When I am working on a big story or one that contains a lot of gathered materials, what I try to do is keep all the parts in one folder. Whether it’s interview transcripts, secondary research, field notes, etc. I think creating a desktop folder specifically for that story is the best way to go about it. However, technology has it’s tweaks, so saving all the work to a jump drive, is also very important as well.
I prefer keeping everything in a digital form is better that have physical copies because it’s easier to find and keep up with. Using a computer is also very convenient because you can access your information from different sites. If I send the folder to my email then I can have that information at any computer I have access too. I can also create neat little checklists, reminders and calendars to make sure I am making deadlines and not forgetting to do anything.
Since we have a class project that everyone will be working on, I plan to make a “High School Transfers” folder on my desktop and keep all my material for that project in there. And I plan to so the same for my individual projects.
I started off with a folder just labeled “School,” my freshman year in college. I was too fond of using a laptop for pretty much all my work, so I figured that one folder would suffice. It did not take long though for me to realize that I would not only need to categorize my classes into different folders but also make individual folders inside of those to categorize work for my different projects and assignements. In my opinion it’s the easiest way to go about it and you can file almost any type of document.