Becoming a Research-Informed Clinician - Part 5

I've done it.
www.musictherapyworks.com
This is how I'll organize my thoughts...

I've refined my process for reading research so that I can use the ideas presented in my very own clinical practice. I have figured out what I want to learn from my reading, how to organize it, and how to then synthesize the information into something that makes sense to me. Here is the format for my thoughts and process. It is the finished product as the first reading doesn't look this neat. (Click this link to get to my website and download the file...)

Here is an example of what reading a research article looks like around me...

My first read-through of any type of research article or book requires many different colors of post-it notes. I usually use about 6 different colors. Each color has a specific significance for the article. (I always make a color legend so I know which color is which.) In the picture below, the light pink indicates terminology that I need to further define. The blue slips are additional references to look up and read. The purplish slips are things to takeaway into my practice (there were more of them earlier - I wonder where they went...), and the orange ones are quotations from the article that resonated with me in my reading. I also had some different slips for theory/philosophy ideas. I usually take my notes as I read and then organize them onto the file later on.

My next step in this process is to start making a master list of takeaways that I can use during advocacy moments, job development, and clinical decision making. I have that list started with the reading I've done recently. I just received the Spring 2016 edition of the Journal of Music Therapy, so I will dig into that pretty soon to increase my research repertoire. 

I have my journal, I have my post-its, and I am now just waiting for the time to read through one of the latest articles. Stay tuned for more as I keep wading through this process... 

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