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Research tools: software & utilities Archive
Free software, applications, utilities and smart ideas for grad students.
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Zotero: The best citation tool around, and it’s free
Posted on September 7, 2009 | 1 CommentZotero is a free-software to manage bibliographies and citations with advanced functions and an easy interface As a doctoral student a lot of my time goes into managing my references. Thankfully there are many tools around to help me manage my references and to speed up the process of inserting citations while I write my papers. After a lot of trial and error I settled on Refworks that I was really happy with. Unfortunately it is a paid software with a stiff fee that I may not be able to afford once I leave the university. Thankfully, a friend told... -
Citations using Word 2007: Bibliographies made easy
Posted on May 17, 2008 | 4 CommentsCreating neat bibliographies can be a pain, Word 2007 makes it easy Note: There is an easier way to cite in MS Word and it’s free. Check out my note on Zotero citation tool. There are hundreds of formats for citations like Chicago, APA, etc. The only thing in common between them is that each of them is a nightmare! I cannot imagine how people did extensive citations before the coming of automated help. I am a big fan of refworks, endnote and other bibliography managers. Unfortunately, these are costly and cannot be afforded by everyone. For those who did... -
Refworks goes offline: Exciting new features
Posted on May 4, 2008 | 1 CommentFor an introduction to Refworks click here. If you have used it earlier, read on… A few months ago when Refworks announced that they are going offline, I was excited. I am doing my field work in rural India and had decided not to take full time internet access. I started regretting not having Endnote; I need not do that anymore. Refworks’ new Write-N- Cite III makes available most of the important features offline. The new Write-N-Cite III has an offline database that downloads all references from our online database to an offline location. This enables us to search and... -
Perfect voice recorder for fieldwork, interviews, conferences
Posted on July 22, 2007 | No CommentsFinally found the perfect voice recorder with great clarity, space, battery life and other great features I have tried my hands on four to five voice recorders so far. When I left to India for my fieldwork I was determined to get a good one that matches all my requirements. I will be doing long interviews and attending conferences – so I needed one that has a powerful mic and could record for long durations. When I read or when I work on some topic, I like to record my thoughts as they come. I needed a voice recorder that... -
Tools & Practices for finding, cleaning & organising references
Posted on March 14, 2007 | 1 CommentGetting and organising good references is the key to creating good bibliographies for academic papers. This is a time consuming and effort-intensive process. This post discusses some tips and tricks to make this process easier and more productive With the dramatic growth of information technology and the internet in particular, information in the hands of researchers has increased dramatically. We now have an opportunity to collect information at rates unthinkable one generation before us. But getting the best out of this information glut requires careful strategies for collecting, organizing and retrieving information. This article reviews a few tools and practices.... -
Speed up citations with bibliography managers
Posted on March 14, 2007 | No CommentsSurprisingly few students use citation managers though it can make life so much easier I am always put off at the thought of creating bibliographies with their innumerable dots and commas and italics, and a grammar complicated more than that of German language. I really have no idea why people came up with such complicated formats such as Chicago, APA or MLA. For my first paper that was headed towards publication I followed the style guide. After one year, I realise that I made many mistakes and the process in any case had taken a long time and was frustrating.... -
Associating refworks record with multiple folders
Posted on March 11, 2007 | No CommentsAn article or book typically fits many categories – it is possible to put one record in multiple folders in Refworks I just discovered a facility in Refworks to put a record in multiple folders. Take a book like India: Development and Participation; I will want it in my ‘development’ folder and also ‘India’ folder. I used to think that I had to duplicate it each time I wanted to put a record in multiple folders. While this would have served the purpose, it becomes a problem when I wish to make editions to the record. Suppose I wish to... -
Union and State budgets, India: Websites, documents, tools
Posted on March 11, 2007 | 8 CommentsThis page gives links to websites of State and Union governments in India with detailed information on budgets. Brief descriptions of sites are given. Despite the importance of budgets, very little information is available about them in the Indian context. The Union budget gets a national coverage and information is widely available. Much less is know about state budgets. The good news is that most state governments now have websites, often with extensive information. As a first step, I’ve put together information on all of them in one place. I updated this page to reflect the websites in February 2011.... -
Comparing Google Scholar and specialised bibliographic search engines
Posted on February 17, 2007 | 1 CommentGoogle scholar and specialized bibliography services like Econlit and JSTOR seem to have different strengths and should be used in different ways I started using Google Scholar with a vengeance when it started. It has an ease that other providers do not: there is no need to log in, there is no need for subscription and it seems to pull out articles that other service providers just did not. In no time, Google Scholar also started providing links to my citation manager – Refworks. But soon I started realising various limitations of Google Scholar. Here’s a brief assessment of the... -
Wordnet lexical database in Hindi
Posted on February 15, 2007 | No CommentsI had written a note about using wordnet lexical database that could be used in content analysis. I just stumbled on a lexical database in Hindi. I am yet to try it, but am excited that such a tool is available in an Indian language, specially when I am planing a media study with a friend.
