Collecting & Collating Digital Research Online
You’ll be doing a lot of research for your longer form multimedia journalism stories. You’ll need to organise and archive that research. Some information might end up in either (a) your AdPractice module final multimedia reporting, attributed according to news practice or (b) your AdRes research proposal and /or final dissertation, cited according to academic practice. Most of your research however will not be used directly, rather it will serve as the foundation of knowledge to direct your practice and research. At times the research you do will be specific to either your AdPrac or your AdRes module, but there will also be plenty of cross over, as theory and practice intertwine and advance each other.
You’ll read / watch and listen to: books, articles, research reports, lectures, newspaper articles, documentaries, podcasts and so on. Keeping track and keeping a large volume of information organised is important. You’ll need to start at the beginning. It doesn’t really matter how you organise your system, take a read through this guide, pick a method and start archiving. That way later, you’ll be able to find information when you need it.
There’s a variety of tools you can use to collate and organise your research. Bookmarking doesn’t tend to work well for such large amounts of material and also your tutors will want to see your research. You won’t be able to list everything on your story / project forms — and you are expected to have some kind of digital research archive. Again, it really doesn’t matter how you do it, so long as your researched is archived, so it’s easy for you to refer back to and so that tutors can view and help assess your sources.
Curate, aggregate, highlight, etc…
There are plenty of free research apps and web and mobile friendly tools. My personal favorites are Padlet and Evernote. I have the cheapest Evernote subscription — well worth paying 20 RMB a month for — but you also get plenty of it’s powerful tools for free. I organise all my different projects notes into individual notebooks. Because I have the paid subscription the app on my computer and phone both synch up. That means that I can make and see notes either on my computer or mobile. That way if i’m working on line reading news articles or research reports for my story I can copy paste information and sources in — or just attach complete clipping or PDF’s for later reference. Alternatively, if i’m out and about and have a thought while i’m eating dinner, I can jot it down, or if i take a relevant picture or video on my phone I can add that straight into my notebook, or I can record an interview. It doesn't take long to get to grips with Evernote — it’s a simple but powerful application and I thoroughly recommend it.
Another app I like is padlet, It’s a nice visual tool for clipping articles and pictures — though for longer projects, it can get a little unwieldily. See how I used it below to collect some goof lectures on multimedia journalism:
See also how I used it here to collect research on a long form multimedia project. To be honest, with this volume of research, it doesn’t work so well and things start to get lost. However, at least everything is all on one page and I can trawl through to return to things if needed. There’s a handy extension which allows you to clip whatever you are reading.
There are heaps of other tools too, spend a day taking a look around to find one that suits you! You might choose to make a research magazine with flipboard. Diigo is a powerful tool for curating annotating and highlighting. You might also try — PearlTrees, Listly, Symbaloo, Livebinders, Pinterest, Linoit — I don’t use these, but hear good reviews. Try Google Drive apps and tools too.
Browser Extensions
Try some handy extensions to save time. Many of the tools above have browser extensions, that way if you are reading something you simply click a button in your browser and save it in your chosen app.
Another great tool for your AdRes bibliography are citation extensions such as app.refme.com and www.citethisforme.com (See below quickly reference for your bibliography, which will be really useful for your story / project forms and your dissertation.
