Literature notes

Literature notes are what a researcher writes after reading a paper, so they never have to read it the same way twice. A good set answers the questions that come up later, when writing: what did this paper ask, how did it find out, what did it actually show, how far can that be trusted, and what does it mean for my own project. Quotes are kept word for word with page numbers, so they can be cited without going back to the PDF.

The matrix row at the end is the bridge to the literature review. Each paper becomes one row with the same columns, and once there are twenty rows, the patterns (methods everyone uses, populations nobody has studied, findings that disagree) are visible at a glance.

When to use it