Managing research information

[Peter Mexbacher]

Hello,

I'm a beginning Ph.d. student and after some weeks of research I've noticed
that I'm not managing my information efficiently.

Is there any software you can recommend? I found JabRef (a Java reference
manager) - which is open source, and I like it very much (don't have the
money
for Endnote ;-)

But storing references is only one part of the story. I would like to
extract quotes,
add my own ideas, cross-reference them with other papers etc. etc.
In short, I would like to organize my research - that was has
traditionally been done
with pencil and paper.

Do you know of any software which can be recommended for this?
Preferably open
source or freeware.

Thanks and Kind Regards,
Peter

[coolcold]

are there any note field? (I haven't use jabref before)
maybe tiddlywiki can help to a certain extent but not if you want to
export your reference (unless there are some plugins that I am not
aware of) :-/

[rickla]

If you want to do things online, then Wikindx may be the way to go. If
on your Mac, then at present I favour Circus Ponies Notebook
(commercial but not too expensive) with JabRef or another reference
manager of your choice. For Windows, the only good option I know of
personally is wikidPad (Open Source).

[Claudia Scholz]

I recommend Wikindx

http://wikindx.sourceforge.net/index2.html

[Claudia Scholz]

oh,

another recommendation

http://uniwakka.sourceforge.net/UniWakka

wiki, supports bibtex format, exports to OpenOffice
supports math and chemistry notation, though this wasn't an issue for me

cs

[Peter Mexbacher]

Thank you for all your replies!

I think I will look at both wikindx and wikipad, though
I must say from first glance wikindx looks very promising
and my be just the tool I'm looking for.

Thank you again very much for your help,
Kind Regards,
Peter

[Ru Temple]

WikiNDX if you have a newer system to run it on, is an open source
reference aggregator and note organizer, developed and released as open
source-ware by a programming geek when he was doing his own thesis
work.
I edit dissertations and have therefore developed some workshops on
pre-prep, and while the school that routes me the most work has chosen
to do a site license with RefWorks (which is a delightful online
subscription-based reference and notes aggregator), I like to let folks
know there is an open source option, and I like this one bunches. Even
though I don't use LaTEX...
WikiNDX began as one person's useful tool, and (yay) continues to be
developed and supported. Worth a look.

One items from my "most common errors noted" to avoid: always make sure
you have the page range for direct quotes, to go in your text
citatation, no matter what style publication manual you're using!

Google's new Notebook coming out next week (by 5/18.06) is going to be
interesting to look at for how useful it might be for note-taking and
cross referencing to online resources.

Nud*ist is another cross-referencing research database tool (commercial
not-cheap-ware) that can be incredibly worthwhile for folks who are
doing qualitative, or deep interview work, and want to pull out themes.

[Sir Fragalot]

hah! First time I've been described as a programming geek. And I'm
still doing my thesis (which has nothing to do with programming -- a
few months and it will be done hopefully). Wikindx also doesn't use
laTeX (although I'd like to get someone who knows that format to do
some export routines for me).

Anyway, wikindx v3.3 was released about 10 hours ago.

[rickla]

It's great to hear that wikindx has been updated again, and I've just
upgraded. My general impression is that this is the best solution
all-round for someone starting from scratch. (I'm afraid it's taking me
an inordinate amount of time to get up to speed, because I wasn't able
to get my existing data into good enough shape to import it into
wikindx without incident.)

[pit]

Peter Mexbacher wrote:

[...]

> But storing references is only one part of the story. I would like to
> extract quotes,
> add my own ideas, cross-reference them with other papers etc. etc.
> In short, I would like to organize my research - that was has
> traditionally been done with pencil and paper.
>
> Do you know of any software which can be recommended for this?

[...]

Hello, keep an eye on www.citavi.com. At this time only a German
version is available, but an English one will follow at the end of this
year. Its free up to 100 records per file. The unlimited version costs
90 Euro.

Regards
Peter

[arehrlich]

Just found an application named InfoRapid Knowledgemap which provides
some very good ways to collect, organize and present researched
information. I have not tried it as yet - hoping to spend some time
with it this weekend - so if anyone has giving it a try, please let as
all - at least me - know.

Thanks

Alan

http://www.inforapid.de/

[Pascal Venier]

Devonthink Pro!

[danielbu]

Wouldn't it be nice if Devonthink had a Windows version!

Since it doesn't, this is a topic that I have been occasionally
searching, to see if anyone comes up with anything.

InfoRapid knowledgemap seems like it might be the thing - though it's
heavy.

For me, what is important is the possibility of an app that can troll
my drive (or the folder that I use to store my documents in) and
catalogue keywords, allowing me to view and manipulate the results -
over a variety of document forms, and two very different languages
(Hebrew and English).

I know, I know, my brain works better...