Managing Information

Files and Folders

Over a three-year degree course you can expect to attend around 600 lectures and seminars. Assuming you are taking useful notes that is a lot of material to keep track of. And then there will be all the notes you make when you are reading books or looking at websites and the photocopied journal articles and other material. Unless you can find any particular piece of information without too much difficulty you might as well not have it. Imagine a telephone directory which was just a random collection of names and numbers: how useful would it be? So it is worthwhile spending some time getting organised and developing a filing system.

Here are some tips on how to go about designing an efficient filing system which will carry you through your years as a student of society.

Filing Systems

You are likely to have two filing systems, one physical and one electronic. The same basic principles apply to each. It is a good idea whenever possible to have the same structure for each. So, for example, we have a filing cabinet containing a number of box files and folders relating to the different lectures for our Studying Society module and we also have an electronic ‘filing cabinet’ on our computers which is organised in the same way.

Filing can be alphabetical - Take a telephone directory as an example. If you want to find the phone number for someone called Sarah Jones who lives in your area, you take out your local directory and look under the letter ‘J’ for Jones and then go down the list until you come to all the people called Jones whose first name begins with ‘S’. Hopefully you will then find the number you want.

Or filing can be subject-based - think about how a supermarket is organised - the shelves containing food items are separated from the cleaning materials, from the alcoholic drinks and so on. Then these shelves are themselves split up so that, for example, the shelves containing tins will be split into meats and vegetables with the latter split further into say carrots, peas, beans etc. So within our filing cabinet draw labelled ‘teaching’, our files are organised by the code numbers of the modules we teach rather than alphabetically by the modules title.

However, a basic feature of most filing systems is that they are organised in a hierarchy. Again, as an example, we have filing systems organised into three main categories - ‘administration’, ‘research’, ‘teaching’. Under ‘administration’ we have more folders labelled ‘board of studies’, ‘course director’, ‘information services’, ‘student references’ and so on. Under teaching we have all our modules by subject code, and these files are broken down into other folders such as lecture material, assessments, student attendance records and so on. And these are further broken down into, for example, the folder lecture material for Studying Society has individual files on each of the lectures we give for that module.

So think about what is the best way to organise your study material. You might, for example begin by organising it into folders according to the modules you are taking. These in turn might be split up into more folders, for example, lecture notes, reading, seminars etc. Or will it be more useful to organise it by the different topics covered on the module. You can organise your computer disk space in exactly the same way so that you can easily find something when you are looking for it.

This kind of filing system is often referred to as a “tree” because it starts from one trunk – the filing cabinet – which has four branches – its drawers – and from each branch come many more secondary branches – the various folders and folders within folders.

Physical files and folders

Despite having easy access to computers you will still need cardboard folders and box files containing reams of paper: the prospect of computers removing the need to cut down trees hasn’t been realised. You will have photocopies of articles, handwritten notes (which you never got around to typing up) handouts and lots more material that is not in electronic format. One disadvantage is that unless you spend a lot of time and money on photocopying any material you have can only be in one place at one time. The lecture notes on gender and crime for example, will only be in the lecture folder or in the one on gender and crime. And filing can become quite a time-consuming business.

Electronic filing systems

A computerised filing system is pretty much like a physical one although computers store information on disk drives which are labelled with different letters. These drives are divided up into directories (sometimes called folders) which in turn may be divided up into sub-directories (also sometimes called folders!).These in turn may be divided up into more sub-directories (or folders).

Your own computer (if you have one) or the one that you use in your university or college will have what is called a hard drive and this will usually be given the letter ‘C’. Your university or college will probably also provide you with some personal disk space via its’ computer network.

In the past, floppy disks have been used to store files and carry them around but today these are rapidly being replaced by memory sticks. If you are using one in a university computer make sure that you remember to take it with you.

A major advantage of electronic filing systems is that the same material can be put into more than one place very easily. So notes from a lecture on domestic violence can be stored in a folder containing lecture notes but a copy can be stored in another folder on ‘violence’ and yet another copy can be put in a folder on, say, ‘current essays’.

A golden rule is to save copies of your work in at least two separate places. But make sure that the places are really separate. One of our students saved her work in two places - the hard drive of her laptop and a floppy disk. However when her laptop was stolen the floppy was inside it. She lost two essays as a consequence.

