When I switched from Yahoo to Google as my default web search engine around 2003, I used to type in keywords on the search bar to get what I am looking for on the net. But since Google gained its own character and began correcting me on whether I meant something else, I recognize its snobby personality and directly ask questions to it as if something casually came to my mind and I was curious about its opinion.
Two days ago, I asked: “Is there a pdf program that I can highlight the document, take notes on it and export the notes?” These days I am trying to find a way to reduce my paper use as much as possible while doing research.
To my surprise it said yes! This is how I began using Mendeley. It is an almost perfect pdf organizer, reader and citation manager. It allows you to create a library along with subfolders, highlight and take notes on the pdf and then export only the notes in a single report.
In the good old days, I used to print out the article, underline the parts I find important, take notes on the margins, compile these notes and underlined parts in a Word document, repeat this for every article I read and then combine these Word reports to produce a research piece.
With Mendeley, I can now complete most of this process as I go. Once reading, highlighting and note taking is done, the program produces a report of the notes taken on the pdf. And thus with two clicks, I have a 3-page report of notes and quotations from a 30-page article. It is also very convenient for recalling the article later without going through the whole 30 pages.
The program also comes with a citation manager that has a cite-as-you-write feature. And the best part is it’s free.
Emre Baran 