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Ilya Shabanov Profile picture
@Artifexx
Dec 27, 2022 β€’ 11 tweets β€’ 7 min read β€’ Read on X
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Overwhelmed with 100s of papers for your research and literature review, #AcademicTwitter ?

Here is my solution: A Visual Reference Manager made with @obsdmd brand new canvas feature.

Your 🧠 is not a database - it's a network. #Academicchatter

Follow the 🧡 to learn how.
@obsdmd I use @obsdmd for all my academic needs.

I have 4 types of notes: Sources, Collections, Thoughts and Outlines.

In the title of the source note, I link the PDF of my paper/book chapter.

Here is a thread on how you can set up this system for yourself.

buff.ly/3jAmV7m
@obsdmd Let's create a new Canvas by using the button on the top left of Obsidians interface.
@obsdmd It's dead simple - drag and drop your source notes or use the buttons on the bottom of the canvas.

Notice how the title of my Note is a link. It is linked to the PDF. This allows us to do...
@obsdmd ...this: Hover over the title and it opens the annotated PDF in a popup.

That feature is probably is so much joy to use! You can look up your PDFs in absolutely no time, check figures, review highlights etc.

Let's keep building!
@obsdmd We can connect multiple notes.

Drag from any of the 4 sides of a note to create a connecting arrow to any other note. Boom they are now connected.

Double click on the connections to annotate.
@obsdmd ...you can add some color, to notes and connections and change the size of your notes if you like.

Simply click the element and a small menu will be displayed above it.
@obsdmd The last step is to start adding "Cards". While Notes live in your vaults, cards live on the canvas. (The canvas is itself just a note in the vault).

Use Cards for overarching topics for example - but here you should find your own creative way of organisation.
@obsdmd Grow your graph. Use colors, cards & location to organise your research.

After a while you will remember things by remembering the *abstract location* on your canvas. Extremely Powerful ⚑️.

Memory experts use this technique of location to memorise vast amounts of knowledge.
@obsdmd This was just the bare basics of what this system can do.

I expanded it to the point where I don't use @zotero or Mendeley anymore. With a few tweaks you get to the most powerful academic note setup I know of.

Details in this issue of my newsletter:
buff.ly/3jyCpJ5
@obsdmd @zotero πŸ“£ What do you think of this system of organising literature? Comment below.

♻️ Please scroll up to the top of the thread & retweet the first post, to earn my sincere gratitude!

πŸ“© You might enjoy "The Effortless Academic Newsletter" (Link in my profile)

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More from @Artifexx

Ilya Shabanov Profile picture
May 9
The best researchers aren't geniuses. They're well-organized.

This is my favorite system to organize 1000s of notes.

Simple, yet powerful:
πŸ‘‡ Image
1. The Problem

Taking notes helps you remember only if you can find your notes.

My vault has almost 400k words over 1000+ notes (and countless PDFs/Screenshots).

To find things easier you need to have MULTIPLE layers of organization. Divide and conquer. Image
2. Folders do not work well.

In my experience folders just don't work. Because a note can't be part of multiple folders.

If you want to reuse notes for different "projects" inside your vault you need TAGS.

A Tag is just like a folder. But a note can be part of many tags! Image
Read 11 tweets
Ilya Shabanov Profile picture
May 6
Struggling with remembering where you saved a note?

Use Rainbow Folders: A hidden feature in Obsidian.

Here is how:
πŸ‘‡ Image
Obsidian (@obsdmd) is a free software if you are serious about organizing knowledge (e.g. academics)

Organize by: Folders, Tags or Maps of Content

Rainbow folders gives every folder a color making them easier to find.

There are two modes: Backgrounds(Left) or Titles (Mid) Image
@obsdmd 1. Installing the right theme

Not every theme supports rainbow folders.

You will have to try out.

These two popular themes do support it.
- Chime (my recommended theme at the moment).
- AnuPpuccin Image
Read 7 tweets
Ilya Shabanov Profile picture
Apr 27
Plagiarism is a serious problem in academia.

Even a misplaced citation can massively damage your reputation.

Luckily AI is great at spotting plagiarism. Here is how:
πŸ‘‡ Image
1. Plagiarism is complex

If you look at the Harvard Guide it identifies 6 types of plagiarism.

"Uncited paraphrase" might be the most difficult to spot.

