F&M College Library

TDF228: Scene Design

Organizing Your Research

 

Visually Organizing Your Research with Concept Maps


It's important to keep track of your papers, newspaper articles, and other resources for your class work. One way that I like to do this is with a concept map. 

Concept maps, like the one to your right, are simple tools used to organize thoughts, ideas, and more. They're very flexible, and you can use them however works best for you. 

I like to put the topic I'm researching at the center, and place different keywords, subtopics, and search terms around it, to represent my searches. 

To make your own concept maps, use a simple piece of paper and a pen/pencil. There are online programs, as well, if you prefer.  Contact me for more!  

 

Keeping Track of Your Citations with Zotero

 

Zotero is a great open-source tool that allows you to keep all of your sources in one convenient place! Using Zotero's easy interface, you can create folders to store project-specific PDFs, book chapters, online sources, and more. 

Zotero also has a convenient browser extension that lets you save PDFs, webpages, and other sources right from your window! 

You can download Zotero from their homepage here.

For further help using Zotero, remember that you can reach out to Anna, or use their helpful Quick Start Guide