Building Knowledge

You can use Citavi to more easily interpret and apply the contents of your sources. You can write an abstract for a reference, document the relationships between references, create quotations, and quickly record your thoughts and ideas.

Writing an Abstract

Writing an abstract helps you summarize the questions, methodology, key results, and implications of a work and can be a useful way to draw connections to your own project.

•In the Reference Editor, on the Content tab, enter the abstract in the Abstract field.

•To use an enhanced editor with formatting and a spelling checker, click Abstract.

Creating Links

Citavi lets you link related references. For example: Does author A refute the claims of author B? Which authors does author C cite?

1.In the Reference Editor, switch to the Context tab.

2.To add links to other references that the current reference cites, under This reference links to, click New link ().

3.To add links to other references that cite the current reference, under This reference is linked from, click New link ().

4.You can also specify the Type of link and enter explanations or comments in the Notes field. For example, if author A disproves author B's claims, you could set the link as negative and then include a short description of author A's discussion of author B.

Quoting

During your research, you will find passages you want to quote in your work. You can save these quotations in Citavi for later use.

1.In the Reference Editor, switch to the Quotations tab.

2.Select the appropriate type of quotation:

·Direct quotation for a passage copied verbatim from another source.

·Indirect quotation for the author's thoughts in your own words.

·Summary for a heavily condensed version of the original text in your own words.

·Image or file quotation for images or multimedia files.

·Comment for your thoughts on the text.

3.Enter the Page range and the Text of the quotation.

4.Summarize the quotation's main idea as a Core statement.

5.Apply Keywords.

6.Click to assign Categories.

7.Click OK to finish.

Saving Thoughts

During your research, ideas will come to mind that you don't want to forget. Citavi lets you save thoughts, too.

1.In the toolbar, click Thought.

2.Enter the thought.

3.Apply Keywords.

4.Summarize the main idea of your though as a Core statement.

5.Click OK to finish.

URL for this page: http://manual.citavi.com/en/?building_knowledge.htm (Last updated: 09.06.2011 09:35:12)
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