Five Software Bargains for the Academic

Bargain # 1: Endnote

Endnote is the most expensive program I review here, but it is also the most essential for scholarly work. Every graduate student should have and use it religiously. It should be the first thing you buy when you start your graduate work and you should use it to record every thing you read in every class. You will NEVER regret spending the time to do this. The program is designed to be a reference system that you use when writing papers, so it interacts with both Word and Wordperfect. But don't make the mistake of thinking that this is its main purpose. It's main value is that it is a study tool. It is an excellent place to store notes on what you've read and to review and study what you have read.

Notes

The process of writing an abstract of a text you read furthers your own learning of the material you are studying. EndNote has a special field for abstracts and you should use it to summarize the main ideas of each article or book that you read. In addition, you should write something about how the author justifies his point. A really important part of learning to be a scholar is learning to evaluate the arguments people make. For instance, is this a moral argument or an empirical argument or one based on armchair reasoning? If it is empirical does the author do a survey, observe some people teaching, review other people's research? Or is this a literature review and the argument is justified by citing other experts? This is important. Your task is not to learn what all the experts have to say, it is to learn how to evaluate what they say. Use EndNote to help.

EndNote allows abstracts to be very long. I have some as long as four single-spaced pages and it doesn't mind. In addition to summarizing what the author's main argument is, write down questions that you have and write down opposing ideas you've read in other articles. As part of the abstract, you can remind yourself that you have another reference elsewhere that presents an opposing idea.

Review

EndNote also has a field for keywords. The use of keywords gives you incredible control over your references. Use the keywords field to note the main topics that the paper addresses. For instance, if the paper has to do with teacher supply and demand, write "supply and demand" in the keyword field. If it has to do with constructivism, write that in the key word field. You can also write multiple key words, so you could add "policy" or "teacher policy" or "recruitment" to the first one and you could add "learning theory" or "curriculum theory" to the second one, depending on what is relevant.

Once you have a bibliography with many references, you can use the keywords to search for articles that address a particular, and then reread all their abstracts and review the set of complimentary and conflicting ideas that have been written on this issue. Use this feature when writing term papers and comprehensive exam essays.

This is what the bibliography screen looks like. It lists all the references you have, in alphabetical order by first author, but you can also ask it to sort the list by year, title, journal or any other field.

Notice that the bottom of the screen is a window into the particular reference that is highlighted. You can turn this off if you want. There is a tiny cue in the bottom right corner of the screen the says "hide preview." Once you click that, and the preview goes away, the cue will say, "Show preview" so that you can retrieve it if you wish.

Creating new records in EndNote is a snap. Using the command Control-N (for "new") you get a screen that looks like this one below, and you just fill in each box. (The individual boxes are called fields, the citation as a whole is called a record, and the entire collection is called a library. You can put zillions of records in a single library if you want, or you can break them into multiple libraries. You can copy them back and forth among libraries too.

Incidentally, the fields that it asks you to fill out can also be changed. You can delete these fields and add other fields as you please. Some fields are necessary just to record the reference, of course—names, dates, etc. And the keyword field is terrific, for it enables you to put your own terms in so that you can sort your references according to whatever issues or topics are of interest to you.

But you can also remove fields that are not useful to you. For instance, if you don't think you will need call numbers, you can tell it not to show you that field. I find that, over time, I am tailoring my fields more and more, so that I can sift and sort my references in different ways. For example, I am beginning to use the "type of work" field a lot, because sometimes I want to limit my search to conceptual articles and sometimes to empirical articles, depending on my purpose. I now label each piece using words like these: conceptual, policy analysis, qualitative, program evaluation, advocacy, survey, etc.

Endnote has become very popular in the College, so I have created another handout that tells more about Endnote and how to set it up.

The student version of EndNote is $99.95. You can buy it on line from Thompson Software, but you also can usually find it at the MSU bookstore.

Bargain # 2: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary on CD-ROM

Any serious scholar should take words seriously and be careful to use them correctly. To do that, you need a good dictionary, and you need to have it with you whenever you are writing. This dictionary is perfect. You can copy the entire unabridged dictionary onto your hard drive (if you have the space, and you can use it from the CD of you don't). It links into both Word and WordPerfect so that you can call it up from within those programs and have it give you the definition of whatever word you are concerned about. I like to use it in conjunction with the Thesaurus that comes with WordPerfect.

The CD also has recordings of people pronouncing each word in case you need to hear how to pronounce it. If you have a lot of space on your hard disk, you can copy the sound files as well as the definition files, so that you can hear any word you want without having to get the CD out. My last computer did not have enough room for sound files but did have room for the definitions. It was very handy to have the definitions available when I was writing, but I had to get out the CD whenever I wanted to hear a word. I now have a larger disk and I have everything on it.

This is what your screen looks like:

The word you seek is shown in a box at the top and the nearest match is defined in the main window. But all similar words are also listed on the left so you can check those out while you are there. The little picture of the megaphone right next to the word brings up the pronunciation.

This program is a phenomenal bargain at less than $20. It is called the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary on CD ROM. Buy it on line from Amazon.

Note: A student recently wrote me to say this entire dictionary was also on line, but you have to pay to get at the unabridged version.

Bargain #3: TexNotes

TexNotes is a free-form data base system for storing ideas and information of all sorts. It is very easy to use. I have a file for each class I teach. In these, I store lecture notes, handouts, assignments and other related material. I also have one called "random thoughts" in which I deposit any thoughts I have along the way that have to do with anything at all. You can have each page exist as an independent page or you can place pages underneath one another in a hierarchical arrangement. It is easy to move them around.

