Wordle and Zotero

As I enter my second year of doctoral work, I am still swimming in too many research interests; narrowing the focus so I can select a committee and ensure that my courses are a fit has been stressing me out for months now. However, thanks to wordle, I'm getting closer! Using what I'm learning in the digital tools course, I have taken three major steps: 1.) I have been organizing my documents/courses into dropbox so I no longer have my work on two computers and four flashdrives. 2.) I took my written work: final papers, book reviews, conference proposals, etc... from my first year of courses at OSU and put each into a wordle. WOW! Seriously, I can't even express how much perspective this is providing me and how many patterns emerged. The collages are remarkable; even the shapes and colors speak to me and remind me of my energy and passion that I put into the written work! Now that I have them, I plan to print off all my wordles so I can peruse them all at once; seeing my work and my themes is already giving me confidence to draft and send my advisor my research ideas. Though I have had such stress about it, I actually am feeling great about where I'm headed because I have a better grasp (and a quick glance) at where I've been!  3.) I created my zotero account and started my library. I have been adding resources to zotero as I search for sources, yet my main focus has been on understanding zotero and "catching up" with the resources I already have. As one may expect, I still need to transfer many of my pdf articles and other books (from last year's work) into the library, yet I am making progress. I am in awe at the speed of the reference page (and I even enjoy the minutia of APA!) and look forward to using this new tool as I write (and cite!). It's just remarkable to organize electonically and have what I need at my fingertips.

I admit that I am concerned that the technology (particularly zotero and dropbox) will fail and I will lose my information, but I'm powering ahead anyway. I share my new discoveries at least three times a week and truly feel like a finally have a handle on my electronic life. Organizing relaxing me and I'm thrilled with my new options!