evernote as a phd student

[lsilvam 8]

Hello everyone!

 

Finally, I took some time to write this down - been thinking about this for over two years; the time that has passed since I began my PhD - or, 600 notes after.

 

Evernote has been my notetaking and file keeping app for six years now. I began to use it more heavily during my master's, but, now with the PhD demands are higher. 

 

With this post, I am aiming to share how I use it has a PhD student and share my overall experience with Evernote.

So, for other PhD students out there here is how I use my Evernote - we few examples:

• folders are structured like trees:
  • PhD
    • PhD- meetings
    • PhD- literature review
    • PhD- lab notes
    • (...)

In the same fashion are the tags

• PhD
  • PhD: meetings
    • PhD:meetings: with supervisor
  • PhD: experiments
    • PhD: experiments: experiment 1
    • (...)

Here are the things I miss that would improve my experience:

• web clips that can be appended to a note
  • for example, when I am doing a literature review would be nice to have all link for the papers in the same note; ordered as I am going through the search
• better calendar integration with Outlook and/or Gmail
  • having all the tasks and events in the same calendar (both in the smartphone and desktop; not just in the smartphone)
• Scannable for Android
• smoother image editing (e.g. cropping)
  • sometimes its a bit frustrating the time spent to crop a picture
• OneDrive integration (similar to Google Drive)
  • would be great to add files without having to create sharing links all the time
• more highlight colours (at least two more)
  • because it's just useful to have different colours for different concepts
• bigger files per note 
  • for example, I can't save all data from one experiment in the same note

And here are the things I love (and can't live without them):

• file search
• OCR in photos
• saved searches
• coloured tag
  • great for glancing what is done or not
• Gmail and Outlook clipper
• Internal links
  • this is great to index drafts, pictures and experiment results from one note only
• custom templates
• import folders to a notebook (don't use this often now) 
  • use this to import '.pdf' of papers into Evernote, where I then write notes and share it with my peers
• publish the notes with a link
  • great to share protocols and guides for new students

 

If I am missing something that is already implemented, sorry - and let me know.

 

happy notetaking, 

Leonardo

 

[gazumped 11,665]

1 hour ago, lsilva.m@outlook.com said:

If I am missing something that is already implemented, sorry - and let me know.

Thanks for your comments - that's a positive and constructive review.  If Evernote is working for you - even though it's not perfect - I don't think you missed anything important.  I'm a long way past my student days,  but the only comment I'd add is that clipped extracts could be added to a note,  though you'd need desktop access to complete them.

You'd need to add your note/ research clips as separate notes,  and tag them uniquely for that project.  When you need to add an index to your main note,  search for that tag so you have a list of all the individual notes.  Select all notes,  then use "create table of contents" to generate a list of the notes which includes links to each note.  Find the ToC and copy/ paste it into your main text,  and you're done!

[DTLow 5,736]

2 hours ago, lsilva.m@outlook.com said:

publish the notes with a link

Evernote supports the generation of public links for notes

It's a fantastic feature, I use it all the time
Even publishing a hierarchy of notes with a table of contents

[gazumped 11,665]

2 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Evernote supports the generation of public links can be generated for any note

Missed that one!

[lsilvam 8]

14 minutos atrás, DTLow disse:

Evernote supports the generation of public links for notes

Yep, I forgot, moved down! Thanks

43 minutos atrás, gazumped disse:

Select all notes,  then use "create table of contents" to generate a list of the notes which includes links to each note

Yeah, that is what I do sometimes but when things get overwhelming its just too many click, in my opinion. I say this because when you do an IFTTT in some cases you have the option to append (or at least I saw that feature before); so, why would it be possible to do with web clipper? (maybe the code is hard, and I get it)

 

[CalS 5,280]

5 hours ago, lsilvam said:

smoother image editing (e.g. cropping)

• sometimes its a bit frustrating the time spent to crop a picture

Have you tried the EN Annotate tool, right click on the image.  I think it crops easily, though it may be missing some other bits and bobs.  Used it for the screen paste below.

 

[lsilvam 8]

1 hour ago, CalS said:

Have you tried the EN Annotate tool

yes, that's the one I've experience with - works, but could work much better I guess - sometimes I just crop with Edit option on Windows to be faster than in Evernote

Thanks

[CalS 5,280]

54 minutes ago, lsilvam said:

yes, that's the one I've experience with - works, but could work much better I guess - sometimes I just crop with Edit option on Windows to be faster than in Evernote

Thanks

You are welcome.  I probably have less usage and lower expectations so the speed of Annotator is just fine for me.  Out of interest, how do you use the Edit option on Windows?

[lsilvam 8]

10 hours ago, CalS said:

how do you use the Edit option on Windows?

right-click on the picture I want to crop » 'Edit with Photos' » crop and save - was this you looking for? 

[CalS 5,280]

8 hours ago, lsilvam said:

right-click on the picture I want to crop » 'Edit with Photos' » crop and save - was this you looking for? 

Yup, thanks.  I don't actually have an Edit with Photos option, but the Open option accomplishes the same thing.  Took me about the same time so I'll probably stick with Annotate.  IAC, good to know there is an alternative.  Thanks.

[lsilvam 8]

3 hours ago, CalS said:

Thanks

you're welcome; thank you too!

[lsilvam 8]

On 2/11/2020 at 4:06 PM, gazumped said:

that's a positive and constructive review.

This gave me  the will to make a Medium post - thank you @gazumped

\o/ 

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