It is good to keep a record of the databases you have visited and search terms you have used while looking for articles. This will prevent you from wasting time with duplicate searches. Pen and paper are good for recording information, but there are also free, online tools that can help you manage your citations, keep notes, organize our citations, and integrate formatted citations into your literature review. And the best part? You can easily get information from the library's databases into these tools.
Aside from pen and paper, many researchers and scholars use spreadsheets to manage their literature reviews. Two of these researchers have described their methods:
“I wanted to create a table that I could manage effectively. Where I could move the data with ease. And, because seeing how far I’ve come helps to keep me feeling positive, where I could easily find out how many articles I’d read!
My spreadsheet is basic. It is not all singing and dancing, and I’m sure there are lots of clever things I’m missing out on. But its simplicity works for me.”
Her blog post also includes screen captures, and explains how she is able to organize her thoughts on different writers’ points of view and other pertinent information such as ethical concerns.
