I was just wondering how everybody else coped with the enormous quantity of journal articles?


I am trying to develop a system at the start of my research that will enable me to record and then at a later date recall my findings. I am trying to use EndNote to help me organise this task but I am struggling. What systems or approaches does everybody else use?


Stephen

Hi Stephen,

I created an excel spreadsheet and had a column for the author, date, design, findings, limitations etc. It took a while to set up but was worth it in the end.

Good luck!!

:-s

======= Date Modified 20 Nov 2009 17:46:50 =======
In addition to Endnote, there are also a lot of other alternatives:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_software

I'm glad you asked this Stephen because I too feel like I'm drowning. Buttercup that idea is fantastic - so much so I'm going to spend the rest of tonight making up my very own spreadsheet.

Thanks so much everyone :-)

Spreadsheet? For storing information? Noooooooo!!!!! :p


Seriously, what if you have to export them in the future for a some strange reason? Maybe you want to share this information with your colleagues or other researhers? Using a spreadsheet program for storing data may sound an easy solution at first but believe me, you will encounter lots of problems in the future. Spreadsheet software are planned for math purposes, not for collecting data. Actually the right program for storing this kind of data (bibliography references) is Access in the MS Office package and Base in the OpenOffice.org package.

Please, obtain a decent reference management software and your life will be so much easier in the future..

I use EndNote. I'm a humanities student so very few of my journal papers are available in electronic form. I have a filing cabinet at home full of photocopies, and a bookcase full of books. Early on in my PhD I started entering details of these into EndNote, using the keywords field in EndNote to summarise where the article/book/chapter ties in, and then typing up my brief summary notes in the Notes field. I can then search over the keywords field for things about specific topics, or search across any field for even more of a blanket "find anything about X".

Now I'm at the very end of the writing up, going to submit in a few months, it's been a real boon. I'd written my literature survey based on the core essential literature, but so many other articles and books were relevant in shaping my approach. EndNote has remembered them all for me, together with enough detail to remind me of what I read oh so long ago.

You might want to try Zotero. It is a reference manager software which is actually a web browser plugin. It includes lots of features but the best ones are:
- possibility to retrieve information regarding journal articles and other references by just typing the DOI (digital object identification number).
- possibility to share data between the program and a word processor (MS Word or OpenOffice.org)
- function include, for example "insert citation" and "insert bibliography" --> No need to format reference entries manually..

I use Endnote too but find the idea of a spreadsheet great for quick glance tool. It means you can quickly see what journals have what information in them. Maybe it's not the right thing to be doing for some folk but I feel this could be useful for me (alongside Endnote).

I didn't realise Endnote had this feature. I'll certainly have to look at this today. I'm just new to Endnote and have had no real "training" so i'm learning as I go (up)

I had no EndNote training either, and just picked it up as I went along. But in a former life I was a computer scientist, so used to probing into software rather deeply!

Thanks so much BilboBaggins. I think i'll just spend a few hours or so playing around with Endnote and seeing what I can find out. I know that I always have this forum if I ever need advice ;-) I'd rather use the time just now to find out how it works rather than spend the rest of my PhD oblivious to the wonders of Endnote. lol.

Thanks again (up)