Hi, Kevin,
For organizing thoughts and/or data that are hierarchical in nature I
find Microsoft Word to be quite useful. Yes, you read right: MS-Word, set
in outline mode. In this mode Word brings up a special toolbar with
convenient tools for increasing and decreasing levels of indentation (i.e.,
topics and sub-topics, clades and sub-clades, etc.) and for moving items
from under one category to under another. One can show or hide lower
levels of indentation, for the whole document or for just a branch where
one is working (or not working). There are no restrictions on the length
or grammatical form of what you enter, and entries can be highlighted in
colors for whatever purposes you find useful. Switching out of outline
mode to regular writing mode removes the special formatting of the outline
and lets you continue to work with the text. In this way you can actually
evolve an outline into a standard document, say, a research paper. When I
do this, I usually save off a version to be kept in outline from for
updating or back-reference.
I hope this helps.
Martin M. Meiss
2012/3/6 Wayne Tyson <[email protected]>
> Rather than squinting at a tiny screen, I haven't found anything better
> than a bunch of (3 x 5) cards and a big, big surface like a huge conference
> table or a wall. Cheap too. But then you do have to enter the data, and
> yes, the card system does seem to have limitations. So?
>
> WT
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Neal" <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Monday, March 05, 2012 4:27 PM
> Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Digital/electronic set-ups for organizing research?
>
>
> Hello all,
>>
>> I'm a first-year biology MS student doing molecular phylogenetics
>> research. As
>> I get ever-deeper into my thesis research, I'm trying to work on my
>> organizational skills before things get too messy. In addition to a plain
>> old
>> paper notebook, what digital/electronic resources do you use to keep
>> notes/experiments/papers/data organized?
>>
>> For papers I've just started using Mendeley (and I've heard great things
>> about
>> Papers for OS X, but I'm on Windows 7). For notes and data I've heard
>> others
>> mention Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, keeping a Wordpress blog, or a
>> personal
>> wiki. How do you best take advantage of the features of these options or
>> other
>> options I didn't mention? I'd be grateful to hear suggestions and tips
>> from
>> other biologists.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Kevin
>>
>>
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>>
