) I do use a different program for citations just because my uni recommends it and we have workshops to teach us the program, but the basics of the connections between the citation software and the notes documents is what I was missing. Thank you so much for this video!
This is amazing, thank you so much for sharing it! I'm doing an MRes and struggling so much to organise my notes - that mindmap software alone was worth me watching, thank you.
I am using NVivo and now Mindview8, thank you for sharing your topic made it easier for me to "see" the flow/organization of your thoughts so I may better organize mine. Good Luck!
This was super cool! Thanks for sharing :) Not sure if someone has mentioned this before but if you click on the magic wand in the Zotero tool bar, and copy paste the DOI, Zotero will automatically add the source to your library (in whatever folder you happen to be in, if I remember correctly). It would save you some time typing the bibliographic information out every time.
You are soo incredibly organized! I wish I had this much forethought as I was reading stuff for my doctorate. I'm in the depths of writing now and don't quite now how I'm going to get myself out of the poor note taking pit that I dug myself into. Thanks for sharing your brilliance!
I’m only organised after many many years of not being and ended up completely confused a few months later! Was determined to be on top of things for my PhD 🙂
I recently made the switch to using Zotero as a reference manager and was looking for a way to better format how I take notes. This was really helpful, thank you! :)
Wow Lucy I've just discovered your channel and it is incredibly useful. I'm going to start my second year and I needed to find a better organisation method because things can be very messy, especially when we manage this big amounts of information. I really like the fact that you show a method in Humanities because is not that common and we need it. Thanks again! And you have a new subscriber here ☺️
I appreciate videos like this so much, I'm just working on my undergrad dissertation, but I don't know anyone at home who's done one and ofc uni's been basically shut this year, so I feel like I have no idea how this stuff's supposed to be done. I'm good at taking notes, but I didn't know how to try and organise them into something useful. Thank you Lucy!
Really glad you are very it useful :) Yeah, it seems a lot of people don't use mind maps or don't think to use them for academic research but I've always found them super useful! I hope your undergrad dissertation goes well!
I have a long document like yours but didn't know how i would find things again. Mind maps is a good idea! Lists aren't as easy for me yo understand Also this video was very nicely made and I expected you have to about 20k subscribers! X
Sooooo useful. I always find hard to build a workflow with reading pdfs and storing the data for later use. Ill try this method! My acrobat is always crashing though. Will try with apple preview
Hi Lucy, I've yet to watch yr vid but am just relieved I've finally found some advice from a scholar near my discipline. Everything is always about science...just noticed Holly's comment so I am not alone in my desire to see advice which doesn't talk about articles that have nearly everything stated on the first page (don't get me wrong, I love the few articles from those disciplines, they are a joy to figure out ha).
Sorry for only just replying! Haven't been checking UA-cam regularly but I'm so glad this video made you feel seen! There definitely isn't enough advice about humanity PhDs but I think a few more of us are coming out of the woodworks
This is so useful! I’m a high school student and I don’t have nearly as many sources to manage for my researches, but these are great tips regardless! Subscribed!
Thorough and visual. I was already incorporating some of these techniques into my research, but was missing some key ingredients that your video illustrated. I appreciate seeing your process using the software as opposed to just seeing your face like in other PhD youtube videos that are out there (not very helpful). Mind maps are huge piece of my organization so I am eager to see your video on this topic. Thank you so much...Subscribing now :)
If you like having your notes all in one doc, I suggest Google docs, you can have subtitles and titles so there will be an index at the side of your doc
And, if you please, I would love to see you build a mind map. How do you get from the notes on a page to a mind map? How did you get from topical mind maps to chapter mind map? Did you create a mind map for the entire work? Thank you.
Hi Stephen, I haven't built a mind map for my entire thesis as I think that would be overwhelming! I tend to make one for key themes and topics that pop up as I'm researching and then create a more focused and streamlined one for each chapter
@@LucyHargrave Hi Lucy! I suppose you may be finished with making new mindmaps. I was hoping you could walk your loyal viewer(s) through the mechanics and thought process of converting your text notes into the beautiful artifacts of prose that your mindmaps are. I am beginning my first literature review this summer, and the mindmap beckons with a sort of topical integrity that I would like to try to capture. In the meantime, I will follow your advice by notating my readings in a text document. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Love your process, and plan to copy shamelessly at points! ;) Have you looked into Roam, Notion, Obsidian, etc. for linking concepts? I'm exploring, as the connections are robust, but the learning curve is steep. Thank you for this!
