Manage Print Materials
Depending on the scope of your writing project, you might accumulate a great deal of print information, such as
- your written notes (in a notebook, on loose pieces of paper, on sticky notes, and so on)
- printouts from Web pages and databases
- articles sent through a library’s fax-on-demand or interlibrary loan service
- printed word-processing documents, such as your outline and rough drafts
- books, magazines, newspapers, brochures, pamphlets, and government documents
- photocopies of articles, book chapters, and other documents
- letters, printed e-mail messages, and survey results
Rather than letting all this material build up in messy piles on your desk, create a filing system to keep track of your print documents. Filing systems can range from well-organized piles of paper labeled with sticky notes, to three-ring binders, to file cabinets filled with neatly labeled file folders.
Regardless of the approach you take, keep the following principles in mind:
- Make it easy to locate your print materials. Decide whether you want to group materials by topic, by date, by argument, by type of material (Web pages, photocopies, original documents, field sources, and so on), or by author.
- Stick with your organizing scheme. You’ll find it difficult to locate materials if you use different approaches at different points in your writing project.
- Always include complete publication information. If a source doesn’t contain publication information, write it on the document. You’ll need it later. Publication information includes author, title, publisher, place and date of publication, and — for a Web source — sponsoring organization and URL.
- Write a brief note on each of your print materials. Indicate how it might contribute to your project.
- Record the date. Indicating the date when you found a source can help you reconstruct what you might have been doing at the time. Dates are also essential for documenting Web sources and other online sources (see Chapters 21 and 22).