Referencing and Citations

2/5 - 7/5
I've had an interesting week in my Special Topic. We've been told we are in effect, doing a literature review, so I went back to Gina Wisker's Post Graduate Research Handbook, and looked that up. Here she tells me to consider using a referencing machine that can help sort out the pdf files I've been gathering which sounded good to me. Happy to search that out.
I settled on Mendeley which is super easy to use and copies references into a Word doc without any fuss, unlike End Note which can cause formatting issues. It also lets me save my reading notes on a couple of formats which are transferable to my word doc as well. Feeling excited!
Then I found these 2 websites which gave me a good idea of what a Lit Review can look like, and recognised them in some of my sources, so proceeded to make one of my own like that. Feeling quite pleased and clever.
So far so good....

http://www.literaturereviewhq.com/guest-post-how-to-get-your-literature-review-to-write-itself/

http://phdtalk.totallyvidya.net/academic/the-four-cs-of-literature-review/

I even looked at a writing tool!!!!! but Scrivener costs US$40.00 after the first 30 days so not really an option at this point. What I am needing to do as these 2 blog posts suggest, is more active note taking. I made a good start with the Mendeley programme for referencing and I will use those notes on the side to be a part of my Literature review. If I'm right I can drag and drop this notes which are attached to the highlights in the PDFs I have stored in there. Not feeling smug yet, but getting close....

8/5
Upon going back to the criteria (a day later!) I see that I have not been critical AT ALL and need to address that, so go and look for examples of how to go about that as well. Feeling worried I wasted time.

9/5
BUT NOW!!!!! oh dear I think I am getting bogged down in the idea of a proper Critical Literature Review! And I am sure that is not the intention! There's still time to unstick myself, and I have heaps of notes - I just need to opinionise and sort them into more coherence for my topic. At least there is plenty of evidence to be found for my topic!!!! Still feeling worried, started an email to Linda. Time to re read the criteria with more attention, I think.
Saving the mail as a draft - I seem to be answering my own question - but a second opinion is always a help. Feeling a bit confused.

Sent the email, feeling better about that.

Wondering if I should be feeling sheepish or can I just not see the woods for the trees!!!!

Goals for this week:

1. Get the critiques sorted!!
2. get stuck into the Research Essay by Wednesday since that one also needs to be tended to sooner than later.
3. Keep this blog going, I am finding it useful to keep setting down my thoughts, but concentrate on writing how it helps me learn - still struggling with that.