Hi everyone, this is my first post.
I'm finishing up my fifth year of grad school (history), but I've still failed to hit upon a satisfactory system for organizing all of the copied (paper) journal articles / book sections that accumulate like little mountains all over my appartment.
I'm very much looking foward to the day when an affordable e-ink e-reader will be available that allows for practicle notetaking, but till then, I'm still a slave to the copy machine. I just can't organize my thoughts as well reading a pdf on my laptop.
My system now is this: If I determine an article to be worthy of holding on to, i.e. there's at least a small chance I'll want to cite or refer to it in the future, I first enter it into Endnote (bibliography software, as most of you know I'm sure), compete with keywords, abstract, etc. If I want to read it carefully, I'll definitely print or copy it, mark it up, and organize some notes in a word doc. Then I file the paper copy in a hanging file folder, organized by author. That way, when I need to refer to, cite, or re-read the article later, I can search for it in Endnote and look at my notes on my computer, then find the paper copy filed away.
So what do some of you do?
Thanks!