![]() ![]() However, in more advanced literature reviews, an extra step is helpful. The beauty of highlighting in an application like Skim or Papers is the automatic inclusion of page numbers and other bibliographic information in the exported file.ĭepending on the complexity of the project, I may just export all the notes as one giant text file, print this, and start writing. Exporting and tagging notes #Īll highlights are now exported as plain text files – one per article or report, or a single file with all highlights across all readings. Want a speedier version of this workflow? □ Check out how to do quick and dirty literature surveys 3. Papers has this function built in applications like Skim (open source for Mac) and Highlights (a commercial alternative for Mac and iOS) can also do this, and both play nicely with Zotfile (a Zotero PDF management plugin – great if you’re a fan of keeping everything open source). Whilst reading I highlight relevant paragraphs or sentences – as less is better try to avoid highlighting entire pages – and I add comments with any thoughts or ideas. This means later articles can be skim read (when concentration levels are lower) to pick up additional insight or nuance. ![]() ![]() I now read through everything in rough order of how important I think the article will be. Google Scholar is invaluable for sourcing articles (Papers allows you to search Google Scholar and import articles from within the application Zotero has browser integrations to allow one-click importing).Įxample screenshot of Papers for Mac: note the highlighted PDF 2. I group everything by project into smart folders using tags. In the past I used version 3 of Papers for Mac, but I have recently switched to Zotero, a powerful open source, cross-platform alternative. For me, this is PDFs of articles, reports, and book chapters. I won’t go into great detail here, but I collect all my research materials together first. It won’t work for everyone, although there is plenty of scope for customisation. Here’s my academic writing workflow: it allows me to quickly pull together information from dozens of articles into a structured format that allows new ideas and connections to form. Did you just land on this site for the first time? □ After this you might like to read the other posts in this series on processes and workflows. ![]()
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