How to view academic journal articles off campus using your library's proxy

• January 7, 2017

If you are a student or researcher, you are probably aware that much of the academic research out there is not free to access. However, if you’re affiliated with a university, you may also notice that you can access academic journals and similar content without any effort when you’re connected to your institution’s WiFi.

Suddenly, at home, the journal websites complain that you need to pay up to see the content. Chances are, though, that you can use your library’s proxy to see it.

A Zotero workflow with ZotFile

• November 21, 2014

I’ve talked before about why you should use Zotero, but for many people, it takes some guidance to get it really working for you. This is especially true if you’d like to use a Zotero workflow that involves managing your documents and research more generally. Here’s our primer on using Zotero to organize your documents in addition to using its citation and bibliography-building capabilities. The Zotero add-on called ZotFile will help out, too.

Active digitizers: The feature you didn’t know you wanted in your tablet

• March 4, 2014

Affordable and lightweight touchscreens changed the consumer electronics market forever. The promise of touchscreens was full control with precision. Navigating our screens with hardware, like we did on our computers or non-touchscreen phones, was precise but didn’t give us the same sense of control that reaching out and touching our target does. Of course, things did not work out quite as smoothly as we found out that our clunky fingers were really imprecise and so were those soft-tipped styli we bought to fix that problem.

What could bring us the greater precision that we seek? Not better fingers nor bigger screens. Instead, a different touch-sensing system entirely.

Zotero, the free citation manager for students, teachers, and more

• March 3, 2014

Citing sources is one of the most tedious parts of research, academic or otherwise. You’ve done the legwork, but proving it to your readers seems to take more effort than the writing and searching! Once upon a time, websites like EasyBib or Citation Machine were the cutting edge for people trying to expedite the process. With the advent of a widely available, free citation manager like Zotero, those seem like things of the past.