digital tools for academic research

1. Digital Tools for Academic Research Sidiropoulos John www.organognosi.com email: organognosi@gmail.com twitter: @organognosi mobile: +44 7510 570990 2. The Problem I do not remember where I have read this. Where is this file in my hard drive? I cannot find it! I spend too much time trying to organize my ebooks and papers. I cannot find my notes from the paper I read last week. 3. The Solution:Digital Tools for Academic Research Hypertext Links Wikis Additional/alternative solutions Tags Search engines Databases 4. Hypertext Hypertext is a text structure that cannot be conveniently printed. (As We Will Think - Nelson: 252) The biggest and most well known hypertext system is the World Wide Web (WWW). 5. Links The defining characteristic of hypertext Immediate access to information or data Effective organizational tool Kinds of Links Between different documents Between different sections of the same document Between text files and media files 6. Links between Documents The references in a book or paper can be live links to the original sources e.g. Sorites Paradox and Vagueness - Sidiropoulos Links to local files - e.g. A Critique of Deflationism - Gupta: 286 URL: x-devonthink-item://644047E6-B393 -466E-B4E9-980AB5201172?page=4 Links to Google Books e.g. Vagueness - Willimason: 35 URL: http://books.google.co.uk/ books?id=9ZEB6JNAkKsC&pg=PA35 7. Internal Document Links Clickable table of contents e.g. Hypertext marks in LaTeX: 2 Clickable index e.g. Hypertext marks in LaTeX:448 Clickable endnotes/footnotes e.g. Sorites Paradox and Vagueness - Sidiropoulos: 5 Clickable references to specific PDF pages e.g. Sorites Paradox and Vagueness - Sidiropoulos: 11 8. Links to Audio and Video Files TunesLinker - http://bit.ly/14qlx4k Links to specific files e.g. Night Bird - Deep Forest Links to specific time points e.g. Hypertext and Computer-Augmented- Thought - 11:19 9. Ways of Writing Hypertext HTML (HyperText Markup Language) Wikis LaTeX e.g. Sorites and Vagueness - Sidiropoulos Creation of links using AppleScript e.g. Create MediaWiki and RTF links to iPhoto pictures 10. Wikis The easiest way to create hypertext Demo MediaWiki Links to other pages - e.g. [[Vagueness]] Markup syntax: MediaWiki Cheat Sheet Wiki programs MediaWiki ConnectedText VoodooPad Wikispaces 11. MediaWiki - Tips For each book, article that I read I create a separate wiki page Name template: @Title - Surname For each important concept I create a separate wiki page. Name template: Concept and specifier I insert pertinent tags or categories to the wiki pages. I try to write anything new that I learn. My wikis are the personal repositories of my knowledge. 12. Advantages of Hypertext Every source is just one click away! You can organize your sources, notes and thoughts in an associative manner which can preserve the context. Facilitates the creation of new connections. Facilitates analysis - modular organization of content (imitation of index cards). Facilitates synthesis - creation of dynamic documents (transclusion). 13. Problems with Hypertext The links can break. It requires the learning of new skills (new programs, markup languages) New dangers (security, backup) Digitization of source material Copyright (open access movement) 14. My Favorite Mac Applications for reading and annotating documents: Skim (PDF), Clearview (ePub, chm) for bibliography management: BibDesk for writing: Scrivener, Scapple, LaTeX for notes management: MediaWiki for documents management: DEVONthink (PDFs), Calibre (ePub, chm) for automating my workflow: Script Debugger 15. OrganoGnosi http://www.organognosi.com Development of custom scripts and applications Private tuitions