Zotero

Every time I sit down to write a major paper I agonize over how to organize my references, notes on references, notes on references to read and general notes on my work. My obsession has gotten so bad that it's invariable that I devote the first couple days (I'm talking DAYS, not hours) to searching for the perfect tool. I usually end up falling back to EndNote, but EndNote has several large drawbacks:

1. It costs money -- quite a bit!
2. It only works in windows -- no linux
3. It only does cite as you write with Microsoft Office -- no OpenOffice
4. It handles notes of a fasion, but it's a little clumsy
5. For me at least, is was usually a pain getting citations into EndNote (required transferes through different formats and programs -- although this has been helped by EndNote Web)

Last year I stumbled on Zotero, an interesting research manager plugin for Firefox. It was great in that it was free, Open Source and used Firefox, but it wasn't quite what I wanted... getting citations was a little tricky.

However, this year, as I start my Masters, I realized that I really need a good system, right from the beginning, or I'm going to hate myself later.

So I looked and looked and looked, and then finally in desperation, I took another look at Zotero. Lo and behold, Zotero has improved and is AMAZING!

Boo!

A little after the fact, perhaps but Halloween it was and and an Owl was I!