Organizing Computer Files

If you take notes on your computer, if you use a computer to write your papers, if you use your computer to do homework, you need to know where you saved your documents.  Being unable to find a paper is unacceptable.

My Documents is the default location to which papers are stored.  I prefer to save them my desktop, where I can work on them and then drag them to their final destination. 

Create a folder called School.  Then create a separate folder for each subject.  A student should have separate folders for English, math, science, history, language, and any other subject you take.  Drag each of these subject folders into the school folder.

In each subject folder, subfolders for each topic or unit can be created.   For example, in the English folder, a student might have subfolders for Essays, Grammar and Spelling, Literature, and Tests and Quizzes.  In the Literature folder, there might be a subfolder for Hamlet, one for Grapes of Wrath, and another for poetry.  Each of these folders can have subfolders.  In the Hamlet folder, there could be a folder for Notes&Discussion and another for Papers. 

Seeing this schema presented visually can help some students understand the concept:

Imagine that you have been studying Hamlet and you wrote a paper about the impact of Hamlet’s murder of Pelonius.  Save the paper to the Desktop.  Give it a descriptive name.  Do not use symbols (slash marks, dashes, or periods) that will confuse the computer.   Do not choose English_Hamlet for the paper’s name.  You are going to put the paper in the English folder and you do not need to be redundant.  Instead, you might choose Hamlet&Pelonius as a title. 

If you are saving many exercises that bear the same name, you might use a name and date.  If you are studying Spanish, you will be given many vocabulary lists. You might title one list Vocab Oct 15.  The next day’s list would be Vocab Oct 16.  Both of these documents will be dragged into a folder called Vocabulary that will be found in the Spanish folder. 

Whether you keep these folders on your desktop or put them in My Documents or transfer them to a cloud storage system is up to you.  Many students prefer to keep the School folder on the desktop, where it is always in sight.  Seeing it reminds them they have to save and properly store every document so it can more easily be retrieved. 

You will be much less likely to lose a paper if you get used to organizing your papers this way.