Collecting Papers for a literature review
When collecting papers for a literature review, I often find that is most difficult for me to remember to save and locate where the papers are on my computer. Consequently locating specific quotes or statistics then becomes difficult, and citing the paper is even harder. To alleviate these issues, I am incorporating file locations and the formatted reference into my organizer. I have always worked best to have information in table form and so I am doing that here. As I collect papers and see connecting threads between papers, I plan to fill in the boxes of the connecting papers with the same color. This way I know all papers that are one color belong to one idea, and all papers of another idea are a separate color. If papers overlap, then I will use both colors, one as the background color and one as the font color. I believe that with this organization plan, my work will be very well organized and help me write a thorough and well-organized paper without forgetting or misplacing critical citations. As my literature review grows, I can add new rows and columns (if necessary) to my table.
Formatted reference / Main point # 1 / Main point #2 / Notable quotes/ statistics / Filed saved as (in my documents) / Info may be used in / New terminology I learned / to use in paper
Ladson-Billings, G. (1997). It doesn't add up: African American students' mathematics achievement. Journal for Research in Mathematics education, 697-708. / Rote memorization does not encourage aptitude in math for any student, regardless of race/ethnicity. / African American students may have a difficult time even with engaging learning techniques because of unique cultural language issues experienced at home. / “The challenge of improving the mathematical
performance of African
American students
mustbe fought on
threefronts: programmatic,
personal, and political.” See p 706 for details on each front / Lasdon-Billings 1997.pdf / Intro
Body / ‘The pedagogy of poverty’ (Haberman, 1991 in Ladson-Billings, 1997)