Software for Academics

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I am looking for some software to aid me in my pursuit of a PhD. Starting this summer (and continuing for many years) I will be doing a lot of research, and will be taking detailed notes on a variety of articles, journals, books, etc... After having talked with a few professors, it appears that there are few options out there -- so I am wondering if anyone on these boards has any experience with this type of software (for OS X). I was told to look into EndNote, Nota Bene (which appears to be a Windows only app), and DevonThink so far. I want to be able to write detailed notes (which can get rather long) and be able to search by keywords, dates, and that sort of thing. Basically I need a way to organize my thoughts and notes over a long period of time. Coordination with a word processor would be nice as well -- I currently use Word (I am open to suggestions on alternatives to Word as well). If there are any researchers or fellow members of the academy lurking around who are willing to lend a hand I would greatly appreciate it.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    I use Word 2004 with Endnote 7 (will get 8 soon).



    Works, but I have yet to truly strech the limits of this setup.



    1st year of my Ph.D. in psychology
  • Reply 2 of 9
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    If you're doing any technical writing at all (equations in particular), or going into Computer Science, EE, or mathematics, LaTeX is your only serious choice. TeXShop is the editor you need to get.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    chychchych Posts: 860member
    I second LaTeX, it's by far the best method of writing reports, especially with scientific parts. And BibTeX is great for managing bibliographies. Though it will take some time to get used to these packages, but once you do, you'll wonder why people ever tried to write their theses in Word (and suffer horribly).
  • Reply 4 of 9
    Thanks for the prompt responses. It would probably help if I mention the fact that I am in a Philosophy PhD program. Thus, I will not be in need of many equations. The occasional diagram or visual aid may come up though, so something that can handle those with ease would prove useful. My main concern is that I am diving into 2500 years worth of material, and will be writing many notes, summaries, articles, books etc. over many years. It will become necessary at some point to archive these, so that I can access them quickly when an idea hits and I need to pursue it with the help of the notes I have gathered. In my experience with Word (I have yet to try Word 2004), this can be done but it is not ideal. I will look into the programs mentioned thus far, but please feel free to offer more advice or tips. This will be a long journey and I can use all the help I can get.
  • Reply 5 of 9
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Read this thread: Academics: how do you organize your pdfs? over at Ars. LaTex is not a universal answer, but one that actually seems to be driven by individual institutions or departments. Believe it or not, where I am you have to submit in Word, talk about a PITA. There are even quite a few journals that won't take .pdfs, but want Word docs now. It's getting out of hand.
  • Reply 6 of 9
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    Yea they want a word doc and then have you look at a PDF for copy editing.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    amoryaamorya Posts: 1,103member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    If you're doing any technical writing at all (equations in particular), or going into Computer Science, EE, or mathematics, LaTeX is your only serious choice. TeXShop is the editor you need to get.



    It's good for essay-based subjects too. I use it all the time for Psychology and the essays I write look wonderful with it
  • Reply 8 of 9
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    For quick organization of random thoughts, snippets, etc, you may do well to look at OmniOutliner (www.omnigroup.com). It has some great tools for organizing random snippets, handles text, images, even sound recordings if you want to just make that quick audio note to yourself.



    Also, MacOS X 10.4 will include the Spotlight technology, which allows you to do live searches of pretty much any file. I'm expecting this will radically change how I manage such tidbits and facts. You'll be able to type in a keyword, and it will return all files you may have made with that keyword in it, any PDFs that contain that word (such as downloaded academic papers), etc. You may also look into a good OCR software package that would let you scan in texts and create text files for you. They won't be perfect, but they should give you enough to do pretty good searches on with Spotlight. (I plan on using this for printed materials that I can't get digital versions of easily.)
  • Reply 9 of 9
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Amaizen_Aristotle

    Thanks for the prompt responses. It would probably help if I mention the fact that I am in a Philosophy PhD program. Thus, I will not be in need of many equations. The occasional diagram or visual aid may come up though, so something that can handle those with ease would prove useful. My main concern is that I am diving into 2500 years worth of material, and will be writing many notes, summaries, articles, books etc. over many years. It will become necessary at some point to archive these, so that I can access them quickly when an idea hits and I need to pursue it with the help of the notes I have gathered. In my experience with Word (I have yet to try Word 2004), this can be done but it is not ideal. I will look into the programs mentioned thus far, but please feel free to offer more advice or tips. This will be a long journey and I can use all the help I can get.



    I used Word v.X to write my PhD. I used it because I needed Endnote as my reference manager (all our libraries are in endnote format in our lab). But I found it frustrating (as others using latex have noted). If you need to do any type of figure involving multiple pictures and text (mine was in biomedical sciences), it is a bit of a pain to work with. I would have liked to try other options, but got too far into it before i thought about it. I would have liked an InDesign type DTP package with reference manager support. Endnote is a bit crappy still, but the ability to search and retrieve from the NIM database is pretty essential in my experience (I don't know whether bibtex(?) can do this...). Further, Word is a bit tricky to work with when you have divided up your thesis into separate chapters (however, I don't know how to use Word that effectively and it seems to be quite powerful if you put the effort into finding the way it works). It is not very intuitive...



    [Edit: The link Hiro submitted is a fantastic read and really addresses a lot of issues surrounding scientific writing...]
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