How to Get Organized

There are as many ways to organize your thoughts as there are people, but there are some helpful strategies that will assist you in figuring out the best way for YOU to get your thoughts and sources in order.

Have a Plan. As the authors in Craft of Research tell us, having a plan (whether for research or writing) is always the first step. In writing, this means having a rough idea of what you want to say (a Claim/Argument/Thesis). It's okay if this plan changes as you write, but knowing where you're going is step one.

Step two - as in a trip - is planning out how you're going to get there. For some people, this means outlining. Outlining can mean taking your notecards and putting them in an order that makes senese. It can mean physically writing an outline. It can mean writing a paragraph that walks through the basic steps of your argument. It can even mean just writing down the things you want to cover without yet having an order.

Keep Like With Like. Opposites may attract, but that's not generally a good strategy for organizing. Group your notes, notecards, sources, etc. by topic or relevance to your points. That way, when you need to find support for your claims, you'll know which pile (or color, or computer folder) you need to look for.

Eliminate the Unnecessary. If you're doing a really good job of analyzing your evidence, you will find that you have far more to say about a subject than you have room to say it in. Start trimming out unrelated, tangential, or unnecessary information in the planning stages - if you're focusing on Macbeth, get rid of that paragraph on Hamlet; if you're writing about witchcraft, that book about Shakespeare's theater probably isn't useful. As fascinating as some things are, stick to your thesis and only your thesis. There will always be more papers into which you might incorporate other ideas. (You might keep a file of "cuts" - that way, if you decide to put it back in, you haven't thrown it out.)