Beginning your dissertation is a frightening thought. You’ve got months of research and writing ahead of you. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But, by keeping your eyes on the prize and your work organized, you can make researching and writing your dissertation less of a chore and more of an adventure in learning.
One of the things you should do before you even begin is get your resources and tools in order. There are so many tools available on the web and on software applications you’ll be using that can help you speed up your research, keep it organized and keep your writing on track.
Following are some great, yet very simple add ons you can use with Mozilla’s Firefox application to help you with researching and writing your dissertation.
1.
Zotero – this add on is designed for researchers. It was created by George Mason University and is a free, open source add on. The application enables users to collect, manage, and cite research from all types of sources from the browser. It can manage your bibliography and references for your dissertation. When you’re using a major research website such as Google Scholar, Google Books, or many others, Zotero detects that a book or article is being used and will save the full reference information to a local file with just a mouse click. You can then add notes or other information yourself through the interface. You will then later be able to export the data you’ve accumulated in Zotero as a formatted bibliography. You can also summarize the information contained in your Zotero file as an HTML report.
2.
Similar Web – This extension is useful for researchers because it recommends web pages similar to the one you’re viewing. When looking for information on a particular subject, you’ll automatically find several websites that might be able to help you.
3.
Google Notebook – This extension allows you to save and organize clips of information when you’re doing online research. The tool allows a user to write notes, clip text and images, and save links from pages during a browser session. The information is saved to an online notebook, of sorts, with sharing and collaboration features. Notebooks can be made "public", or visible to others, and can also be used to collaborate with a list of users publicly or privately.
4.
Scrapbook – Scrapbook is a Firefox extension created by the Tokyo Institute of Technology. It allows enhanced bookmarking, page saving and scrapbooking capabilities on web pages that is useful for anyone doing research. It is similar in many ways to Zotero, but is not as robust.
5.
All in One Sidebar – This is an extension that allows user interface similar to that you would find in the Opera Browser. Users get extended sidebar functionality to help keep track of websites visited and information obtained.
Take the time to organize your tools before you even begin researching. As you can see, these applications can help you move much more quickly as you begin researching your dissertation on the web. You’ll find that these simple Firefox extensions help you find information more quickly and organize it better for use in your dissertation.
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