Since I wrote about how I study, I began my dissertation required to graduate. This has required the inclusion of a few new tools to assist me, and I’ll be going through them in this short post.

Notion

I use Notion to keep a daily progress journal, with a set template covering a few areas:

• Tasks and Activities
  • Describe in detail what I have accomplished today.
• Problems and Unknowns
  • Describe any issues I am experiencing, as well as anything I am unsure about.
• Associated Thoughts
  • Here I write anything which interests me, perhaps to follow up on another day, such as possible lines of arguments, debates with myself over approaches, and sometimes just the process of getting random ideas out of my head and written down instead.
• To Do
  • A checklist of what I need to do next or soon.
• Queries
  • A list of questions to ask my professor when we next meet up.

I have also added a section on contacts found who I would like to talk to about informing my work. I broke this table down as follows:

Google Forms

Part of my research gathering require me to interview people, though some would not have the time and preferred to answer a questionnaire instead. I use Google Forms as it is a simple interface with a recognisable name. I also used it in the past when gathering data for a recreational project, so I had a basic understanding of how it worked.

Calenderly

The subject of my research project focuses on a locality in the United States, and as I am in the United Kingdom, organising around timezones is vital. I cannot recall how I encountered Calenderly, but I remembered it would be a good service to utilise to help me arrange interviews with people.

Zoom

Interviews would be held on Zoom, as another recognisable platform I assumed all would have used, and I’ve been right so far.

OBS

I use OBS to record the audio of the interviews. I am convinced better tools are out there, but I am used to OBS, I simply decided to go with what I know.

Transcription Services

I was cheeky here. I realised most of the services had an option where the first thirty minutes, or even three hours in one case, of audio could be transcribed for free, and with so many services competing, I simply took half a dozen up on their various offers, and I’ve managed to transcribe everything without paying… However! I am willing to pay if I exceeded my options, and descript, with ten hours of transcription for $15 a month, is not a bad option compared to other services usually charging $5-$10 for one hour of transcription.

Conclusion

This were all in addition to my existing tools described in my previous post on this subject. OneNote remains invaluable as my primary source of storing and accessing research, iThoughtsX has been used frequently for not only diagrams, but for mind mapping and brainstorming too, and I continue to use Pages to write my progress reports and drafts, intending to use Word at the very end (as that is what the university requires). Likely, there are applications and services more suited to particular types of research and studying – this is simply how I do it!