http://www.erikmarshall.net/blog/reseach-tools/ Erik Marshall's Blog Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:57:45 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.erikmarshall.net/blog/reseach-tools/comment-page-1/#comment-92387 Chris Routledge Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:43:43 +0000 http://www.erikmarshall.net/blog/?p=324#comment-92387 As you say the Firefox extension Zotero is good for collecting online research materials, including material for which you need a login to see (via Athens etc). An upcoming version will sync across computers, but for now I just keep the database file in a Dropbox folder and point the various Zotero installs at it. That works fine as long as you remember to run Zotero on one computer at a time. It's a great cross-platform data gathering tool anyway (I use it on Linux and Mac primarily). As you say the Firefox extension Zotero is good for collecting online research materials, including material for which you need a login to see (via Athens etc). An upcoming version will sync across computers, but for now I just keep the database file in a Dropbox folder and point the various Zotero installs at it. That works fine as long as you remember to run Zotero on one computer at a time. It’s a great cross-platform data gathering tool anyway (I use it on Linux and Mac primarily).

]]> http://www.erikmarshall.net/blog/reseach-tools/comment-page-1/#comment-91820 Unit Structures – Steven Johnson on Research and Writing Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:22:06 +0000 http://www.erikmarshall.net/blog/?p=324#comment-91820 [...] Via Erik Marhsall, an essay by Steven Johnson on his research and writing techniques.  Steven is a brilliant writer; it is interesting and humanizing to see the extent to which he uses technology.  I use BibDesk is a manner similar to how Johnson uses Devonthink, but I think I would benefit from the more unstructured approach in Devonthink.  Any readers use it? The first stage, which is crucial, is a completely disorganized capture of every little snippet of text that seems vaguely interesting. I grab paragraphs from web pages, from digital books, and transcribe pages from printed text — and each little snippet I just drop into Devonthink with no organization other than a citation of where it came from. This goes on for months and months; I read in a completely unplanned and exploratory way (increasingly online, thanks to Google Books and other sources) and just drag anything that seems at all interesting into Devonthink. [...] [...] Via Erik Marhsall, an essay by Steven Johnson on his research and writing techniques.  Steven is a brilliant writer; it is interesting and humanizing to see the extent to which he uses technology.  I use BibDesk is a manner similar to how Johnson uses Devonthink, but I think I would benefit from the more unstructured approach in Devonthink.  Any readers use it? The first stage, which is crucial, is a completely disorganized capture of every little snippet of text that seems vaguely interesting. I grab paragraphs from web pages, from digital books, and transcribe pages from printed text — and each little snippet I just drop into Devonthink with no organization other than a citation of where it came from. This goes on for months and months; I read in a completely unplanned and exploratory way (increasingly online, thanks to Google Books and other sources) and just drag anything that seems at all interesting into Devonthink. [...]

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