Software for research

My Experiences

Srinivasan Tatachari

Improving Efficiency of Research by Using IT tools

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

Abraham LincolnSrinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Is there a choice?

• Information is moving to electronic avatars

• Solution:– Personal Knowledge Management

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Personal Knowledge Management

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Personal Knowledge Management

• Stages–Ideation–Search–Storage–Retrieval–Application

• Artifacts– Ideas, – Research papers– electronic versions of books, – handbooks, – snippets from websites ….

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Ideation aspects

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Ideation

• Scribbles, notepads (primitive techniques )• Note-taking apps

– Evernote, MS OneNote

• Mind-mapping tools– Helps in abstraction, conceptualization and collation of

ideas– Brainstorming & collaborating

• E.g. Xmind Mindmap tool

• Blogging/Twitter-ing/Facebook-ing ?– collaboration

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Mind Map

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Searching aspects

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Seek & Thou Shalt Receive• You search on-need or gather when ready

– Library visits, journals by mail (primitive techniques )

• Google – the ‘God’ of search? – Scholar– Sometimes just old Google.com

• Research databases: JSTOR, EBSCO …

• Journal websites

• library assistanceSrinivasan Tatachari, 2011

References -> A to Z of EBSCO

Respective journals’ website

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Serendipitous Receive• Email subscriptions for notifications

– New articles, journals

• RSS

• Online First / New issue Print– Papers released online much before they hit the print version

• E-Mail lists like those of AOM, COGNET– Discussions, information sharing

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

RSS feeds directly from journal sites

Subscribing to RSS

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

FeedDemon

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

MS Outlook 2007+

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Email Alerts from Google Alerts

Email Alerts from Google Scholar Hot

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Storage & Retrieval aspects

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Storing

• Print documents – physical archive• Manual classification: Folder structure,

Filenames– Tag, classify, keywords, type of documents

• Snippets of useful artifacts?– Tools: Evernote, OneNote, Zotero, Mendeley

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Store snippets, urls, images… in Evernote

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

MS OneNote

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Retrieval & Application

• Go by manual classification and open each file to search

• Use OS search – criticized a lot

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Windows 7

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Use desktop search tools: Copernic Desktop Search

Similar to (better than?) Google Desktop Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Retrieve snippets from Evernote

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Referencing

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Zotero for Firefox stores citations, clips, notes, pdf

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Zotero: citations in MSWord, openoffice

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Mendeley

Mendeley helps organize library, citations, collaborate with others

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

EndNote

• Commercial Referencing tool

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Other tips

• Autohotkey scripting tool– Automatically search for highlighted word in any

application from google and scholar website!

• Greasemonkey/ Stylish extensions

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Closing notes

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

• Start early– Be organized– Be efficient– Save Paper

• Backup data regularly (esp. laptops)• May not be the best tools/methods available

– But they are Free!

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Thanks

Srinivasan Tatachari, 2011

Free tools available at:1.Xmind: http://www.xmind.net/2.Evernote: http://www.evernote.com/3.Zotero: http://www.zotero.org/4.Mendeley: http://www.mendeley.com/5.FeedDemon: http://www.feeddemon.com/6.Copernic Search: http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/7.Autohotkey: http://www.autohotkey.com/