Sorry for taking a while to reply! Took a break from UA-cam over Christmas ☺️ I haven’t look at any of those softwares or even heard of them to be honest!
@@LucyHargrave Thanks, and good for you -- work hard, rest hard! It sounds as though you are setting up well for the new year. Maybe I will see & hear you presenting at a conference soon!
Sarah Leamy Hey Sarah, i have a MacBook and use a free software called SimpleMind Lite. I don’t know if it is available on Windows etc but I imagine it is ☺️
hello thank you this is very useful. just curious, what format does the citation appear in ? APA? Harvard? other? and can you select this format in Zotoro?
So you can use the format the citation appears in! It is something you decide in the individual word document so you can change it depending on what citation format you need for that particular piece of writing :)
when im taking notes on research articles in a word doc, i feel a deep urge to jot down any interesting information even when it is entirely irrelevant to my essay question. its a problem. then my compilation of notes is too beefy and overwhelming to unpack in the writing phase.
Thank you. Is their any automation for creating your mind maps? What is the process of moving information from the detailed word document to simplemind? Never mind I just saw your link to that. ;)
Hi Eliza, so you have to change your settings in word about how the citations are formatted. It’s a little complicated to explain so I’m going to send this article as it explains it way better than I could and also includes videos! libguides.unm.edu/Zotero/format#s-lg-box-8077331
This is another good site libguides.massgeneral.org/zotero/create-bibliography#s-lg-box-24420907 But it is a little complicated to initially set up but it does get easier!
Hy, hope you are well. Just wanted to know with about how you get access to papers/books that needs to be paid. Are there sites where i can have free access. Do you know any of them. It would be much helpful. :)
Does zotero make you manually input the info on all articles? I use ReadCube papers and it does all that automatically for me. Thanks for this though. It gave me a lot of ideas.
Nope! It can entered article info automatically if you have the right plug-ins for chrome. I find this particularly useful for websites but I still prefer to do it manually most of the time as it helps me remember what I’ve read more ☺️
I have struggled as most citation managers get things all bunged up, ending up being more trouble than they're worth. Your workflow was a unique blend of tech and manual, which is how I prefer to roll in my Humanities/Social Science PhD. Thanks so much for the insights! I'm subscribing!
viewed again - so what is the name of the mind map software? I have looked at many and have not found the one with the organic forms in your mind-maps. Thank you!
Hi Stephen, the software is called SimpleMind Lite. I was able to download it for free on my Apple laptop. There is also a paid version called SimpleMind but I find the free one works well for me!
this video is worth $10,000 just for the zotero name drop alone. i need this it's perfect for research. also i just found your channel so just in case you haven't yet can you please show how you create those mind maps. you are operating on optimized expert mode.
If you want to see how I create/use MindMaps for my PhD check out this video - ua-cam.com/video/tUIHeRme7d8/v-deo.html
Absolutely love this, Lucy. There are some brilliant PhD students on UA-cam, but they nearly always seem to be researching in scientific areas... Research style in the Humanities can be so different, so it is hard to find styles and tips that are helpful to our research. Great video, especially the mind maps!! Keep up the great work :)
Thank you so much!
You are brilliant! I am pursuing my PhD in literature and I’ve been trying to figure out a simple and useful way of organising my reading and this is the best system I’ve found so far without all the unnecessary clutter. Thank you!!
Thank you for this! I'm finishing my LLB this month and have been hired as a research assistant for my lecturer's socio-legal LLD. I'm super excited but daunted because I've obviously never done such a volume of research before. This video has really helped me visualise the processes that will help. Thank you! 💗
Super helpful, Lucy! I found it especially valuable how you mentioned that there'll be heaps of info I find interesting but which I don't need to take notes on (especially if I have a million other things to read) because its not relevant to my thesis.
