Science writing: Tools

[Blog of Reason]

Discussion thread for the blog entry "Science writing: Tools" by Inferno.

Permalink: http://blog.leagueofreason.org.uk/science/science-writing-tools/

 

[Prolescum]

Although I'm not an academic (no surprises there!), I do have need for some of the same sorts of tools mentioned.

For many image-related doodads, I use GIMP, which is good for changing formats, resizing, and lots of other manipulation-related things. It also has an excellent plugin system for great justice (try the resynthesising tool, I dare you). Otherwise I use Inkscape, although it's not a simple program.

For meddling with or creating PDFs -or any other office-related document format-, I use Libre Office (like Open Office but with slightly more Richard Stallman).

I don't use many browser add-ons, plugins or apps as I find them a hindrance to the browser's performance, particularly with Chrome (well, Chromium). When I write for posting/responding on the internet, I generally use a basic text editor (I suppose it's because I usually have one open anyway), my current favourite being Scratch. Not sure if that's available outside of its home Linux distribution (eOS) yet, though. Its auto save is nice and, thankfully, silent.

All the above are open source and therefore have no cost.

On the phone app side, I don't have much to offer in the way of suggestions beyond the Hacker's keyboard (on Android). I prefer not to have to press several buttons to get to the appropriate symbol.

Sent from my Commodore 64

 

[Aught3]

Took a while to mention a reference manager, I thought you weren't going to get to it :lol:

Mendeley is my favourite too and I love Evernote.

 

[Dragan Glas]

!

Greetings,

Just to add some alternatives to those mentioned.

PDFs - PDF-XChange Editor
Media conversion - Format Factory
Skype recording - Vodburner

Tools:
Software for Academic Writing and Research

Books:
How to Read Journal Articles in the Social Sciences: A Very Practical Guide for Students (SAGE Study Skills Series)
Success in Academic Writing (Palgrave Study Skills)
Cite Them Right: The Essential Referencing Guide (Palgrave Study Skills) (although the second book above includes a section on citing sources)

I have the first two and have found them very good - although. as a academic/educator, I doubt you need the last one listed!

Kindest regards,

James

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Thank you for Mendeley. I am going to look into that one.

Endnote! I wish I knew about this for the first four years I was in college. It would have made my life so much easier. I do not know how I would have written my thesis without it.

As for books, Proposals That Work: A Guide for Planning Dissertations and Grants Proposals in the latest addition for best results.

This makes me want to go back to skul.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

This one is so second nature to me, that I did not even think it was anything extra. Nuance PDF Reader. One is able to highlight and add notes directly to a PDF. I found this my second hear in college and never printed out another PDF.

 

[Aught3]

This one is so second nature to me, that I did not even think it was anything extra. Nuance PDF Reader. One is able to highlight and add notes directly to a PDF. I found this my second hear in college and never printed out another PDF.

You can also do this within Mendeley, it's an excellent pdf management tool.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

This one is so second nature to me, that I did not even think it was anything extra. Nuance PDF Reader. One is able to highlight and add notes directly to a PDF. I found this my second hear in college and never printed out another PDF.

You can also do this within Mendeley, it's an excellent pdf management tool.

You can also do this in both PDF-XChange Viewer and Editor - unlock other PDFs to highlight, etc.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[scalyblue]

LaTeX was designed for applications like this; it has a moderately high learning curve but once you have it you can create documents with integrated references and links.

http://www.latex-project.org/

 

[Aught3]

For those knowledgeable in R, there's knitr which allows you to generate dynamic statistical documents in Markup or LaTeX.

 

[Aught3]

I think Prolescum should do a blog post on freedom or open source software alternatives. List the programmes available and what you can use them for as well as some of the reasoning behind using these types of free applications.

 

[Prolescum]

:lol:

Oh you!


I'd have to do some research into all the alternatives for the above suggestions. However, I did have this on hand...