Reading Notes: basic method

I have my research methods. They are time-consuming, but I think they work well. For long written works, they involve several layers of activity.

1) reading, marginal notes, etc.

2) going back through and a) typing direct quotes, with Author, Year, Page reference [for hard copies], or b) copying and pasting direct quotes, with Author, Year, Page reference.

3) this may involve tagging with topics like #drugs or #women or #togotigi or whatever

4) sort these quotes into their thematic buckets, such as a document called "drugs.docx" or "women.docx". Highlight them yellow in the basic document to show they have been "processed".

5a) Eventually, paste these thematic quotes into the relevant part of the overal manuscript outline. So, for example, in the current outline of Fate Music, chapter 2 has a major heading B. "1969 not all that peachy, either: Center on 8/1/69", with a level 2 heading "3. Light Artists' Guild, Wild West Fest", and a level 3 heading "a. LAG strike".  So anything I have on the LAG strike will just get pasted, quote and reference, into that part of the document. Then, when I am actually writing in that part of the document, I will organize them at even deeper levels. All of this corresponds to an "architecture of complexity" a la Simon, or Arthur Koester's rendering of hierarchical systems.

5b) In the alternative, I may just write up prose within the thematic document. So, for the LAG strike, I probably have a document that narrates it all.

6) for redundant references to the same fact or claim or whatever, I string the references together à la brochette, as my grandparents' compatriots would have had it. I don't want to just claim one cite and leave the others aside. I want to document every claim as exhaustively as I possibly can, especially when it comes to the canonical sources. So, in Fate Music, you may see some basic claim noted with multiple references, e.g., to Jackson 1999, McNally 2002, Browne 2015, Gans & Jackson 2015, etc. etc. That way, Fate Music also serves as a reference, which can be checked against as many other sources as possible, to maximize reliability, etc.

7) Then I need to write the words, in plain and preferably attractive English. That's the hardest part for me. The rain man is good at stringing together 27 sources after 20 years of research. He may also be an excellent driver. But writing for other brains, in an idiom other than political science? That's like dancing about architecture, my friends.