Robert A. Karl Profile picture
Jul 21, 2018 12 tweets 7 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
I visited 16 archives on 3 continents, took digital photos of 100K+ pgs of archival material, + gathered thousands more pgs in other formats to write #ForgottenPeace. As a result, I have a comprehensive system of archival methodologies + best practices #twitterstorians
I’ve given yearly workshops on these methods to colleagues, grad students, + undergrads @Princeton, as well as @UConnHistory. I’ve long thought of recording the presentations, both to share these ideas w/ a larger audience + to get feedback to improve my own practices
So here are my two videos on research methods for historians
1) (13:19)
2) (26:03)
#twitterstorians
Part #1 focuses on secondary sources and general best practices for organizing research materials. Even if you’re not a historian, there’s a lot here that may be useful to you.
Part #2 looks at photographing, indexing, and taking notes on archival materials.
5 additional #twitterstorian research tips that didn’t make it into the videos:
#1: I use the color-coding scheme on article PDFs, too
#twitterstorian research tip #2: If I’m reading a PDF on my laptop, I’ll often take notes in a TextEdit file. It’s unobtrusively off to one side, so I don’t have to toggle b/w my notes + the PDF. Has automatic spellcheck too, even in Spanish
#twitterstorian research tip #3: 1 thing I don’t love about DEVONthink is where it puts the text files. If you want to back up, control-click on a file, select Show in Finder. Tab over in Column view to the rtf folder, which you can then copy over to Drive for backup
#twitterstorian research tip #4: I have a spreadsheet called ToC, where I make my own tables of contents for works that lack them. Can also be helpful to calculate the % of a book comprised by a contributor’s work
#twitterstorian research tip #5: When I scan microfilmed newspapers, I put a keyword, the date, + pg # in the title of the file
I tweeted out some other productivity tips in the fall:
I hope these videos help you streamline + improve your research process! Please let me know your impressions + own practices. Will do a Spanish version of these videos at some point

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More from @RAKarl

Jun 4, 2018
It’s that time of year for tenure/job/fellowship announcement tweets. I have my own professional news to share, but it’s not like most of what’s out there

I wasn’t awarded tenure + will be leaving Princeton this time next year
It's been as seismic a development as one might expect. And tenure’s an inhumane process regardless of outcome. So there have been no shortage of difficult moments since the decision came down in the fall

But you know what? I’ve never once thought about it in terms of failure
I’m terribly proud of #ForgottenPeace. The translation just came out in Colombia, a year after original edition. Last month's launch was as fulfilling a professional accomplishment as I could ever hope for. 13 years after my 1st trip, my work is receiving an incredible reception
Read 12 tweets
Sep 30, 2017
Start of the academic year is a great time to adopt new practices for research/organization/productivity. #twitterstorians
Now that semester’s settled in, some tips. In rough order of usefulness. Most helpful for all levels, from undergrad up, across disciplines
1) Stop taking notes in Word. Various options for better search, organization, functionality, etc; I use @devontech’s DEVONthink Personal
Read 29 tweets

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