Organizing and Analyzing Mounds of Research Text? 28
Andrew Green asks: "Four years ago, I stopped working on my Master's thesis in Social Anthropology. Now, I'm getting back to it again, and I find there's a _lot_ of text to deal with. I have a 350-page field diary, a dozen transcripts of recorded interviews, lists of books and articles, extensive notes about the books and articles, and the books and articles themselves in dead-tree or electronic format. I want to organize _all_ of it. I need to keep track of all the different text files on my computer (most are in MS formats, though I now use GNU/Linux), which ideally means keeping personalized sets of metadata about each file, linking files to other files and to entries in bibliography lists, and having some sort of version control. I'd also like to be able to do a free-text search on all texts on my local hard drive. And, most important of all, I need to build a hierarchical list of topics that are relevant to my thesis and relate specific sections of all these texts (not just whole files) to different topics. Any ideas? I know there are proprietary solutions out there, but I don't want to use them. What free applications can best deal with some or all of my needs? Would I be better off building something myself?"
working on it (Score:3, Interesting)
If others were interested, I'd happily post the diffs to do it (the UML drawer is 'ldsdraw', which isn't under a license yet so, while openly available, distribution of my 'fork' wouldn't be proper so I can only provide the 'diffs'. The author is open to licensing/sourceforging it but that's awaiting an excess of free time.) The editor is also modded but both set of 'diffs' are really short. I love Tcl/Tk.
the open source app for your needs: (Score:4, Funny)
Re:the open source app for your needs: (Score:3, Informative)
Try GNU Nano [nano-editor.org] instead.
Just link nano to pico and never look back!
-Peter
Re:the open source app for your needs: (Score:1)
Just link nano to pico and never look back!
Or, link vim to pico and let the users' confused looks entertain you. :)
Re:the open source app for your needs: (Score:3, Funny)
(Stolen from http://entropy.brni-jhu.org/unix-benefits.html [brni-jhu.org].)
-Peter
Some things that can help (Score:1, Funny)
Dude. (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude. Quit procrastinating and write the damn thing...your teachers have no clue who you are and it will be a surprise when you dump said "thesis" on their desks.
Re:Dude. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you insist on linking the documents, use plain hand-written HTML - I've done it before while getting in to a subject, but don't expect to need it after the first couple of weeks.
wait, FREE solutions? (Score:3, Informative)
DEVONthink [devon-technologies.com]
It's really cool and great for exactly what you describe: storing a bunch of loosely-connected information that you need to search and cluster into categories.
You just add your text and it will automatically classify it using semantic analysis.
But alas, it is for Mac only and is not Free.
If anybody knows about anything like this for Linux, and Free, I'd love to hear about it....
InfoSelect (Score:4, Funny)
http://www.miclog.com/ [miclog.com]
(Or keep Linux and try to run InfoSelect with WINE. I don't know if that would work.)
Or, AskSam (Score:2)
Try TWiki (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.twiki.org/
keeping personalized sets of metadata about each file, linking files to other files and to entries in bibliography lists, and having some sort of version control.
Each TWiki page can have custom searchable metadata in forms. Pages are linked to other pages by WikiWords. Version control and access lists are on every page.
I'd also like to be able to do a free-text search
Text searching is integrated. You can arrange TWiki pages into hierarchies with parent topic, and there is automatic crossreferencing.
TWiki uses a pure text format with some simple markup, *bold* for example. HTML can be used as well.
I'd suggest you check it out. No database required.
Demo
If you want a real tool for organizing knowledge (Score:1, Informative)
Re:If you want a real tool for organizing knowledg (Score:3, Informative)
Circus Ponies! (Score:3, Informative)
It looks like a notebook. It works like an outliner. You can organize work page by page, or use long scrolling pages. It has dividers with tabs for different sections, and customizable page styles. It has highlighters and stickies for annotation. It sets up system-wide clipping services to let you pull snippets of information in from any application. And the best bit is that it automatically indexes everything you put in it at the back, builds a dynamic table of contents at the front, date-stamps every outline entry, and has super-fast search including search by highlighter color and search of stickies. It imports and exports XML and RTF.
But unfortunately for you, it's one of the many great reasons to get a Mac.
Nothing will think for you (Score:4, Informative)
Here are some links to indexing and searching software. There is a lot of stuff oriented towards providing search functionality on web pages, but you may want something that just searches your local drive.
some have tried asksam (Score:2, Informative)
3 ring binder anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
After that you will have a great start on digitizing the whole thing if you still feel like it later (presumably after you've actually gone ahead and written your paper).
Seriously, why take all the time to digitize this stuff when you're only going to use it once in your life as reference. When and if you get to publish it later you can spend the time inputting or maybe even hire someone to do it for you.
Namazu? (Score:3, Informative)
Basically can run full-text searches against text that you have on your local HD and build up indexes. Reasonably fast, from what I can tell. Also has support for DOC/PDF, through some interesting method. If it doesn't, look for "catdoc", which will let you (usually) get plain text from a word
apt-get install namazu catdoc, for those who are enlightened.
--Robert
Use Page Ranking ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why not use a system similar to this to index all your information ?
Ed Almos
Get it into your brain, not into your computer... (Score:1, Insightful)
This ISN'T too much data to put in your head, and in your head is where it needs to be. Soak in it. Give your right brain a chance to have a crack at it. Then one day you'll wake up from a sound sleep at 3 a.m. in the morning and something will suddenly be clear that hadn't been clear before.
Admittedly, it will then take you about thirty minutes
What you need is.... (Score:1)
However, that is an expensive route to follow. As for a hierarchical database system, I have yet to find a cheap one or "free" one, however, I have only been searching for one in the context of archival purposes, so that is probably the problem. I believe you could probably manipulate Inmagic's DB/Textworks to do what you want. But I believe it isn't a "hierarchical" database. Good luck!
Wimp. (Score:1)
DOS is the answer (Score:1)
one suggestion (Score:2)