Academic and scientific research requires dealing with lots of working papers, books, publications, and research and data documents. All those documents can be kept in PDF file format. Research is however, more than just reading. It requires keeping documents in order and organized for reference and citation purposes. That is why each academic research project has the special challenge of keeping all publications sorted out and accounted for at all times.
Mendeley is a great tool that you can use for organizing and managing a research project. It is a desktop software which can be downloaded to your computer. The software gives you access to an open catalog of millions of publications, thus making it incredibly easy to track and export references. Every researcher knows how time consuming it can be to manually enter all of your references, and that is where Mendeley can be of great help. The service covers a large number of citation styles, but you can always create your own as well. You can even search for references online on Mendeley’s website.
When dealing with PDF files, Mendeley allows annotations, which enables readers to keep track of ideas, citations, plans and proposals.
All PDFs can be organized in folders and sub-groups, but this tool also offers integration with MS Office, OpenOffice and BibTex.
One of the most important features of this tool is its collaboration capabilities. One can create and search for groups of like-minded researchers, and share opinions and ideas with them as well. It is also possible to create private groups and collaborate on the same project with others. Not only that, but you can also build your research profiles and get in contact with academics all around the world as well through Mendeley.
