All through my PhD I pretty much used Windows Notepad  exclusively and, of course, for writing my actual Thesis Microsoft Word. Word/Excel was used for tables etc.

So my main research tool was notepad.

People may have different needs but as I am completely blind formatting was rarely an issue for me.

With Notepad I used the following procedure.

In Notepad Press F5 to automatically insert the date and time.

Then basically  type in any notes I needed.

Save it with a suitably clear filename in a pre-organised directory structure.

In the rare event I had loads of notes I would use *** as a virtual bookmarker  and simply use find to find the bookmark.

For Important websites I used the following procedure.

Again in Notepad press F5 to automatically store the date of website retrieval for reference purposes.

In your browser Alt D to jump to the address bar and then simply  control C to copy the address – alt tab to notepad and paste in the link.  Again  for accurate referencing purposes in your thesis.

Back to the browser I would then F6 back down to the web page and press select A and copy all the text of the web page to  the notepad file as well as a failsafe  in case the webpage goes offline etc.

In extremely rare circumstance if there were loads of headings / tables and navigation  was essential I simply save the web page for offline html reading.

As I say people’s needs may differ but I think the reading of content / analysis and then writing is probably more important than the tools used.

David G.

Sent from Mail for Windows 10