How do I organize research notes?
The work of research is synthesis, and synthesis needs notes that answer something. Filing by author or by book feels tidy and makes writing harder later, because the material is grouped by where it came from rather than what it says.
What matters here
- Organize by question or theme, not by source
- One note per idea, with the source recorded
- Quote sparingly, paraphrase mostly
- Keep an index note that maps questions to notes
- Write the argument before the reading is finished
The atomic note habit
One note per idea, in your own words, with a line at the top saying where it came from. When you later search for a concept, you find every treatment of it regardless of which book it arrived in.
Recording provenance
Always keep a page reference or a link. Paraphrase is fine for thinking and useless for citation, so the pointer has to survive alongside the summary.
Working from the index
Keep a single index note listing your questions and the notes that speak to each. Writing becomes assembling rather than searching, which is the entire reason to take notes this way.
Frequently asked questions
Keep reading
- How do I organize a wedding?A wedding is a project with a fixed date, many vendors and a lot of other people's opinions. Structure helps more than any single checklist.
- Should I track habits in a task app?You can track habits in a task app, and you lose the history that makes habit tracking useful. Whether that matters depends on what you want to know.
- How to organize lecture notesLecture notes should be one note per lecture, titled with the course and date, plus one index note per course that links them all.
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Disclaimer
This page is general information, not professional, legal, financial or medical advice. It describes common ways of working and how Prysm Note approaches them. Software changes over time, so details may differ from what you see in the product. Any product, company or brand names that appear are the property of their respective owners and are used only for identification. We do not claim any endorsement or affiliation. Where we compare approaches, we aim to describe each one honestly, including where a different approach may suit you better. Try the tools that matter to you and judge for yourself.