Literature Reviews

PowerNotes is a research manager that works on anything you can open in your browser. Set up your free account and install the PowerNotes extension. 

Save and organize quotes as you research so you've got an outline ready to go. The built-in citation tool can export a bibliography.

Get Started with PowerNotes

Source Notes let you take notes about the overall source, as opposed to commenting on specific sentences you've highlighted in the article.

In this case, you're going to use them to effectively build a synthesis matrix.

In your PowerNotes project dashboard, open up Settings...

Add these Source Note Labels:

• Arguments made by article
• Results discovered in article
• How article relates to your topic

You can export just your Source Notes from your project dashboard (Export > Excel > Source Notes).

Now you have a spreadsheet of your Sources in the first column, with each of your comments for the Sources Notes in the next three rows. Reviewing this page will help you identify patterns in the arguments you're seeing and help you figure out how to organize your lit review!