File managers

Make yourself familiar with your file manager. If you are using a Microsoft operating system this is called Windows Explorer shows you a map of all the drives and folders to which you have access. Open it from your desktop and you will be presented with a screen which apart from the bits at the top has two main sections. On the left is a list of all the drives which relate to you. As you highlight a drive by pointing your mouse at it and clicking the left button once, the right hand section of the screen will change to show the folders in that drive. Point your mouse at one of these folders and double click the left mouse button. This will show the other folders and files contained within the folder. When you find the document you need you just double click on it and it should open up for you.

Exercise 2: Start a Research Folder for your next piece of work

As an aid to completing any research project, you should begin to start collecting in a designated file or folder items that you have come across that you feel might be relevant to your research topic.

The advantages of keeping a research folder are that –

You start the research process immediately

You can just put things in and decide where they will go later

It encourages you to write things down and make notes rather than try and ‘remember’ where you saw something later on.

It builds up your confidence about how much material you are getting together, or reminds you that you maybe need to do a bit more work.

Above all folders are a useful way of putting material together in a informal way that may in itself generate ideas about how you might want to structure your final piece of work. The following are examples of the sorts of things that you might want to put in – but the categories are only a guide – you can sort the information in your folder in any way you want.

Notes from reading, lectures etc

The notes you take from your reading, lectures and other information sources are key to your success. If you take good notes these are an information source in themselves which you can go back to again and again. Here are some hints to ensure that you make the most of your note-taking.

Get used to using headers, footers and margins on each page when taking notes. The more information you include at an early stage of the process, the less you have to dig around for later when you are short of time and working to a deadline.

Headers: These should include full bibliographical details for each information source you are using – whether it was a piece of literature or a particular lecture for example. You will then be able to see at a glance from which information source you were taking notes.

Footers: These could include information on where you would be able to find the information again, for example you could record the library classification code for any book you are using, the or the full url (uniform resource locator) for the web-page

Margins: You can use margins to record page numbers – this is crucial if you are going to quote directly from a source, but it is also sometimes necessary to cite the source and page number of an idea which you are using but has been “borrowed” from someone else. So get into the habit of recording page numbers for important ideas, not just for direct quotes.

You could also use the margins to record key words or phrases which would help you see at a glance what issue your notes refer to at particular places

Logging searches

Your files should include a search log form which tracks all the searches which you carried out to find information relevant to your topic. The purpose and mechanics of search log forms are explained in Part 3 of Studying Society: the essentials.

Design your own search log form which you will find easy to use but which includes all the information which you will need to track each of your searches and help you to find any relevant information sources again. The Studying Society book has a suggested form which was adapted from the University of Liverpool library pages.

[link to file: search log form]

Library Catalogue/ CD ROM/ Internet Searches.

Make a note of the web address/ search engine/ database you used, and date and time of the search.

Make a note of the search term you used to get it. Even if you don’t go back, this may avoid duplication later on and possibly to point you in new directions.

Make notes on how it is relevant to what you are doing.

Literature Searches

For each item you find you will need to write down–

Name of book or article. NB. If an article – you will need the name of the article and the book or journal it is in.

The names of the authors of the item and if it is an article in a book, the name of the editors of the book.

The date it was published.

The edition.

The publishers, and where they are based, i.e. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Newspaper/ Magazine Clippings.

If you see an article that seems relevant, cut it out/ photocopy it/ ask about how you can get hold of it, AND what ever you do, make sure you make a note of –

Where it was – i.e. name, date, volume, edition etc. of newspaper/ magazine.

The date you saw it, and where you came across it (might be useful later on, or to pass on as a potential source to someone else.)

Why you thought it was relevant. Even the best ideas can be forgotten – so just a comment on where you thought it might go/ how it would help you.

Aural Information

This comes in a variety of guises – from the radio or television, or a conversation, or something you overheard in passing. Write a summary of what you think was said, and although getting more detail can be tricky – write down as much of the following you can –

Where did you hear it?

Date, time and place.

If it was on the television or radio – what Channel, programme etc. was it on?

If you know who said it on television/ radio, make a note of the name of who said it and in what context. .

Particularly if there are ‘gaps’ in your recollection, write down anything else that contextualises what was said for you, and that may give insights to the reader.

Remember – you can sometimes get transcripts of radio programs, if you have enough details, from the BBC, for example – check out their websites for transcripts, or sometimes you can listen again to radio programmes on the web.

Names and Addresses of Useful Contacts.

You may come across or be given the names and addresses of useful organisations or people already working in your field. Always make a note of these, as they can be very valuable contacts for information or relevant literature.

Miscellaneous/ Trivia

This is the category under which many things come. You may have ideas, or half - remembered things that you need to keep a record of. It may be that someone has given you information that you haven’t been able to act on, or you want to check.