However, the export function does not always produce the best results. odt file, along with several other export options, some text based, other graphical. Either way, the mind map can be exported as a Microsoft Word. The user can produce as much or as little of an outline as they would like by producing a basic outline or an almost complete paper, complete with citations from the References list. By creating a new mind map in the project's My drafts folder, the user can create a mind map of their own paper, easily reorganizing as needed, until the user is happy with the way their paper is organized. Docear assists with that process by making it easy to organize thoughts and structure ideas in the same way research is organized. Once the user has their literature entered and organized, it is time to turn that research into an article or presentation. The references are stored in a BibTex file so they can easily be used by any BibTex-friendly word processors or text editors.

Item types can be set to Article, Book, Master's Thesis, PhD Thesis, and many more, each providing a custom set of fields so that the user can create an accurate and complete bibliographic entry for the item. Should the user need to create a bibliographic record by hand, the References tab in the right sidebar provides plenty of options. This opens a window with several options for creating a new bibliographic record: creating a blank entry, creating an entry using metadata found using Google Scholar, or creating an entry based on data in the document. To create a reference, right click on an item and select References > Create or update reference.

Once items are imported into the Literature & Annotations mind map, they can be sorted into various categories, and bibliographic references can be created for each entry. In addition to importing the files, any PDF that has a table of contents or notes will have those items added to the mind map. All PDFs placed in the project's Literature repository will appear under the Incoming branch of the mind map after clicking on the Reload monitored folders arrows in the root item of the Literature & Annotations mind map. This mind map allows the user to organize their research into categories and make connections. Importing and organizing researchĭocear keeps track of scholarly articles in a special mind map titled Literature & Annotations. See Docear's manual for details about additional features. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Users interested in what Docear can offer should download the program and try it for themselves. While I will be looking at a variety of Docear's features, I will not be covering all of them. Docear provides a single platform that can support almost every aspect of the research process.īelow, I take a look at how Docear manages a collection of scholarly literature and how it can help a user organize their thoughts by creating a mind map as an initial draft of a paper. Researchers can keep track of their citations and notes, and easily include them when mapping the structure of their paper. By leveraging the power of these two open source applications, Docear creates something that is greater than the sum of its parts. One exception to this Docear, a single, well integrated, tool that handles mind-mapping, works as a citation manager, and does even more.ĭocear describes itself as 'The Academic Literature Suite,' and works by combining the Freeplane mind-mapping software and the JabRef reference manager into a single cohesive tool. Often those programs are distinct pieces of software that do not always work well together. To simplify that task, there are many tools available to assist a researcher with keeping track of their bibliographic citations, and there are also plenty of tools to help a user organize their thoughts. Turning a collection of scholarly research into a coherent paper requires a great deal of organizing and planning. Writing a major scholarly paper can be a daunting undertaking. The Docear academic literature suite blends Freeplane and JabRef to make a comprehensive academic paper-writing application, with support for mind-mapping, citations, notes, and many other features.

Docear for latex