One year into the PhD and I finally feel that I am getting a grip on the literature. I have read papers, filed them in organised, labelled box files and then have either forgotten them or, at best, had a vague memory of their content. I have been aware that other people have a 'system' for managing their literature but, for whatever reason, I have not quite been able to achieve my own 'system'...until now.
One of my outcomes from my supervision meeting earlier in the year was to draw up a grid of all the work by Kleinman and also all the work I could find on Explanatory Model Theory. I have spent the past few weeks doing just that - I have set up an Excel spreadsheet within which I have several worksheets, each worksheet has a separate heading e.g. Kleinman, illness/disease, methodology, explanatory model theory etc. This process has revolutionised how I am now managing my literature and has set up a system that is not only useful for now but is adaptable and can be built upon as the PhD progresses.
I now consider that I have started to achieve what I thought I wanted to achieve way back last summer when I attended a PhD RCN day in Swansea. I came away from the day enthused, and had a desire to set up some sort of logical system for managing the relevant literature so that I could not only build upon it but also access it easily and meaningfully. For several months I held that thought and did not really have the time or impetus to move forward with it. However, the supervision process identified this as something I needed to do, it also coincided with my own awareness that I needed to somehow find time to read and document a summary of the papers I was reading in such a way as to make the reading of the literature a useful and valuable exercise. I thought of using Reference Manager as a way of documenting a paper's key content, but then the question was one of how would I be able to access all relevant literature easily? Answer - to set up an Excel literature grid; this works well thus far. I can, of course, add to it and adapt it as my needs and knowledge broaden.
Could I, should I, have started this process earlier? I don't know really, I think probably not. I think the fact I now 'need' to set up a system has helped me to define what it is I want, and how I want the information to be presented. Certainly, revisiting some of the earlier papers I have amassed and rereading them has been enlightening; I have an understanding that I did not have a year ago simply because I now have a greater knowledge of the subject area.
The answer, I guess, is that there is no correct answer; it is whatever is right for the individual.........I would say that the process of learning about how to manage the literature accompanied by the need to manage it has been a worthwhile exercise and has helped defined what is useful for me.
