Memos

Memos are a type of document that enable you to record the ideas, insights, interpretations or growing understanding of the material in your project. They provide a way to keep your analysis separate from (but linked to) the material you are analyzing.  Memos can evolve into an important part of the 'writing up' stage of your project—for example, they might lead into the chapters of a book or the outline of a presentation.

You can use memos to suit the needs of your project. For example, you can choose to

• Create memos for files—capturing any issues, comments or insights that arise.
• Create memos for a nodes—describing the significance of the node and the patterns or ideas that emerge from the references.
• Create 'unlinked' memos to store other information about your project such as research objectives or project progress.

If you have existing memos (perhaps as Word documents) you can import memos into the Memos folder. You can create sub folders under the Memos folder to organize your memos.

Memos can be automatically created when you import:

• References from reference management tools such as EndNote, RefWorks and Zotero.
• Web content from NCapture. You can chose to record a memo when you use NCapture.

If you want to use your memos when you write up or present your findings, you can export your memos and incorporate the content into your report or presentation.

What can I do in a memo?

• Add or edit text by typing directly or using copy/cut/paste
• Code the entire memo or code portions of the content—this is particularly useful if you want your 'conceptual thinking' about a topic to be available when you open a node.
• Hear a selected passage of text read aloud—refer to Accessibility (Turn on Text to Speech) for more information.

Understand memo links

Each file or node can have one memo linked to it and that memo cannot be linked to any other item. You can also have memos that are not linked to any item.

Link to memos to capture your observations and insights. When you want to comment on the issues that arise from a source or node, you can link to a memo—for example, while inspecting the content gathered at a node you can create and link to a memo that describes the patterns or ideas that are emerging.

Each source or node can have one memo linked to it and that memo cannot be linked to any other item. You can also have memos that are not linked to any source or node—these can be useful for tracking the overall progress of your project.

1. Select the source in List View or open it in Detail View.
2. On the Home tab, in the Item group, click Memo Link (or press CTRL+SHIFT+K).
3. On the Analyze tab, in the Links group, click Memo Link (or press ⌘+SHIFT+K).

NOTE  A source can only be linked to one memo—the Link to New Memo command is unavailable if the source already has a linked memo.