Examples

Tools

Google- or Semantic Scholar - find sources

Zotero - collect & organise sources

You can use Zotero w/ Google Drive to avoid paying for Zotero storage

Zbib - quickly generate bibliographies from URL imports etc

Notion - note taking & knowledge mgmt (you're seeing it now!)

Obsidian or Foam or Stroll - alternatives for note taking, inspired by RoamResearch

https://youtu.be/HBynXko1wUU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsOWIeBhado

Grammarly and similar - write correctly and concisely

Overleaf or TeXstudio - write in LaTeX

Git / GitHub - version control (back up your work history! sync across computers! etc)

General Resources

Principles of Effective Research

Systemic task assessment & time management post (reddit).

https://www.experimental-history.com/p/science-is-a-strong-link-problem — is your research project a strong-link or a weak-link problem? What do you think of the framing proposed in this article?

https://slab.org/research-products/. As opposed to "research prototypes" — your work, the result of practice-based research, taken for what it is, not what it might become. "not [...] a commercially viable product, but it's also not [...] a step towards one." Are you working towards a product or a prototype?

https://youtu.be/ZsEQmtOiyH8

The oral presentation: one thing to try if you’re stuck for ideas, is to rethink the structure. Your slides (20-30 minutes) do NOT need to follow the same beats, in the same order, as the written thesis.

Preparing to Write

How to Write a Thesis, Umberto Eco. "First, writing a thesis should be fun. Second, writing a thesis is like cooking a pig: nothing goes to waste." — A must-read, lays out what research is and how to go about it, even if only for a few months in your life.

Atelier de scriere academică