Writing and Citing 101

This is probably one of most painful tasks I get to go through, and I don't think any one have figured the perfect workflow to do this, yet.

First of all I'm not a professional full time researcher, but working in an academic setting, you get to work on different projects from time to time. I still feel this process could be much simplified compared with all the other technologies and apps development around.

but till then, this is a suggested workflow thats been working out for me, I've been using this and tweaking it over the years as more and more new technologies are added every day.

You might find this helpful

The most important tools to keep in mind:

• A knowledge database to keep all your project materials you need for your reserach

• A reference manager system to save your references and citations and be able to automatically insert them in your document.

• A Document tool manager where you create and write your work.

A knowledge database manager:

I used to use a dedicated dropbox folder with sub folders for each project. This worked fine, but it was a painful process to navigate this system, despite dropbox having a great search capacity, and you could work on projects form any device, but still it wasn't smooth.

In general, I love using evernote as a knowledge database system, but for this purpose I feel its a very rigid system for navigation and too structured with fixed hierarchies that doesn't give you much room to smoothly navigate and freely flow in your ideas to be creative.

I use it mostly as an archive for finished projects where you can easily access it back but not when starting projects.

I came across Devonthink. among all of them, it gives you room and freedom to quickly add references of any file type. Its very smooth in adding, navigating and searching. you can add a folder where you collect all your project related notes, images, videos, webpages etc.

what also makes it different and more powerful for me, is its mega master searching and tagging capabilities.

Another useful function where you get to add a note to remind yourself why you saved this piece. you can tag, label, prioritize and flag your documents as well.

I almost gave up the idea of being able to organise my files into a perfectionist hierarchal type of folders and subfolders. This takes for ever, and it is impossible to keep up. plus most of our knowledge notes have are interlaced and connected pattern to each other and can fit under multiple categories at once.

because of this, I adopted the PARA method (Projects, Areas, Resources and Archives) as a universal system, where I can loosely have an organisational structure. but i don't spend much time in thinking to which folder does each file belong to.

Using PARA method combined with tagging. I tag my files based on purpose and very mindfully with the intent to easily find them when needed.

This approach have saved me so much time with much less friction to add files. Everything goes to the inbox. Everything gets reviewed and tagged. Every project folder contain everything I need for a project I'm working on at the moment, once done .. it goes to the archive.

A reference manager system:

The Available reference managers in my opinion, still lag much behind what we are seeing in note taking systems, calendars and productivity apps. There is still so much that can be added to improve researchers workflows and make life easier. This is a kind of fun light article about the difficulty in obtaining pdf's metadata, Why can't I manage academic papers like MP3's ?

To be honest I've used most of the reference managers out there, and I still find it less than satisfying as user experience. It does get the job done. but there is way more room to improve it further.

Any how, they are only few reference managers out there, I'm sure there are more which I'm not aware of. but at-least those are the most used reference managers.

Mendeley, Endnote, Papers (readcube earlier), paperpile and zotero

I'll give you my preference for the last 3 as I got some use of each one of them for different projects.

Mendeley is free, many people like it. I think its okay .. but for me it was slight clunky and sometimes it would crash with MS word when adding citations, so that wasn't so much fun. I'm sure it is better now .. as this happened to me quite a while ago.

Papers and Zotero probably have very similar capabilities. I don't think you'd go wrong using either one of them.

Zotero is free you only pay if you want to upgrade your storage, papers have 5$/month for academics and 3$/month for students. Papers have a nicer and visually appealing interface, but Zotero have been my go to reference manager for the following reasons.

• It's really good in collecting the data citation. Its integration with chrome is very seamless, it automatically save the metadata and associated pdf if available.

• There are so many plugins that can fit your needs. You can also integrate it with Roam which helps in creating a smooth and friction free writing and citing experience. (Cortex futura best explains this process on how to do this if you'r interested)

• Another useful plugin (zotfiles) can help you sync seamlessly your pdf readings between your devices ( I use it to sync with the iPad)

• Zotero seems to be continuously improving and getting better, paper have been quite slow in this part.

• I'm using the Beta version now, which have many great features that greatly enhance your work experience. It have a new built in PDF reader, tabbed interface and annotations within zotero itself. This closely can resemble everything you will need to manage a complete workflow, all done form within zotero itself. (only note this is not advisable yet, as its still in beta .. and doesn't seem that you can extract zotero pdf annotations into your other PDF readers, yet, more on this greatly explained by Bryan Jenks )

Paperpile :

This one didn't gain much fame like the rest, but for a good part of my work this was a favorite, as it provided the most fluid, intuitive and seamless experience of citing while writing.

the only reason, I wasn't able to continue using it as my primary manager, it only supported google docs at the time, no support to MS word. I mainly use google docs for writing (not so much a fan of MS word). But i still had to use MS word extensively for communication, submissions etc.

But recently, they released a beta version where paperpile finally support MS word. Once this version is finalised, I might strongly consider going back to it.

The developers team seem to have great things planned ahead as well.

Finally, where all the real creativity and most of the real work, where you'd spend tons of hours staring at this until your eyes hurt.

The Document manager:

You can probably argue that e could just use MS word or google docs.

My personal preference is google docs. I only use MS word when I absolutely must, and there is no other way out of it.

but then I came across scrivener and its just, magical. Its very joyful to use, its set up to be your all in one. Typewriter. Ring-binder. Scrapbook. you can add all your notes and your note on your notes while keeping your manuscript clean. Open your document side to side to all your notes. very beautiful. Once you use it, I don't think you can go back.

That's it, I wish your next manuscript to be a smooth journey.

---