I was searching for ways to organize and I loved the end part where you showed us a sample of your outline. It has given me an idea as to how I will form and organize mine. The mindmap tip was especially useful. Now, I have an idea how I am going to complete my first research paper. We failed the oral defense and might have to do over the whole paper since it was too chaotic. I am thankful for this video.
Hi Lucy,
Thanks for such a helpful presentation. Great to see a Humanities PhD student producing this info.
I know this video is old but I just want to let you know that it helped me a lot. All through my studies at uni I have been drowning in my research whenever I need to write a paper, because I never learnt how to organize the stuff that I read and my notes. I just highlight a bunch of stuff and hope I remember it when I need it (which obviously isn't working well) I do use a different program for citations just because my uni recommends it and we have workshops to teach us the program, but the basics of the connections between the citation software and the notes documents is what I was missing. Thank you so much for this video!
This is amazing, thank you so much for sharing it! I'm doing an MRes and struggling so much to organise my notes - that mindmap software alone was worth me watching, thank you.
I am using NVivo and now Mindview8, thank you for sharing your topic made it easier for me to "see" the flow/organization of your thoughts so I may better organize mine. Good Luck!
Thanks Lucy! Even for the PhD student like me, working on computer science, can really benefit from your video, thanks a lot!
Thank you! Just starting my Ed. Doctorate and was most anxious about how to collect and organize my research. This was very helpful!
Good luck with the Ed. Doctorate! I’m glad you found this video helpful 😊
This is an absolute pleasure to watch.
This was super cool! Thanks for sharing :) Not sure if someone has mentioned this before but if you click on the magic wand in the Zotero tool bar, and copy paste the DOI, Zotero will automatically add the source to your library (in whatever folder you happen to be in, if I remember correctly). It would save you some time typing the bibliographic information out every time.
Glad you found it useful and thanks for the tip!
You are soo incredibly organized! I wish I had this much forethought as I was reading stuff for my doctorate. I'm in the depths of writing now and don't quite now how I'm going to get myself out of the poor note taking pit that I dug myself into. Thanks for sharing your brilliance!
I’m only organised after many many years of not being and ended up completely confused a few months later! Was determined to be on top of things for my PhD 🙂
Thank you for taking the time to demonstrate how you do your organization with Mind Maps in conjunction with Word.
I recently made the switch to using Zotero as a reference manager and was looking for a way to better format how I take notes. This was really helpful, thank you! :)
Great to hear! Glad it was helpful!
Wow Lucy I've just discovered your channel and it is incredibly useful. I'm going to start my second year and I needed to find a better organisation method because things can be very messy, especially when we manage this big amounts of information. I really like the fact that you show a method in Humanities because is not that common and we need it. Thanks again! And you have a new subscriber here ☺️
You're so welcome!
I appreciate videos like this so much, I'm just working on my undergrad dissertation, but I don't know anyone at home who's done one and ofc uni's been basically shut this year, so I feel like I have no idea how this stuff's supposed to be done. I'm good at taking notes, but I didn't know how to try and organise them into something useful. Thank you Lucy!
Really glad you are very it useful :) Yeah, it seems a lot of people don't use mind maps or don't think to use them for academic research but I've always found them super useful! I hope your undergrad dissertation goes well!
@@LucyHargrave thanks!
Thank you for sharing this! This was a great video and gave me many ideas for organization that works for me! Best of luck on your dissertation!
Thank you! You too!
Thank you soo much! I just started my PhD and this is super helpful! Love your channel!
No problem! Glad you found it useful and thank you 😊
Lucy, you are simply great. All the best! I am about to begin my PhD and this is extremely useful for me
Glad it was helpful! Best of luck!
I have a long document like yours but didn't know how i would find things again. Mind maps is a good idea! Lists aren't as easy for me yo understand
Also this video was very nicely made and I expected you have to about 20k subscribers! X
Hannah Ah thank you! I love lists but think mindmaps are better for large amounts of information ☺️
Sooooo useful. I always find hard to build a workflow with reading pdfs and storing the data for later use. Ill try this method! My acrobat is always crashing though. Will try with apple preview
Hi Lucy, I've yet to watch yr vid but am just relieved I've finally found some advice from a scholar near my discipline. Everything is always about science...just noticed Holly's comment so I am not alone in my desire to see advice which doesn't talk about articles that have nearly everything stated on the first page (don't get me wrong, I love the few articles from those disciplines, they are a joy to figure out ha).
