Academic Workflows

Cool Workflows
23

Interesting. Why airtable, instead of linking the PDF to a note in Devonthink ?

24

Because each “note” (for example a comment on a paragraph, or a quote) might be used in a different part of my work. This way I can tag each one with the part it relates to, and easily export things in “work order”, (as well as having powerful sorting and filtering options that come from using a database).

25

I also use LaTex. Since these are just text files they live in a git repo so I have solid versioning and collaboration.

On mac I use SublimeText + LaTex Tools, on iOS Working Copy + Textastic.
I have an entry in OmniFocus to figure out Working Copy’s SSH commands so I can write papers on iOS and have my mac compile it.

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26

Hi! I would say that Zettelkasten is a method known for the work of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann.

Is a system to collect, organize and write annotations mainly for research. You can do it with pen and paper, but also electronic tools.

27

Ah got it, thanks for the info. I’d never heard of that term before.

28

I know this thread is a few months old, but I have a whole lot of academic workflows I have written up on appademic.tech

I have been working on iOS workflows/shortcuts recently using the Zotero API.

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29

Looks great! Just subscribed to RSS.

30

I did as well, thanks!

31

Thanks! Looking forward to reading.

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33

This is also a good book and blog for info on zettelkasten.
https://takesmartnotes.com

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35

Papers 3 had it’s issues (storing all PDF’s in their giant black box file) but their wonderful citation lookup and tagging feature made it a worthy trade off. Now that Papers doesn’t seem to be continuing (being bought by ReadCube), is there something else that can do the same database searching and tagging of PDF’s?

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36

Ooh, I like that idea. So the notes can be shuffled around into different writings and the citations follow?

37

Yes, that’s basically it! You can store notes in citation software but for some reason this never suited me at all.

38

Yikes. I didn’t even know.
Another subscription :angry:

39

Unfortunately Papers is now riddled with bugs too. My entire database corrupted, of course I tried to work around the problems until it happened again. I have been invited to the beta for Readcube’s new version of papers, but yet to see a build.

I have also been testing Bookends, however, which is a wonderfully powerful reference manager with an excellent developer and user base. It is my first recommendation for anyone wanting native Mac referencing.

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40

Can you input papers references to bookends?

41

Yes

30%20PM

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42

You should try Zotero

43

I may need to change to bookends. I’ve never been completely happy with Papers–I find it to be a confusing interface.

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44

Retired now but an electrical engineer for 43 years and taught electrical engineering courses for 25 as well.

Word processors for documentation hasn’t been nearly the issue that drawing programs have been. I found that OmniGraffle was great for flow charts but awkward for block diagrams (not at all the same!) and really bad for schematics. Generally, after switching to the Mac in 2006, I’ve used EazyDraw. Not really Easy, but once I dug out what I needed I became very fast and efficient using it.

Nothing else that hasn’t been mentioned before in this thread but Circus Ponies Notebook which is extinct now but thankfully lasted until I stopped teaching.

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