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Last week I put together a thread about archive workflow () and said I'd create a thread about using DEVONThink as a tool for source analysis and management. Here it is. #phdskills #phdchat 1/
My primary source analysis is all done w/ @devontech DEVONThink Pro. As I said in my last thread, I drag and drop the PDFs from the archive directly into a “dissertation” database in DEVONThink Office Pro + run OCR on them. (I have diff databases for diff research projects.) 2/ 
DEVONThink is really powerful, but I only really use a couple of features regularly. The main thing I use it for is to take notes on primary sources, and I do that through the annotate function (shortcut: ALT + SHIFT + CMD + A). 3/
For each folder-level PDF I have from the archive, I create an annotated document that is linked to that PDF. I take all my notes on that particular folder in that one document. 4/
If you double click the primary source PDF you can “copy page link” and slide that into your notes as well, so you don’t have to search through a 75 pg PDF to find the one page your notes are referring to. 5/
You can also use tags to categorize anything in DEVONThink, and when I’m on my game, I use it to categorize my primary sources. (shortcut: control + return). You can make groups and sort by tags. They're worth taking the time to do. 6/
One potentially overlooked aspect of using DEVONThink is that you’ve got to use a big computer screen. Using your MacBook is not ideal. Invest in the big screen. You can then keep both the primary source and note taking RTF “annotation” document open side by side. 7/
After I’ve read through all of the archival material from a particular collection and made notes, I “merge” all those annotation RTF files together into one document and I print it out. (select documents, double-click, select merge) 8/
That’s how simple it is to use DEVONThink to analyze primary sources. But there are a couple other aspects of DEVONThink that I really like and are worth mentioning. 1. It never crashes and allows me to manage 1000s of PDFs. 9/
2. It has an amazing search function. I can quickly search every archival document I’ve ever scanned by keyword. Sure, this is great when polishing footnotes, but it’s also a tool to find connections b/w collections… (shortcut: shift + cmd + F ) 10/
E.g., a search for “school” doesn’t just turn up results from the expected collections used in my school consolidation ch, but also results from collections on migrant labor and rural lawyering. This has been impt to my research. 11/
3. It also does so many neat tricks. For example, it will run a word frequency analysis of any PDF you’re looking at, point out keywords, and it even has a “see also” function. 12/
Alright, that's it. Once I have my primary source notes merged into a single document from DEVONThink, then I’m done with DT for the most part because from there, I work with hard printouts of my notes while I write. 13/
Next up I'll assemble a thread on writing workflow. If you're looking for more workflow tweets check out @RAKarl and @raulpacheco, and please share your favorite shortcuts and tools for source analysis and note taking #phdskills #phdchat #acawri fin/
