‘All things begin in order, so shall they end’
Sir Thomas Browne, ‘Cyrus’ Garden’, ch.5 [1658]
Why order is required
I carried my mindset from my undergraduate degree into my master’s degree and the shock shook me up completely. There was so much material to read, I never had 2 seconds to myself and then the writing began. This was a major issue. Every bit of writing came with an incredibly restricted word count that included footnotes.
My master’s was a taught degree and not a research degree. I did not have to complete a dissertation, but I had to write an essay at the end of each module. And there were 12 modules. For each essay my reference list was extensive, the allowed word count was 3000 words. When I finished an essay, I had 7 or 8000 and maybe 50 to 100 references.
The strategy from my bachelor’s degree was not going to cut it and I had to find a different way to manage my material to assist me in producing quality essays and having some order to my research and production. I did what everybody nowadays, I turned to YouTube.
A solution presents itself
First a caveat (or two). My use of technology is limited at best. I check emails, make PowerPoint presentations, watch YouTube and that is about it. On YouTube, I wanted to find someone who could offer a solution. Video by video a solution was presenting itself. A document reference manager called Zotero was repeatedly promoted along with Mendeley, EndNote and others.
I found a video by Steven Bradburn that showed me how to use Zotero and this changed everything for me. The ability to set my reference library up in a manner that made sense to me, was a great stress reliever. The other systems that are available are equally as good as Zotero and they perform the tasks extremely well. Zotero just appeals to me and I felt instantly comfortable with it. It was simple and easy to use and that was something I needed as I was uncomfortable and inexperienced with technology.
During my master’s degree, I learnt to make the most of Zotero and this has benefitted me during the first year of my PhD. When reviewing the techniques of PhD student in their third and fourth year, they do not use any of the electronic document managers that are available. Usually, they write the reference / footnote in as they are typing their thesis. This takes a lot of time and as their chapters take on a completed form, they can have 3 or 400 references in each chapter.
There are some inherent dangers with this manual technique. With an average of 6 chapters in a PhD of 80,000 words, it is a lot of references to maintain manually. Not only that, but there has to be a manual record of all the references. What if that manual record gets damaged by spilling a drink on it, or it gets thrown out with the rubbish? What if you just lose it when you are 3 years in and have hundreds of references? Zotero keeps the records on its cloud system. Please forgive my non-technically correct speech. I have no danger of losing my references unlike my colleagues.
I needed something else
During the first few months of my PhD, my reference library grew extraordinarily. The change from a master’s to a PhD means that you are personally responsible for your reading, nobody is setting what you need to read. This meant that I had articles and papers from everywhere. This led to my thesis changing from what was written in my proposal and that it will continue to develop the more I read.
As my library grew and my reading continued, my note taking was haphazard at best. I had papers everywhere and I could not find or link anything at all and my writing made no sense, nor did it flow as it should. I found I was not critically analysing the material, and this was affecting the quality of my writing.
This is when I discovered the Zettelkasten method developed by Niklas Luhmann. Zettelkasten means ‘card box’ and it is a way to link notes. It is very complex and technical and at first this was not something that I could understand. As I learnt more about Luhmann’s system, I came to the realisation that this method appealed to me.
Thankfully, times have moved on since Luhmann first invented this system and I was pleasantly pleased to learn that in these technological times, that a software exists to make it even easier for people like me. The software I use for this is called Obsidian. There are endless videos on how to use Obsidian on YouTube and there is a Discord thread for it as well.
The reason I use it is that when you have a reference library and notes it becomes very vertical. When observing PhD students further along their journey, they were struggling to recall notes and references from the first and second year of their research. The beauty of Obsidian is that it provides the user the ability to ‘link’ words. All I must remember now, is a keyword such as regulation, vehicle (for special purpose vehicle or SPV), CLO etc. Obsidian will then recall all links with those keywords, and I have access to all the relevant notes and references.
Obsidian has another trick. It allows me to import pdf documents that I have reviewed and highlighted within Zotero. I review and highlight these pdfs in different colours. There is a key to the colours within the template in Obsidian allowing me to discern what is interesting, whether I agree or disagree with the author etc.
Once imported into Obsidian, I make my own noted from the highlighted parts, making links of relevant words and phrases for recall later when I am writing my thesis content. Obsidian is a cloud based software and, as with Zotero, I keep the files on my iCloud. The reason for this is that if I use the software on different devices, it automatically updates across the iCloud and is current whenever I log on to a different device.
Concerns
The only issue I have with this system is that my personal devices are all Apple products. However, all the devices and software in university are Windows and PC based. This is not a major problem as I use a MacBook and have a Mac-Mini at home, so I take my MacBook to use at university.
If I do use the PC at university to search for journals, articles etc I must save the papers to the university’s OneDrive which I have linked on my MacBook and then copy them to my Zotero.
The reason for this is that university I.T. security does not allow open-source software from third-party software companies to access the university system. If you only use the university PCs then they usually allow Mendeley and the Microsoft Office suite of software, or maybe your university allows open-source software, but mine does not.
Other than this one small inconvenience, Zotero and Obsidian have been life savers for me. They might be helpful to get order into your PhD if you need it.