How to Be a Scholar in a Digital Environment

Leveraging chaos to make intentional choices about your research and writing processes.

By Jonelle Seitz, Online Writing Lab Coordinator

You find the article in an online database but print it out for highlighting. You show up to class with a laptop (dead battery, no charger) and a pen (no paper). You’re reading an ebook, but your style guide is full of advice for citing print books. It’s not just you — today’s reading and writing environment is beautiful mess, a hybrid of the print and the digital.

This hybrid environment can leave all of us writers and researchers — students and professionals alike — confused about how to get started, keep track of research and organize a project, facilitate focus amid constant distractions and massive amounts of text and information, and iterate drafts. But entrepreneurial readers and writers can take advantage of this environment by developing unique combinations of strategies and methods that leverage their strengths and make sense for their projects.

With our pals in the Munday Library, we’ve developed the following big-picture sampler, with links to many resources on campus and online, of strategies that readers and writers might pull from as they develop unique processes.

Chart created by Brittney Johnson.

For a version that links to related resources and services, download the PDF.

This post was originally published on March 8, 2016, on the St. Edward’s University OWL Writing Blog.