This is what the interface looks like. The left column, which I've set to be light blue, is the table of contents, a list of all the notes I have in this file, organized into a hierarchy. The right site is the particular page that is highlighted. Notice that, on this page, I've put in a table and formatted that also. This is one of the features I like about TexNotes, is the ability to gussy up my pages with fancy tables. I can also insert scanned images.

One of the great things about this program is that you can rearrange your notes at will, grouping them and re-grouping them as you see fit. If I want to rearrange these, I simply drag them up and down the screen and nest them in whatever hierarchy I want to establish.

This program is cheap and extremely useful. Use it to keep track of all your thoughts. Use it to outline papers you are developing and to rearrange paragraphs. Use it to save e-mail and organize them and sequence them how you want.

You can buy this on line from GemX. There are two versions.

• TexNotes (plain vanilla version), $34.95
• TexNotes Pro, gussied up version $49.95

Note: There are other programs similar to this which you can find by searching the web. One is called InfoTree, one is called Treepad, and one is called Keypad. I like Infotree because it save your data base as a .mdb file, which means it is compatible with Micrososoft Access in case you ever want to convert the file. But I like TexNotes better because it allows more formatting inside the pages. E.g., tables. Plus you can covert your notes to web pages if you think you might want to store your ideas in a more public place.

MAC Users: A MAC-using student tells me that there is an analogous program that MAC-friendly, called iOrganize. You can get it at http://iorganize.brunoblondeau.com/. It costs only $19.99! Get it right away.

Bargain #4: 3-M digital Post-It Notes

Just as the famous sticky notes can clutter your desk with reminders, they can now also clutter your computer screen with reminders. And if you are willing to tolerate advertisements, you can get a copy of this software for free. Definitely a bargain!

The Post-It Software puts a little icon in your System Tray, the little line of icons in the lower right corner of your screen, and all you have to do is click on the icon to get a post-it note on your desktop. Then you can stretch it to fit your note, change the color and even bold or italicize fonts if you want.

In the System Tray, the Post-It icon looks like a small yellow tablet, just like a paper tablet of post-it's would look:

When you click on that, a yellow note pad appears on your screen. Here is the screen I made myself recently when I had a lot of trips coming up and wanted a way to quickly view them whenever I was planning my time.

I have used Post It Notes for all manner of thought-capturing as well. I get some ideas for a paper and jot them into a post it note so that I will have the ideas later on, when I return to the paper. If you come into my office and give me a suggestion for the Digital Advisor, odds are I'll write a Post It Note to myself to remember to to it.

You can get the free version or the paid version at 3M

The paid version is only 14.99.

Bargain #5: Remind Me

Remind me could possibly be the coolest software on the planet. It can remind you of anything you tend to forget—birthdays or anniversaries, when term papers are due, when your insurance payment is due, when you have an appointment with the dentist. It is not a place to write notes to yourself, as Post It Notes is, and it is less passive than Post It Notes. Instead of sitting on your desktop day after day waiting for you to attend to its notes, it pops open at a scheduled time and rings an alarm to get your attention.

But it is also not an appointment calendar, because you really don't want an alarm going off for every meeting you have. Instead, Remind Me offers a way to remember general due dates, like your term papers or bills. Plus you can set it up to begin reminding you a few days in advance of the event, and to continue to pop up every day until you finally check off that you've taken care of the event. It is very easy to use. To enter a new reminder, you get this screen:

Notice that it asks you both when to be reminded and how many days ahead of time to start reminding you. So, for instance, if you have big insurance payments due every six months, you might want to start reminding yourself a month ahead of time to start saving up for them. If you have a big term paper due on October 12, you could start reminding yourself on October 1 to get cracking on it. If your Aunt Sarah's birthday is on February 10, you might want to remind yourself a week ahead, so you have time to pick up a card and send it to her.

Notice that it also asks you how often you want to be reminded. You can be reminded every day, when your first boot up or every day at a particular time. You might want to be reminded of your term paper first thing in the morning, but be reminded of Aunt Sarah at 4:00 in the afternoon, so you will think of her as you are driving home.

Once you have asked it to remind you, the reminder window will appear on your screen at the designated times, ringing a chime. It will do this again and again, at the times you have told it to pop up, until you check the box that you have taken care of this item. Then it won't pop up again until the next reminder item is scheduled. It is very useful.

This window came up today as I was writing this document. It is reminding me that it is Friday, time for me to do my weekly antivirus checks, backups and disk cleanups.

Notice the little checkbox next to the reminder. If I check that box, Remind Me will not remind me about this item again. If instead, I click on the "close" button below, the reminder will go away for now but it will return again tomorrow, and will come back every day until I check that I have done this.

Remind Me is a bargain at only $19.95. It is very easy to use and very reliable. Of course, you do want to make sure you back up your reminder file, and that is easy to do with Beyond Compare.

You can buy Remind Me from Beiley Software at  Beiley Software

This is my list of handy software. The first three are essential for scholarly work, and the second three are very handy tools for managing your work. If you buy the entire set of software, this is what you will spend:

100 for EndNote
18 for Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
35 for TexNotes
15 for Post It
20 for Remind Me
$178 Total

This sounds like a lot, but over half of this is in the cost is in EndNote, which is so essential that you shouldn't even think about not buying it. That means you get the other four for only $78. If you use them as often as I use mine, this is a bargain

PS: Here is a 6th bargain. Since I wrote this page, thumb drives have become so cheap that you really should purchase one of these as well. These small memory drives plug into your USB port and give you a really quick and easy way to back up the documents you have worked so hard on, and to carry them from one computer to another if you work sometimes at home and sometimes at the office.

© Mary Kennedy, 2006