Thread by @cortexfutura

Your wish is my command:
How @RoamResearch wins academia – a 🧵 thread.

https://twitter.com/RoamResearch/status/1374365775616643078

Roam is a fantastic tool for thinking and writing in academia – it excels at helping you to synthesize your literature, thinking through problems and keep your writing on track.

Over the last year, I've taught hundreds of academics how to use it for their research, and the recently launched community for academics, @AcademiaRoamana, has now over 400 members. Interest in using Roam for science is strong, obviously.

But, of course there's a but!, there is one way in which @RoamResearch remains a HORRIBLE solution for most academics. I am talking about export. Let me explain why using "horrible" as a word is not hyperbole.

Leaving issues of collaboration and rounds of reviewer feedback aside (big thing, but bear with me), the academic writing process looks like this: you collect references using a reference manager like Zotero, you cite the works in your writing,...

you format your article to the specific requirements of the journal you want to submit it to, and then you submit your document as either a .docx file or (much less frequently) as a .tex or .pdf file.

I have to emphasize that using .docx files is _not_ a choice made by backwater scientists who haven't seen the light yet or are too old to change their ways. It's _required_ by the journals we submit to. No way around it.

Collectively, researchers around the world spend _thousands of hours EACH DAY_ formatting their .docx files for submission. Getting the citation format just right (every journals has their own preferences) likely has cost the world lifetimes of researcher output.

Those who are savvy have figured out that you can use tools like Zotero to insert references dynamically and have it format your bibliography later (still not enough people actually do this, wasting time doing it manually). Plugins for MS Word exist for this.

BUT these tools only work when you use them directly in Word – you can't open a Markdown file in Word (which you can't do anyways!) and then have Zotero find all the references – you need to start in Word. Markdown files don't open in Word at all.

That means that _even if_ you use the _amazing_ ZoteroRoam plugin from @AlixLahuec _and use citekeys_, simply exporting the page from Roam leaves you SOL. You'll have to manually go through and convert every reference (and footnote) after copy-pasting the text into Word.

You can, if you're savvy and/or so lazy you like to spend hours looking for solutions, figure out how to install Pandoc to convert your .md file into a .docx file. This is unlikely to happen unless you have someone like me showing you how to do it.

There is, of course, the LaTeX crowd – who voluntarily use LaTeX (most of the time) and therefore are at least familiar with CLI tools like Pandoc or have solutions like Overleaf that make that whole ordeal easier.

LaTeX users are the Linux users of desktop publishing – if you use LaTeX I can confidently assume you know how to deal with package managers. Do not assume all scientists are willing and/or able to convert to LaTeX.

The LaTeX users can deal with the "get markdown file run pandoc" workflow – but even for them this introduces hassles and hurdles that take time away from actual research and writing.

That's because we're substituting one hassle (format things for journal) with another: export Markdown file and run pandoc. Or (if using Pandoc is too hard) with "copy paste to Word and replace citekeys manually".

This suuuucks – and is the one major complaint @LaptopLifeLisa and I get when teaching academics to use Roam. Getting stuff out of it in a way and format that's useful is too hard. Did I mention to make the pandoc process work you need Roam42? Native Roam sucks for it.

So, how can @RoamResearch get a 10-100x ROI on dev time invested? Make actual academic writing and exporting easy. Do that, and you'll win over academia in a heartbeat. Multiplayer graphs for collaborative writing (if desired) and then export to Word and/or LaTeX with one click.

What should this look like? Some suggestions:
Let me use citekeys – either through Zotero API or .bib file upload. Let me define citation style through CSL files (Zotero API or repo). Let me use pandoc-style footnotes (works great with block references or (()) btw) and images.

Fully formatted output to Word, flattened and clean export to Markdown and .tex so I can pipe those through pandoc myself with my own templates or sync it to Overleaf.

I am, as always, ready to jump on a Zoom call and hash this out and demo in detail if you're ready to take this seriously, @RoamResearch. Say the word and I'll be there, day or night.

Cortex Futura -- Out.