Things I wish I knew before I started graduate school...

[Sara Ganetis]

So since the thread "Things I wish I knew before I started college" is so interesting and we have a lot of graduate student members, I thought I'd start the conversation going on things you wish you knew before you started graduate school.

I'll start--

I wish I had become more familiar with reference managing resources before I started my first year and became buried in a sea of papers! I started out using an excel spreadsheet and including columns for title, authors, publication year, notes, and the AMS style citation but that got out of hand quickly. I then started using EndNote which I was able to download for free through my university. I liked it but I didn't love it. I finally settled on Mendeley which requires a bit of start-up time because you import PDF documents into it and through it can highlight, take notes, and even sync it to the Mendeley app on your kindle.

What about you guys?

[dgilford]

I use Mendeley exclusively to manage my papers. One of the best resources I've ever gotten my hands on for graduate school... I use it everyday multiple times a day.

In graduate school I wish I had started keeping a research notebook sooner than I did (at the beginning of the first summer, 9 months into school). I use the notebook now to keep research ideas, detail what I do each day, take notes about papers, take notes about discussions with other students or advisers, and just keep my thoughts organized. I wish I had started my first week doing this.

[vanna]

I also have fallen for Mendeley. A related reference tool I wish I had known about is using DOI's to format references directly through the command line: crosstech.crossref.org/2011/11/turning_dois_into_formatted_ci.html

I wish I had understood the usefulness of code repositories (I recommend Github) earlier. Depending on the repository, it keeps snapshots of work that you have done or just a track of the changes that have been done to the files. This is extremely useful for code or written documents. Public repositories also make editing shared files much easier than shared documents in something like Dropbox. It does take a bit to get used to using one, but the long-term benefits in tracking changes and sharing code are great!

I have had the opposite experience with research notebooks. I tend to have too many side projects and research responsibilities at any one time to keep a notebook organized enough to find anything. Instead I keep a binder for notes and ideas, so I can write now and order later, an actual notebook for records of field work, and spreadsheets/text file records on Dropbox for shared things. It took a while to find a system that worked for me, so try to develop one early in your school career!

[Philippe Papin]

Thanks for mentioning Mendeley because I was actually looking to upgrade my current organizational system for all the papers I have saved on my hard drive as I write my thesis. I downloaded it today and its excellent! Certainly beats doing most of this work manually on paper or via some other organizational resource (e.g. Excel).

[Derek Mallia]

Does it play nice with the Mac OS?

[vanna]

While I do not use Mac OS normally, I know several Mac-users who use Mendeley, so I assume it does.  (It also works on Linux, if any Linux users are reading and wondering.)

[Philippe Papin]

Sept 11, 2013 18:24:28 GMT Derek Mallia said:

Does it play nice with the Mac OS?

Yep... and its available on iOS and Android for paper reading on the go!