Sorry for only just replying! Haven't been checking UA-cam regularly but I'm so glad this video made you feel seen! There definitely isn't enough advice about humanity PhDs but I think a few more of us are coming out of the woodworks
This is so useful! I’m a high school student and I don’t have nearly as many sources to manage for my researches, but these are great tips regardless! Subscribed!
Thorough and visual. I was already incorporating some of these techniques into my research, but was missing some key ingredients that your video illustrated. I appreciate seeing your process using the software as opposed to just seeing your face like in other PhD youtube videos that are out there (not very helpful). Mind maps are huge piece of my organization so I am eager to see your video on this topic. Thank you so much...Subscribing now :)
Really happy you found it was helpful! I'm such a visual learner so couldn't imagine making a video on this topic without showing how I did it :)
If you like having your notes all in one doc, I suggest Google docs, you can have subtitles and titles so there will be an index at the side of your doc
Commenting for the algorithm, thank you for posting!
Very informative. Thank you. Can I ask what software you use to make the mind maps?
Loved this! Thank you so much, Lucy!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great video. Curious as to why in parts of the video the voice changes? like computer modulated?
I'm going to review this many times to learn more and more.
I’m glad you’ve found it so useful!
And, if you please, I would love to see you build a mind map. How do you get from the notes on a page to a mind map? How did you get from topical mind maps to chapter mind map? Did you create a mind map for the entire work? Thank you.
Hi Stephen, I haven't built a mind map for my entire thesis as I think that would be overwhelming! I tend to make one for key themes and topics that pop up as I'm researching and then create a more focused and streamlined one for each chapter
@@LucyHargrave Hi Lucy! I suppose you may be finished with making new mindmaps. I was hoping you could walk your loyal viewer(s) through the mechanics and thought process of converting your text notes into the beautiful artifacts of prose that your mindmaps are. I am beginning my first literature review this summer, and the mindmap beckons with a sort of topical integrity that I would like to try to capture. In the meantime, I will follow your advice by notating my readings in a text document. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Love your process, and plan to copy shamelessly at points! ;)
Have you looked into Roam, Notion, Obsidian, etc. for linking concepts? I'm exploring, as the connections are robust, but the learning curve is steep.
Thank you for this!
Sorry for taking a while to reply! Took a break from UA-cam over Christmas ☺️ I haven’t look at any of those softwares or even heard of them to be honest!
@@LucyHargrave Thanks, and good for you -- work hard, rest hard!
It sounds as though you are setting up well for the new year. Maybe I will see & hear you presenting at a conference soon!
I just started my program and this was super useful! Thanks so much!
Kate O I’m so glad it was useful! And good luck with your program ☺️
What did you use to make those maps (11 minutes in)? I love the visual aspect and want to see if I can do something similar. Thanks Lucy.
Sarah Leamy Hey Sarah, i have a MacBook and use a free software called SimpleMind Lite. I don’t know if it is available on Windows etc but I imagine it is ☺️
@@LucyHargrave thanks, i'll have a look, I'm on a mac too.
@@LucyHargrave got it, thanks. It makes it all so much easier.
hello thank you this is very useful. just curious, what format does the citation appear in ? APA? Harvard? other? and can you select this format in Zotoro?
So you can use the format the citation appears in! It is something you decide in the individual word document so you can change it depending on what citation format you need for that particular piece of writing :)
I love the mind map info. It looks like it is available in windows. I plan to download ASAP! Thank you!
I'm glad you found it useful!
Thank you so much for this
I'm so glad it was helpful!
This was SO useful... thank you for this! I hope the PhD is going well so far :)
Christie Hannah I’m glad it was useful! The PhD is going well thank you 😊
May I ask why you don't use the "child notes" and "freestanding notes" feature rather than a giant word file for your notes?
Hello! Mainly because I have never heard of these before... What are they?
when im taking notes on research articles in a word doc, i feel a deep urge to jot down any interesting information even when it is entirely irrelevant to my essay question. its a problem. then my compilation of notes is too beefy and overwhelming to unpack in the writing phase.
