How do you digitally organize your journal readings?

[hejduk]

I'm pretty sure I've seen this topic covered here before, but am unable to find any specific threads. In light of my inability to find anything, how you digitally organize your class readings?

I'd love to not have to print a stack of papers for every class, but reading on a computer screen isn't that great. I'd love to see if anyone has found a combination of analog/digital that has been a good balance for them.

[Riotbeard]

File cabinet, what, what? Other than that folders (digital and physical)...

[Eigen]

I do a combination of reading on my computer screen, reading on my laptop, reading on my iPad and reading hardcopies.

I download PDFs and organize them all in Endnote/Dropbox, so I have the current editions (including annotations) whatever I'm reading on.

[Behavioral]

Everything ported onto both Mendeley and EndNote for easy archiving/keyword searching.

File structure in my computer/Dropbox is simply "Courses/[Quarter Year]/[Name of Class]/[Meeting Number/Date]/" and usually that's enough stratification to have manageable files.

Physically, I have one of these document organizers where I place "to-be-read" papers (each compartment corresponds to a different course or project [or ideas for future projects within a certain domain]); I also have one of these magazine files where I place my "have read" files that I still need to keep handy (i.e., ongoing projects, courses where I have assignments, etc.); lastly, I just find 3-ring binders for papers that I don't think I'll be using too frequent (papers from previous courses, etc.).

It's a little exhaustive of a system, but it works great for me. I'm only a first year, and a lot of the professors say they wish they were as organized as this when they started grad school. It really makes finding papers an ease (between my online and physical file structures).

[Amogh]

Wow that is an exhaustive filing system! sorry about the nonconstructive comment but had to compliment behavioral.

[quantitative]

For those that are digital, I save all of my readings into folders broken down by the class/topic or date. Generally, I'll put a little text file in there with a brief refresher to remind myself what's about. Now that I have a Nook, I've been putting journal PDFs on it/organizing it into topics within the ereader. I love it since I hate printing out papers AND reading on my laptop screen.

[Behavioral]

Wow that is an exhaustive filing system! sorry about the nonconstructive comment but had to compliment behavioral.

I think I get more people telling me I'm OCD than I do compliments. Thanks! haha

[triplebogey]

I use Zotero to keep track of what I've read along with notes on each reading. As the program keeps track of the citation, it isn't a big problem to go find it via the library's database; in any case, I probably have a PDF in my Dropbox, organized by the course or project for which it was read.

[natsteel]

I've mentioned this before (as have others), but I'm on a Mac and I have found no better way of organizing PDFs than Papers 2.

An added benefit, it that, upon installation, it will scan your entire hard drive for PDFs and you can set the settings so it will gather them all into a single folder (with subfolders) and rename them anyway you want.

It will also let you search the major scholarly repositories (in my field, JSTOR and ProjectMuse) as well as Google Books/Scholar and Amazon all from within the program and import them into your library with one click. It will also fetch metadata for articles you import from your hard drive. It also creates OCR text files for non-OCR'd PDFs (though it doesn't attach them to the PDF) so you can run full-text searches of everything in your library.

It also acts as a citation manager which allowed me to finally dump EndNote. Also, it has apps which allow you to sync your library (all or part) to your iPhone and/or iPad.

All that said, Papers isn't for everyone, but it's definitely worth taking the free trial to see if it might work you.

Edited February 18, 2012 by natsteel

[StrangeLight]

zotero's newest (as of a few weeks ago) version is great for citation management. just adds a button to your browser. click it when you're on the page with the citation you want to save and it'll do all the magic for you.

for files, i use dropbox for all of my working documents. main folders: comps, conference materials, dissertation, grad courses, grants and fellowships, grad student organization (i'm prez), MA thesis, TA material, and maybe 3-4 free floating documents i haven't sorted yet. each folder has a million subfolders as needed. i have dropbox synced on my laptop (primary computer), netbook (for fieldwork/travel), phone, and one of the computers in our grad lounge. not to mention it's all stored on dropbox's server. in addition to having everything easily accessible and keyword searchable, it's backed up in a million places with exactly zero effort on my part.

it definitely isn't ideal to look at a computer monitor all the damn time, and typing my notes out slows down my reading speed, but the trade off in my time and vision is worth it. this summer, i plan to scan the books i'll need in the field before going on an 8-month research trip because libraries aren't very accessible from my field sites and i can't lug that many books around.

[juilletmercredi]

I hate EndNote, and one of my many motivations for getting a Mac was being able to use Papers2. I love it. I am finding a new function for it every day (for example, I didn't know you could search major repositories from the application.) There's also an iPad and iPhone app and I have those, too, so I can sync across my devices.

I'm also using Dropbox so that I can have access to my articles anywhere. It's also a failsafe because Papers2 isn't properly syncing between my iPad and my Mac right now, but Dropbox is pretty easy.

GoodReader is also a great app because it stores my PDFs locally, so I can sync to Dropbox but still read them while I am riding the subway or something.

I was using Zotero but stopped because I use Chrome almost exclusively (occasionally Safari). But now that Zotero can run in Chrome, I might reinvestigate using it in tandem with Papers2 because it is soooo easy to use. And Zotero is free.

I do most of my PDF reading on my computer or iPad. It's not ideal, but I hate having paper around especially since my space is small and easily cluttered.

[Behavioral]

I'm also thinking about switching to Zotero (from Mendeley) now that they do support Chrome. The only gripe I have is I finally updated a lot of the older papers in my archives that were missing doi/citation information, so I might have to do that all over again if I import to Zotero.

[StrangeLight]

i'm using zotero in chrome on a mac and it's a goddamn pleasure, let me tell you.

[Behavioral]

i'm using zotero in chrome on a mac and it's a goddamn pleasure, let me tell you.

Seems like you just pushed me over the edge. Downloading Zotero for round 2.

[0504]

When I downloaded Papers it mixed up all my authors names and paper titles. I'm still in the process of going back through and reorganizing. Is there a another program that avoids this little blip?

Edited April 15, 2012 by 0504