Endnote

The_doomed

doing dissertation, 15k words. not massive, but any recommendations for program to use? planning on MS word, using header, para / font functions etc

ffeindadifyr

If you invest a little time learning how to use latex I would recommend it above using word... and faffing with master documents (although this is what I did with my thesis it was a lot of hassle when it came to printing out!)

misskool

I just got emailed this link by some person in the university. Not sure if your university needs to be signed up to it.
http://www.refworks.com

RefWorks -- an online research management, writing and collaboration tool -- is designed to help researchers easily gather, manage, store and share all types of information, as well as generate citations and bibliographies.
EDIT:Had a look and you have to pay, sorry peeps. Maybe ask if your university will pay for it? It's $100 (approx £68)

I've got ALL my citations in endnote and even though it's slow and buggy with my MS word, the whole process of doing 600+ journals is too painful so I'm going to stick with endnote.

melancholly

misskool wrote:

I've got ALL my citations in endnote and even though it's slow and buggy with my MS word, the whole process of doing 600+ journals is too painful so I'm going to stick with endnote.

i've be promised by the IT guys that endnote 9 should be completely compatible with office 2003 - someone had it crash and destroy a report with endnote 7 so i'm really hoping they're right!

misskool

it probably doesn't help that I'm on a Mac, running endnote 8.0 with microsoft word x? :rolleyes:

Voyager2002

My experience:

My uni ordered endnote for me when I began my PhD, but the procurement process was so inefficient that it only arrived when I was in the final stages of writing up!! Anyway, I used a massive Excel spreadsheet to manage my references, and actually it was not much of a problem -- there were many things about preparing a thesis that were far more difficult and time-consuming.

Anyway, in my first post-doc job I used Procite, and then in my next job switched to Endnote. I do find them extremely helpful, particularly because I now have to write journal articles and so am pulling different references out of the database for different articles, and formatting them in different styles for different journals. Well worth 68 pounds, but no need to pay that much. I bought Endnote from an Ebay seller in the USA, obviously first checking his feedback, and the transaction was fine. (In fact my job paid me back the money spent, but that is irrelevant.)

The only problem now is that a later version of endnote is out; my university has now installed the later version on my work machine, but at home I still have the incompatible earlier version. So I work without Endnote at home, simply making notes of what needs to be done with it, and then making the necessary adjustments next time I am on campus. Not ideal, but not a major problem.

talksalot81

The_doomed wrote:

doing dissertation, 15k words. not massive, but any recommendations for program to use? planning on MS word, using header, para / font functions etc

I used Word for my thesis and it has been really very good to me. Alot of people try and use latex and lyx and such likes, but the impression I get is that this is really only going to help alot when you are getting into very mathematical publishing.

Before I started, I must admit I had reservations with word. I have fought with it many times but I now know the program alot better and have much fewer arguements. There are a few things to watch for though, for instance the formatting (fonts etc.). I go through other peoples documents and find the bulk text appearing in several different 'formats'. So at the start, define your format and make sure you stick to it. Dont be afraid of the built in referencing/captioning etc., it actually does work. The most useful feature I have come across is showing your formatting marks. Thus you can see when you have a space (or when you accidentally have two), you can see where your hard returns are, you can see section breaks, you can see when a pieces of text are tagged together... without this all shown, word can appear to do some seriously odd things.

hostie

Hello, I am also at the Uni of London and at our college we also get the uni rate if we want to buy the software. I think it is under £10. I think you should take this up with your uni. It isn't fair that some uni's allow their postgrads to buy it through them and some don't.

hope that helps, good luck.

lellie

BTW. People here will probably be interested in Zotero - It's a firefox extension for managing bibliographies and can be used with endnote easily enough. I love it.

EthelBloggs

just installed zotero... cross fingers I can figure it out properly as I struggle a bit with endnote at times