Ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you that I am *incredibly* Type-A. Down to the organization of items in my purse and my proclivity to turn all aspects of my life into an Excel Spreadsheet. (More on that later when I type up a post about studying for comps and keeping notes on that)
And while that is great, it can often be a curse because I am terrified of starting a project with a certain organization or structure and then having it not work out or worse…. Finding a better way to do it part of the way through, and feeling like I need to start over.
And that is where I am at today… dear reader…. Tragically behind where I wish I could be on my dissertation prospectus and my dissertation itself because I have not determined the best way to keep track of my sources and notes. For anyone that knows me in real life, would you be shocked if I said I laid awake last night thinking about how I could actually write an actual app to do what I wanted it to do for my research?
But sometimes it takes a small jostle of the brain for a solution to make itself known… and that is what happened to me when I began searching random document tagging and organizing terms in the iOS App Store when I suddenly remembered a tool I used almost 10 years ago as a master’s student in educational technology…. Back then, it was MarginNote2, but since, the company has produced a new version.. MarginNote3, and looking at it, it has the advancements I’d like to see in 2023.
So here’s what I am thinking: I am going to do a good and thorough test of MarginNote 3 and then give you my thoughts.
Here are the things I am most excited about for MarginNote 3 going in:
- iCloud Sync and a version for all my devices (iPad, Mac, and iPhone)
- Annotation of documents
- Built-in tagging and mind-map creation, particularly across documents, so when something works for multiple chapters, I can keep the original document in one place and the notes for the specific chapter in a chapter-specific notebook
- Pretty low cost, especially compared to what some other programs can cost
- Like GoodNotes 5, it deals with PDF annotation and notebooks, but like MindNode or other mind map programs, I can build connections within the same application.
- I am sure there are quite a few other features, but I am going into this new version pretty blind on purpose, other than the things that I saw from the screenshots in the App Store
Here are the parameters of my experiment:
- For the next two weeks, I will process all of my data and sources in MarginNote3. This is because not only will it basically take me to the end of the month, but the product comes with a 14-day trial.
- I will use MarginNote to do 2 primary things:
- Complete the literature review section of my dissertation prospectus
- Begin reading primary and specific secondary sources for what I plan on being my third chapter, “The Battle for the Batture”
- I will be making notes and taking some screenshots during this experiment to create an update post so that I can give my final thoughts and develop a workflow going forward – that is if I choose to continue using MarginNote3 for my dissertation research.
So with that, I will get to dumping in some of my articles and sources and see you in two weeks!
Erica Anne Price 