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What is your research workflow when it comes to writing papers and using software for citations and notes? (primary relation to literature review)
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Posted by jamesofford
Mar 18, 2011 at 12:01 AM
I’m afraid that I am terribly backward when it comes to writing papers. I write longhand for a first draft. When there is a point of information that I need a reference for, I put (REF) in the text. My second draft is on the computer, and I insert all of those (REF) into the text, but I color them red. I then pull out the references that I need, and put them in a folder. As I go through the next draft on the computer, I enter a more normal reference(Usually something like(Donelson, 1987)Finally, I corral all of the references that I am using in Endnote. If I am working with someone else, the Endnote library gets stored on a Sharepoint site. Writing on the computer is done in Word.
Hopelessly inefficient, but I have found that it is much more difficult for me to compose on the computer.
Jim
Posted by critStock
Mar 18, 2011 at 12:10 AM
Jim,
In this as in most matters concerning writing, to each his own. And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I pulled these old saws out of my UltraRecall adage database….
In my own case, I have always found myself taking notes on legal pads and in the margins of xeroxes and books—and then just being surrounded by piles of this stuff, unable to find what I want, forgetting that half of it ever existed, etc. This is where I saw the opening for digital assistance—and it’s certainly been helpful so far.
Cheers,
David
Posted by MadaboutDana
Mar 18, 2011 at 12:40 AM
Fair ‘nuff, David - it sounds as if you make full use of Citavi’s plethora of features, in which case I stand in awe. Certainly Citavi are pointing the way to a form of integrated application that will, I think, become much more common in the near future, especially as we all become more used to doing serious work on various kinds of content management system. I have a strong feeling that we’re about to experience a seismic shift in working methodologies - away from single-function applications (sophisticated though they might be) like Word towards multi-functional environments (presaged, perhaps, by Google’s short-lived Wave). Citavi is an impressive attempt to create an all-in-one working environment. But I confess I personally still find it a bit “over-the-top” (perhaps because I have a vision of how a truly integrated workplace application should really function - but that’s another story). Kudos to you, however!
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Dr Andus
Mar 26, 2011 at 12:53 AM
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>Surfulater is focused on capturing and organising web content, so I
>grabbed most of my references including articles in HTML form, also linking to the PDF
>versions in my file system. Highlighting and copying content is far more seamless
>with HTML than PDFs (e.g. no carriage returns to remove), articles can be included in
>multiple categories as clones or via tags if one prefers. Linking to the original
>article from other applications, e.g. Word, is easy via the sulkb:// tag,
>etc.
Interesting point about using HTML versions of articles to avoid the carriage return removal.That’s one problem I have with copying from PDFs into Whizfolders.
However, I can’t imagine how I could import my existing 1500 references that are all linked to PDFs seamlessly into Surfulater. The EndNote Word add-in is also essential for me for referencing. I do want to move away from EndNote though, as it’s a laggard in terms of innovation and I’m still fuming that I had to buy a new upgrade just because I upgraded to Win 7 and Word 2010. Hence I’m eyeing Citavi, though the learning curve has put me off from jumping ship yet.