This page gives information about books and technology/software different people have found useful during their research journeys.
Paper on a thematic approach to qualitative analysis recommended by @librarygirlknit: Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101.
Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing Grounded Theory - A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis. London: Sage.
Merrill, B., & West, L. (2009). Using Biographical Methods in Social Research. London: Sage.
Smith, J.A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2009). Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. London: Sage.
Becker, H.S. and Richards, P (2007). Writing for social scientists: how to start and finish your thesis, book, or article: University of Chicago Press
Petre, M and Rugg, G (2010) The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research. McGraw Hill
Silverman, D. (ed.) (2011) Qualitative Research. London: Sage.
OneNote for Windows, Apple, and Android devices: Software that functions as a very high-tech digital binder for storing just about everything. High-leverage features. Of course, pages are printable and can be stored in an actual physical binder. Blog post about OneNote for academics, including a downloadable, customizable OneNote binder tailored for researchers/writers available here: http://theblossomingfledglingresearcher.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/downloadable-onenote-binder-tailored-for-academic-researchers-and-writers/. (Shared on April 11, 2014)
BookCrawler iPhone App: Scan book barcodes with your iPhone to put them into a database that can be backed up on a computer. Books can be tagged and organized into collections. Comments can be added to book entries. $$Free.
Scrivener: Powerful word processing software for creating and organizing long documents such as novels and dissertations. Import images, pdfs, movies, text, and sound files into your documents. Includes a corkboard, outlining, and layout panes to help move sections around when revising. $$45. Mac OS only for now (Windows Beta recently available). Educational pricing available. Also from App Store. http://www.literatureandlatte.com/
Research and Reference managers (see also Writing and Reference Management Tools):
- Endnote is the ubiquitous reference manager that has been around for 20 years. Your university probably can get you a reasonably priced version. It is a little dated and lacks the bells and whistles of modern reference managers, but it's library search capabilities are unmatched. www.endnote.com
- Mendeley is a research management tool for desktop and web where you can store and organise your papers. You can also explore trends in research and connect with other researchers in your discipline. www.mendeley.com
- Qiqqa is a free research management and reference management tool for Windows desktop, Android tablet and Web. Your PDFs become fully text searchable - even if they are scans by using OCR. Your annotations and highlights are succinctly summarised in annotation reports. Your citations and bibliography are automatically built for you in Word using any of 1500 CSL styles. You can explore your PDF collection graphically using automatically generated tags, coloured document themes, and dynamic brainstorms. Qiqqa.com
- Zotero is a cross-platform open-source reference management tool that runs inside Firefox or standalone.www.zotero.org
Comments (1)
Tonda Bone said
at 3:34 am on Sep 7, 2012
I've been using Zotero to manage my literature and citations for my dissertation, but I am thrilled to learn about Qiqqa!! I'm too involved in the dissertation to "change horses midstream," as the saying goes, but I've got Qiqqa bookmarked to try on my next writing project. I'm especially thrilled at the thought that you can annotate and highlight within Qiqqa (as opposed to within, for example, Adobe Acrobat), and the software will then let you create reports from those annotations and highlights. How cool is THAT?!? :)
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