Any tips on doing research and keeping it organized?

Spreadsheets, yo. I have one that I use to summarize and categorize research papers I think I’ll need to refer back to. There’s a column (each) for author, title, and year, and most importantly, a column with a one-sentence summary of the most important points. There’s also a column to describe the general category the paper belongs in (e.g., “fMRI” or “sex differences” so I can sort by those and group them together.

I don’t know much about what you do in law school, so I’m not sure how helpful that will be for you. Are the cases easy to look up again, or do you want a way to organize copies of the cases themselves? I have a coworker who keeps pdfs of every research paper she needs to refer to in a folder on her computer, and I have done this in the past, but it’s so easy to re-find what I need on google scholar it’s not worth the tiny effort to save and file the pdfs.

I second the spreadsheets. I’ve used them when working on research papers in my nursing program and they are a life saver sometimes. I always kept a copy of the research article handy as well in case I needed to refer back to them, but the spreadsheets usually did the trick.

Give long name to documents and organize them in folders and sub folders with the same long name and explicit so you know what’s there.

I third the spreadsheet idea. I use tables. Also, I keep notes in Word and I then search for key words. You can use programs like Endnote too and put in key words so you can find things relating to certain topics too. I don’t know if you will have access to Nvivo which is actually meant for coding qualitative research, but I found it very useful for organising my literature too. You can code things based on specific points and topics.

I use Dropbox and also Google Docs extensively for this i.e. by uploading the original papers and make annotations and other descriptive notes in the title and summary lines. This way I can access my notes wherever I go without lugging my laptop or use up my memory space on my device. My university also offers a free version of the citation management software RefWorks that helps keep track of everything I’d ever read (I believe it’s also cloud-based)

Hmm.

There are a lot of different types of research in law school (and the law) – when you talk about specific questions, I’d need more specifics.

One of the best things that I can say is try to keep it simple. Much of the time, the way you need to organize your research won’t be clear until you’re 80% done with it. So just start with the really general, and make it more specific as you go – and don’t be afraid to change it.

The best way to start is to just work down the strength of authority: Constitutional provisions, statutes, case law, treatise, other secondary sources (law reviews, PLI articles, etc.)