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ECY 689: Advanced Topics in Special Education

This guide was originally created by Dana Hettich.

Organizing as You Read

As you do research, keep track of your sources, and organize them into groups.  You might group them based on

  • source information you will need to write your references
  • claims and/or main findings
  • methods (if important)
  • assumptions authors have made (which you might agree with or find infuriating)
  • page numbers and content of phrases or statistics you might want to quote/cite

Note: All of these details could inform future searching and save you from having to comb through an article trying to find a lost piece of information! 

Organizing as You Search

EndNote X9 - the most recent version that has been licensed by UAB.  You can get started by checking out this research guide on EndNote.

<--------"Research" accounts - almost every database gives you the option of creating an account. For more information click here.

Zotero - a free tool that many researchers swear by.   Reportedly, the plug-in for the browser works really well.

Notebook - research shows we remember more when we write it down.  (Thank goodness because my handwriting is atrocious.)