Here you might mention established findings from older papers without citing them. Image
2. Check for Plagiarism

After you have written your manuscript (yourself!). You might still end up with a few unintended instances of plagiarism.

This is where @teampaperpal comes in.

Make an account on paperpal . com and click "Plagiarism Check" in the sidebar. Image
Read 7 tweets
Ilya Shabanov Profile picture
Apr 22
Want to get more done at the end of the week?

Use SCRUM - a scheduling technique most companies use. It's perfect for academics.

Details in text below:
πŸ‘‡
Summary:

1. Create a backlog of tasks and assign a difficulty to each (1,2,4,8 for the number of hours it takes to complete)

2. Plan meetings and seminars etc as they also take time.

3. Before starting your week distribute the tasks from the backlog to the days of the week. Don't plan more than 8hr of work a day (or less if you have other commitments).

4. During the week: Check off what you have completed (and how long it took you).

5. At the end of the week: Understand what you got done and what you didn't.

Understand that if you didn't get everything done it is a planning error. It does not mean you need to work harder/more (this is just recipe for burnout and I have been there myself). It just means you need to plan better. Efficiency comes in relaxation.

Every day you manage to accomplish what you planned you will feel great about yourself.

6. Next week you can copy and paste the open tasks to the next week and start the process again. Some people prefer to have a bi-weekly instead.
What tools can you use?

There are dozens of tools for kanban boards. The simplest one is of course Trello.

Read 5 tweets
Ilya Shabanov Profile picture
Apr 2
Don't have time to read a paper in detail?

Here is how to extract relevant information instantly:
πŸ‘‡ Image
The setup:

You have a rather large and relevant conceptual paper.

There are others and you are not sure if it's worth reading it.

You are however more interested in the "big picture" not the methods and details.
1. Upload the PDF to MyAIDrive(dot)com

Copy the link to the PDF.

MyAiDrive will analyze the PDF and make the results available in ChatGPT. Image
Read 8 tweets
Ilya Shabanov Profile picture
Mar 26
Want to remember every paper you read?

Replace Zotero with a reference map and leverage your spatial memory.

Here is how:
πŸ‘‡

1. Reference manager vs map

Take a look at this screenshot: Which one looks more approachable and interesting? On the right is Zotero displaying all your papers in an endless list. On the left is a reference map.

Reference maps lay out your papers or PDFs in 2D on an endless surface called a "canvas" or "whiteboard". There are many tools that are capable of doing it: Obsidian is an obvious choice, Heptabase is great too, DrawIO is more complex but also good.

2. Zooming in and out / Finding things

Using the scroll wheel or pinch gesture you can fluidly navigate between the bird's eye view and the detailed view with your own notes on a single paper. Left: Detail, Right: All Papers.

To find papers you "fly up" and then "land on" the paper you are looking for. It feels incredibly natural and easier than scrolling through a list.

3. Why it works: Spatial Memory
Humans evolved moving around as hunter gatherers and spatial memory is a key trait needed for navigation. You leverage it by laying out your papers in a landscape, not a list. Your papers gain location and relation.

4. Headers and Topics: Location
Now that your papers are on a landscape or map you can have "countries" on this map. Every country is a topic, further subdivided in sub-topics. Here is the "Machine Learning Country" in the far south west of my map:

I can refer to "papers in the south west" - this is spatial memory being leveraged to remember where things are.

5. Semantic Connections: Relation

The next step is to build the "roads" between locations on the map. Simply draw an arrow and write on it what this relation signifies.

In the above example Swenson 2020 (top) wrote "the trait-demography relationship is weak (Yang 2018)".
So I read Yang 2018 (left) and added a connection. Later I found that (Lynn 2023) suggested a few solutions and linked those two as well.

By just looking at this map you can immediately write a sentence for your literature review. A narrative emerges and synthesis begins.

Summary:

Lay out papers on a spatial canvas using e.g. Obsidian instead of Zotero. Remembering them will be much easier because you can use your spatial memory. Synthesis starts happening automatically when you annotate connections between papers.

Do you do something like this?
Share a screenshot with us!Image
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This is one of the methods you can learn about in my upcoming webinar:

In this post I mentioned Heptabase and Obsidian as tools to achieve this results.

Here is a comparison between those two:

effortlessacademic.com/note-taking-to…
Read 4 tweets

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