Hi there,

Mendeley is getting very long to get back to me; so thought of asking you guys to sort out the problem.

I can't seem to invoke the Cite-while-you-write facility within Word. I am running Win 10 and Office 2016. I have re-installed not only the Mendeley Word plug-in but completely uninstalled Mendeley, restarted the machine and reinstalled Mendeley Desktop but still I can't seem to cite while I write. Word says the plug in has been installed and I can see Cite-O-Matic icons in Word but when I try to cite, it says 'Connection Refused and to check whether I have logged in properly'. I have logged in properly; not too sure how else to log in really. I have also done the debug thing and reset the http server port (to 50002) but still no success. Can anyone help please? Many thanks in advance.

If all goes well I plan to start on a PhD in the next few months. I need to sort out a reference manager.

1) As a reference manager are there strong reasons to choose Zotero over Mendeley? I love the GUI of Mendeley over all other reference managers I have tried. But I am not sure whether Mendeley being owned by a private company that deals with journal articles is a positive thing. They pretty much have access to all our research-related data we store on Mendeley! Also, I hate the fact that Zotero has one parent entry for each reference and then multiple child entries under that. It gets so complicated and cluttered. Mendeley seems nice and simple with just one entry per reference.

2) In Mendeley when syncing is carried, are the contents of Notes and Private Annotations also synced? They do not seem to sync in the multiple devices I have.

3) In Mendeley is there a plug-in that would enhance the features of Notes and Private Annotations? The former only seems to have Bold, Italics and Underline functions which is not enough and the latter not even that!

4) In Mendeley, is it possible to export the contents of Notes written in the collection of PDFs as a batch?

5) In Mendeley, is it possible to export the contents of Private Annotations as a batch? I know it is possible to do this one-by-one. Not helpful when there are heaps of PDFs though.

6) Is there anyway to have a mind-mapping tool integrated to Mendeley? In order to go from managing articles + making notes to formal writing I need a visual middle-man so I can organise my research writing and jot down ideas and have a look at how everything fits in before I actually start formal writing. Any software that would help me do this please? I tried Qiqqa and Docear - they both have the functions I need but their GUI is user-unfriendly and ugly!

Thanks very much in advance :)

Nope, I am not talking about managing references. How does one keep track of the articles one reads, make notes and summaries on them etc? With endless articles to read, I just don't know how to keep track and I keep forgetting the stuff I read months ago. Endnote and Refworks seem very good for managing the references but I hate using them to make notes; that functionality in both these software seems rudimentary at best.
Thanks in advance.

I do use Endnote but it is very much a reference management software. I am wanting something that allows me to make summaries of the journal articles I read, connect these summaries together, store whatever lab work and procedures I have done, make mind-maps etc. As my PhD is a part-time PhD, the project will at least take 4-5 years. So, as much as I prefer doing things on paper, it is not going to be practical to maintain everything in hard-copy format over many years.

Hi All,

Recently started a PhD and I know there's no way I'd be able to keep track and manage the summaries I make of journal articles, summary of lab work, my own thoughts, research designs and plans, all in one place, in a paper format over many years. So, I have been hunting for a software that would help me do this and I stumbled across NVivo. Our University provides the software for free for PhD students and Academic Staff.

I know NVivo is excellent for managing qualitative data analysis in the Arts where they need to transcribe interviews and the like. But what about in the Life sciences? Which software is better? Does NVivo work in the Sciences too? There are no interviews to transcribe.

I wish Endote had a feature for this but the notes field in Endnote is rudimentary at best.

Many thanks.