LibGuides: * Education, Counseling and Human Development Warner School: Summer 2025 Group: How do we get there? Materials and links

Creating a research journal

A research journal (sometimes called a research diary) is a document that helps you keep track of your ideas, and progress on a larger research writing task.

Here are a few helpful sites to get you started:

Keeping a Research Journal by Jolene M. Miller
Why to keep a research journal and what to capture in it
Excerpt from "Making the Most of Your Research Journal" by Nicole Brown
Brief excerpt that has images of a variety of types of research journals.
Why (and how) should I keep a research journal
From American Public University System's Library Guide

Making the Most of Your Research Journal by Nicole Brown
ISBN: 9781447360056

Publication Date: 2021-10-19

Providing practical guidance based on real-life examples, this book shows researchers different forms and ways of keeping a research journal and how to get the most out of journaling. Appealing to postgraduate students, new and experienced researchers, the book: * provides a theoretical grounding and information about knowledge and sensory systems and reflexivity; * presents a practical exploration of what a journal looks like and when and how to record entries; * includes helpful end-of-chapter exercises and online resources. Providing valuable food for thought and examples to experiment with, the book highlights the different forms of research journals and entries so that readers can find what works for them. Giving researchers licence to do things differently, the book encourages and enables readers to develop their own sense of researcher identity and voice.

Keeping a dissertation journal
Blog post with clear prompts, and some excellent advice for how to approach your research journal.

Finding a calm & healthy place with meditation or stretching

Metta Meditation
Compassion for self and others is a good way to prime yourself for thoughtful work

Notetaking for Research

Notetaking for Graduate Students slide deck
A slide deck on notetaking from University of Rochester Libraries

Task Breakdown

Task and Subtask Planner
From UR's Learning Center: Templates for task & subtask planning
Work Breakdown Structure
From the University of Waterloo: Project management tools - work breakdown structure
Work Breakdown Structure
From IPM: tools for project management
Work Breakdown Structure Tutorial
From the Project Management Institute: a tutorial on work breakdown structure
Work Breakdown Structure - Canva
A free template from Canva for creating your work breakdown structure

xTiles and Goblin tools - keeping you on task

xTiles example
Courtesy of Sarah Sarchet - an example of xTiles at work
Goblin Tools
Single task tools to help you break down tasks. Most use some form of AI.
Video of xTiles and Goblin Tools
Only works for those at UR (working on more access)
Habit Stacking

Mind Mapping (Concept Mapping)

Mindmup Gold (university subscription)
Create mind maps (concept maps) or any logical structure. To log in with your university credentials: Click on SIGN IN, then choose Google if you have a university Gmail account, or Sign In With Microsoft if you're staff or faculty (log in with your ur.rochester.edu email)

Good habits

National Center for Faculty Development
Empowering faculty for lasting success with programs, coaching, and on-demand support.

AI tools for Lit Review

Perplexity
Perplexity is a free AI-powered answer engine that provides accurate, trusted, and real-time answers.
Litmaps.com
Use a visual citations map to identify useful articles. Articles are highlighted based on an algorithm. Need to create an account.
Connected Papers
A visual tool to help researchers find research on a topic or other papers cited by or closely connected to what you've already found. Search by topic, title of a paper you've already found, by DOI or by paper urls from archives like PubMed, Semantic Scholar, or arXiv.
ChatGPT4
The most up to date version of ChatGPT - limited number of free uses
UR AI chat
An older version of ChatGPT, but more secure - information you share is not used for training purposes
SciSpace
A suite of AI tools to help researchers discover, understand and write research papers.
Semantic Scholar
An AI tool to search and discover scientific research.