Thank you. Is their any automation for creating your mind maps? What is the process of moving information from the detailed word document to simplemind? Never mind I just saw your link to that. ;)
No worries! Hope you find the other video useful :)
Thank you very much which application you use?
Anand Dandge I use a combination of Zotero, Microsoft Word and SimpleMind 🙂
Hey I loved your video! Where did you do the brainstore map ? What program is that?
Thank you very much! The software is SimpleMind Lite and it is a free piece of software for Mac (and also windows I believe)
Hi! Thanks for the vid! What application did you use to create your mind maps? thanks!
The application I used is in the description :)
Lucy my Zotero is just giving me an in-text citation (Hirsch, 2014) rather than the footnote...how did you make that happen? thanks
Hi Eliza, so you have to change your settings in word about how the citations are formatted. It’s a little complicated to explain so I’m going to send this article as it explains it way better than I could and also includes videos! libguides.unm.edu/Zotero/format#s-lg-box-8077331
This is another good site libguides.massgeneral.org/zotero/create-bibliography#s-lg-box-24420907 But it is a little complicated to initially set up but it does get easier!
@@LucyHargrave Legend,
thank you !
@@LucyHargrave that's super thank you so much
Hy, hope you are well. Just wanted to know with about how you get access to papers/books that needs to be paid. Are there sites where i can have free access. Do you know any of them. It would be much helpful. :)
Does zotero make you manually input the info on all articles? I use ReadCube papers and it does all that automatically for me. Thanks for this though. It gave me a lot of ideas.
Nope! It can entered article info automatically if you have the right plug-ins for chrome. I find this particularly useful for websites but I still prefer to do it manually most of the time as it helps me remember what I’ve read more ☺️
I have struggled as most citation managers get things all bunged up, ending up being more trouble than they're worth. Your workflow was a unique blend of tech and manual, which is how I prefer to roll in my Humanities/Social Science PhD. Thanks so much for the insights! I'm subscribing!
hello again! where and how do you make your mind maps?! love it
Glad you like them! I've made a whole video on how I make my MindMaps - ua-cam.com/video/tUIHeRme7d8/v-deo.html
@@LucyHargrave Fabulous thank you very much!
This is very helpful - thanks
viewed again - so what is the name of the mind map software? I have looked at many and have not found the one with the organic forms in your mind-maps. Thank you!
Hi Stephen, the software is called SimpleMind Lite. I was able to download it for free on my Apple laptop. There is also a paid version called SimpleMind but I find the free one works well for me!
@@LucyHargrave The mono-ply-monster Apple slays again! Maybe I can find something that Windows will love.
Very Informative video, Thanks
this video is worth $10,000 just for the zotero name drop alone. i need this it's perfect for research. also i just found your channel so just in case you haven't yet can you please show how you create those mind maps. you are operating on optimized expert mode.
Thank you!
Omg very useful i I am so thankful for this video.
Hey Lucy, I love the mind map info. How did you link it into your Zotero. Brilliant video and thanks for sharring
My mindmap isn’t linked to my Zotero ☺️ I just copy over the referencing from word
Hi Lucy, which app do you use for the mindmaps?
Hi Megan, I just a software called SimpleMind Lite :)
Sorry if you mentioned it, but what is the name of the mindmap software you use?
Just found it in the comments, SimpleMind Lite. Thanks.
This was so helpful! Thank you for sharing!
You're so welcome!
Hey, where can I find the app you are using?
I found it via the app store on my laptop 👩🏻💻
Did you consider to put the notes into OneNote as research?
I did consider OneNote and actually used it for a little while but personally I didn't like the interface and found Word/Evernote better for me
i already graduated, yet i have difficulty keeping my research notes in check.....
It is definitely a struggle!
Thank you!
So helpful!!
Please list down the apps mentioned in the video.
They are all mentioned in the video’s description :)
Is it APA style
The English department at UoB uses MLA 8th Edition so that is what I use for my notes :)
oh thank you
Thank you :-)
Is anyone else sent here from Cambridge University? :D