1. 1 Mark Gleeson gleesoma@cs.tcd.ie (01) 896 2666 Graduate Students‘ Union Trinity College, Dublin 17.06.2008 New Frontiers

2. 2 So Why Are We Here? We are on a three to five-year mission: To explore strange new worlds. To seek out…

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4. 4 Internet Has Given Us Access The world wide web was designed specifically to enable us to link and exchange research information. –No thoughts about making money! Its somewhat hard to imagine the struggle of research before the internet –Inter library loans –Access to papers and journals –Delays in getting material

5. 5 But Really Did The Internet Help?

6. 6 Getting Organised Information Overload –Infinite supply of information More and more journals online Projects to scan entire libraries holdings –Instant access to content Content used to be available through one source – your library Now available through many segmented online services –Different formats –Different means of access Need get organised

7. 7 Overview Getting the most from scholar.google.com Keeping track of references, papers and research –Jabref –Zotero Alternatives to Word for your Thesis

8. 8 Google Scholar Power of Google dedicated to research articles Indexes majority of publishers and university sites Tips –Google Scholar will generate the EndNote or Bibtex reference text for you But you have to turn the option on! –Duplicate papers are filtered out Each paper shown once with a link to all versions Great if the author has a copy on personal website and TCD doesn’t have a subscription to the journal in question

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13. 13 Managing Papers & References JabRef –http://jabref.sourceforge.net/ –Java based so available for PC, Mac, Linux A bit like EndNote –Links to local copies of papers –Add notes, reviews and so on –Can import references in all formats

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17. 17 Research Tools Zotero – http://www.zotero.orghttp://www.zotero.org –A tool for managing all your research –Developed by researchers for researchers –Growing use in the research field –Integrates directly into your web browser What does it do? –Gather, orgainise & analyse wide range of sources –Citations, text, web, images, documents –Take notes, highlight and review –Produce reports, export into Word

18. 18 Zotero Demo

19. 19 Why Use Something Other Than Word? Far too many horror stories with Word –It isn't free –Compatibility problems –Footnotes which appear on the wrong pages –Formatting goes crazy –Poor support for references unless you use End Note –Word doesn’t understand me –Word chokes on large documents –Everything moved around in Word 2007 But plenty of support in College for Word Users –Too much effort on layout –Research should be about content

20. 20 Openoffice Basically a clone of Microsoft Office –Free –Less annoying than Word –Uses the traditional interface unlike Word 2007 Points to note –Don’t move back and forward between OpenOffice and Word –If Word refuses to open your thesis document, OpenOffice might save your day

21. 21 LaTeX (1/2) LaTeX is a document preparation system for high-quality typesetting –Papers, journals, even books Highly regarded in scientific community –Excellent support for maths and other symbols LaTeX is not a word processor –It converts your text into a document via the style or class you select LaTeX encourages authors not to worry too much about the appearance of their documents but to concentrate on getting the right content –You of course give section titles LaTeX incorporates the presentation rules, it knows how to format the text in the most professional manner.

22. 22 LaTeX (2/2) Downsides –Not for everyone –Requires you to be comfortable with computers –When it goes wrong… Upsides –Free –Professional result every time –Accepted widely LaTeX templates often provided for journals and so on –Generates PDF files as output PDF can incorporate links

23. 23 Resources Scholar search from Google –http://scholar.google.comhttp://scholar.google.com Zotero research tool –http://www.zotero.org/http://www.zotero.org/ Reference manager –http://jabref.sourceforge.net/http://jabref.sourceforge.net/ Open office – free word replacement –http://www.openoffice.org/http://www.openoffice.org/ Latex document preparation –http://www.latex-project.orghttp://www.latex-project.org