Academic research- what are the best tools and workflow techniques?

Posted by Pavi
Nov 16, 2011 at 01:12 PM

Hi Carrot,

I have made some posts regarding this. I am in Academia and use:

UltraRecall to write (with embedded word files and citations), store research, notes, PDFs and webpages, project information and files, as an “electronic lab notebook” etc.
Mendeley as a citation manager and to read PDFs

That’s really all you need! Zotero works just as well as Mendeley, and embedding citations and exporting uses the same steps. I posted about how to do this: http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/3338/10
and here: http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/3344/10

Other programs might work well, but I prefer to have my research handy and integrated. Writing Outliner is popular and handles both Zotero and Mendeley (as far as I can tell) merging and Web Research 3 is great for webpages.I guess it’s a matter of using specialized tools and excel at a single task or one tool that is very good at many.

Best, /Pavi

Carrot wrote:
> >I’m working on a PhD and have been a fan of outlining software for some time.
>However,
>now I’m finding myself confused by
>a) inefficient work flow
>b) lack of proper
>tools
> >I know many contributors on this site have a lot of experience and this has been
>discussed many times. Sorry for not being able to add anything new.
> >My current
>workflow and tools:
> >Citation manager: open source ZoteroHowever, I could switch
>to something if necessary
> >Freeplane: I created a thesis outline in FreePlane and
>use this to guide my writing.
>Also, I created an mindmap of my understanding of the
>religious organization that I am studying.
> >TreeDBnotes: I have stored my field
>notes, transcripts, online articles in TreeDBnotes. I began using it first and have
>stored too much in it to bother switching everything to myBase now.
>MyBase: I use
>mBase 6 for storing clippings and copies of entire webpages. I’ve recently begun
>using AtlasTI to code my readings, field notes and PDF articles and PDF ebooks.
> >But
>now I feel torn. If I write in TreeDB or myBase, there is no way to automatically include
>citations. I would have to write in TreeDB, then export everything to LibreOffice,
>and then add citations manually.
> >LibreOffice: If I write in LibreOffice, I can
>include citations, but I have no tree-structure to help divide my thesis into various
>sub-chapters and sub-groupings.
> >AtlasTI: At the same time as I try to consult my
>notes and data in TreeDB and myBase, I use AtlasTI running to query my field notes and
>PDF articles to search for appropriate material.
> >Is there a better way to to do this?
>I feel that I’m using too many tools that are not integrated, and scattering my
>attention.
>I would greatly appreciate commenents and would like to hear about how
>you proceed.
> >Thank you
> >C.
> >
> >