biolog

So, I’m writing my doctoral dissertation using LaTeX, and I’m completely enamored of the CiteULike + BibDesk combo for managing my BibTeX reference database. It’s such a big improvement over my old EndNote / Microsoft Word workflow. I just came across this great blog post on Academic Productivity about how to connect BibDesk to CiteULike.

To start BibDesk is pretty amazing for organizing and maintaining a BibTeX files. Searching is lightning fast and easy, and I love the links to the right that just allow you to doubleclick your way to the text of the paper.  CiteULike provides a great (and easy) way to generate references with a handy bookmarklet and tagging. Now instead of printing out piles of papers that I’ll feel guilty about and probably never read I just post papers I come across to CiteULike and tag them appropriately. That way when I start thinking about a new project or start writing I can quickly find all the relevant papers, even ones I tagged, but haven’t read.

To be honest, I don’t use the connector between BibDesk and CiteULike (though I may change), instead I just copy the BibTeX entry directly from the CiteULike page and use BibDesk’s quick and easy “New Publication from Clipboard” to add the publication. Fast, easy, and pretty cool. No more Word crashes, no more clunky, slow, EndNote search interface.

If only writing was as easy as managing references I’d be done by now.