WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.600
<b><h4>How do you keep a record of your research?</h4></b>

00:00:05.600 --> 00:00:05.650
<b>Suzanne McClure, Postgraduate Researcher, University of Liverpool</b>

00:00:05.650 --> 00:00:23.530
Luckily, we have monthly meetings, and we have to provide an agenda for our supervisors for our monthly meetings. And that has been invaluable as far as looking back and seeing, now, what was I supposed to be doing? Where have I fallen short in my research plan? So on and so forth. So the monthly meeting agendas actually are quite valuable. 

00:00:23.530 --> 00:00:46.570
Additionally, because my research is technology-based, I have very long file names, very long document names so that I know exactly what's in what folder and what I need and when. I also backup my data to the university server quite often, and then I also do off-site backups. And that's all part of preserving the data and the research. 
<hr />

00:00:46.570 --> 00:00:52.410
<b><h4>Why do you feel it is important to keep a secure record of what you have done?</h4></b>

00:00:52.410 --> 00:01:22.950
<b>Suzanne McClure:</b> It's been very important to keep a record of what I've done largely because of the methodology section. When you start out an a PhD, and you don't think about that someday down the road, you're going to be writing about what you're doing at that time at the very beginning. And I had to create a 9.7 million word corpus the first three to four months of my research. Three years later, I'm writing about the creation of that corpus, so it was very important to be organised and have things documented so that that methodology section was easy to write.
<hr />

00:01:22.950 --> 00:01:27.520
<b><h4>Have there been times when you should have kept a better record of your work?</h4></b>

00:01:27.520 --> 00:01:51.060
<b>Suzanne McClure:</b> There has been a number of occasions where I wish I would have kept a better record of my work. Part of that is these annual progress reports and supervisor meetings. But as far as the research itself, it goes back to the writing and methodology section. And I wish that even though I did keep a good record, I wish I would've kept a better record of what I was doing so that the methodology section would have been easier to write.