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Research Database Part 2: Lessons Learned and Next Steps

Hi all, finally following back up again. The Research Database did a great job in helping me organize my readings for my qualifying exam, but it wasn't all up to specification. So this second post is me standing back and thinking about how to progress. The database definitely came a little bit earlier than necessary and did not improve my reading habits so keep the following recommendations in mind. When to start a reading database:  If you have completed your literature review I ran into this without really best defining what's going on in my literature review. Consequently, I constantly needed to change things and it kept on expanding. In the end, I was reworking more than working. Think it through and check this out before making a full on SQL database.  Its a great resource for anyone starting their literature and how to be systematic.  I now am working on a whole slide deck that keeps me focused on what to read and how.  If you know what needs to b...
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Wonderful Wednesdays - MyMaps

Intro  Every Wednesday, I'm going to describe a useful and wonderful thing that I've found to use in every day life. This activity is a little bit of being thankful, but also a little bit of promotion for things that I think are wonderful.  My Maps and Why It Is Awesome  Its so hard to coordinate people geographically. We play variations on word games with each other because language is imprecise in capturing conceptual content. One such place where it is difficult to ensure everyone is on the same page and thinking the same thing is with geographic information, such as place, location, and direction. Think of all of the ways you have received directions in your life or have given them to people visiting your hometown. There is not always an agreed upon method to describe how to get where you want to go, as we see with math describing a proof or theorem.  My Maps provides an introductory experience with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) through the Go...

Developing your own research database for in-depth research (Part 1)

I'm a PhD student and doing a lot of cool stuff, so why not write about it? The first topic that I'm going to document is  Documenting your Research and Readings and I'll keep you, the reader, updated on my journey as I flesh out this system. Essentially, I'm about to transition from a research technician to a full fledged PhD Candidate/actual researcher with the end of a major data collection project, and I think that documenting this process will be useful. I'll release templates and demos as I progress! Here's  a great piece on using databases that partially inspired me. The Issue  Well, I read a lot of research papers and there is a great need to actually document what I'm doing. Now a off the shelf application like Zotero is good, but I need something more bespoke than that.  Image from www.zotero.com On top of that, I don't have all that coin to keep that paid for all time, but I do have a cloud storage through my school, free a...