Go check out the PhD Comics store, I’d gladly take one of just about everything they sell. (FYI-my birthday is in approximately 161 days and 6 hours.) Also, I missed out on seeing the movie twice around here, so I’m going to download it and watch it at home!
I’m Patricia and I’m working on my Master’s degree in Zoology. I am putting myself through school by working as a microscopist and laboratory analyst in a (thrilling!) mold lab.
o god, fapfapfapfap
Well, scinerds, I’m going to just go ahead and unfollow now. I can read plenty of idiotic posts elsewhere on the Internet, I don’t need to see them on a science blog. I was already getting annoyed with the constant reblogs without any original comments but I stuck around for the science. That just sealed the deal.
Papers makes this awesome whooshing sound when it matches my articles to the repository. It makes me smile every time. I just want to spend all day every day organizing articles.
Me: I’m finishing up this poster and I’m looking for a good article that talks about divergence of vocalizations and speciation. Specifically something about alarm calls. Do you know of any off the top of your head? The internet and library are not cooperating.
Him: Yeah, the classic paper would be Marler 1955. Let me go check my card catalog and grab that for you.
[Less than 2 minutes later he hands me a hard copy]
Him: Here you go. That’s probably the most frequently cited paper. People like to show that they’ve read some old stuff.
My advisor has a card catalog system in his office for all of his journal articles. Every article has a number assigned to it. Everything he’s ever read is filed in there. Hard copies for everything before EndNote, and PDFs (still assigned numbers and still in his card catalog) are stored on his external hard drive. And he remembers EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING. It’s insane and I’m really jealous. I can’t remember what I did this weekend or the first author of the paper I read yesterday, let alone who wrote what in 1955.
enchantedoblivion asked: I don't know how you can handle a doctorate program and a life. That's remarkable. I can't handle school and I have no obligations. I guess you just have to want it badly enough. So here's a stranger giving you a thumbs up :) P.S. Good luck using End Note, I hope you figure all of that out.
Thanks, this was really sweet. :)
I suppose it helps that I don’t have much of a social life? I’m usually just home cooking, cleaning, playing with Legos (or whatever it is my son is obsessed with at the moment), watching movies, and hanging out or talking to my friends. And most of the time when friends are over we’re working and socializing at the same time. Only recently have I set up a babysitter for every other week, so that’s been nice.
I guess when I really think about it, I’m not really doing a great job. If I was I’d probably have more research, publications, etc. under my belt. It just is what it is, I make it work. I get stressed out a lot and then just get things done. I probably seem more put together on here since I don’t post every time I’m stressed and freaking out. Trust me it happens. Often.
[video]
Several of you chimed in with opinions/suggestions on my post about EndNote, so thank you!!! I got it (for free) from my advisor a while back but didn’t really mess around with it until yesterday. I went and took a look at your suggestions (stick with EndNote, or get Papers by mekentosj, or Evernote). Evernote looks cool for other things, but probably isn’t the best in terms of journal article organization. Last night I decided to download the free 30-day trial of Papers (also available for windows) and, guys, I think I’m in love. From my brief experience with both Papers and EndNote, I have to say that I think Papers has a better user interface and cooler features. Here is a little comparison (remember, I just started using them).
Good things they have in common:
Why I like Papers better (so far):
I’m going to play around with it for a while before buying it (I want to make sure I’m really going to use it) but so far I really like it.
Why did it take you this long to start using EndNote?!?!?!
I’m lazy. It seemed like a lot of work. I procrastinate like no other. The thought of going through and adding the gazillion articles I’ve read gives me anxiety. It annoys me that it would all be on my office computer, what if I want to do shit at home? I’m still not 100% sold on its usefulness. I have become increasingly disorganized since I’ve moved here. I can’t ever make a decision about how to organize my articles, so instead I have 3 or 4 systems going at once (including the “throw all the ones I’ve read in a pile somewhere” system, that one’s not very good). Ideally I want a system that involves storing/organizing of PDFs, keyword searches, a place for my notes, etc. Everyone seems to use it to create their reference pages and, really guys, that’s like the least difficult part of writing a paper. Take your pick.
Feel free to convince me. Because as of right now I have one entered and this just seems like a pain in the ass. Do I just start from today on? What about all the past articles I’ve read and still will use? I’ll be super pissed if I enter everything in there and then never use it for anything. Can you tell I over think things?
I’m pretty sure that Jorge Cham can see me in my office right now, and that’s kinda creepy. A good 2 hours of my day today was made up of this, AND I really did have my head in my hands. Perfect timing, PhD Comics.
Still, I did manage to get stuff done today. I found a shit ton (that’s a real unit of measurement) of articles to read, started using End Note, pretty much finished my conference poster (which included finding more articles and those damn range maps-still don’t know how to combine them so feel free to make suggestions), emailed a few people, and wrote my to-do list for the weekend and beginning of next week.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what to use to create really good looking range maps? I want to combine information about habitat ranges of different species so that I can include them on my poster in just one map. I will be honest, I suck at Photoshop/Gimp/etc. Any ideas?