Helpful Resources

Grad school has a high tendency to make one go (at least) slightly berserk. I thought it’d be great to share some of the tools I use to keep myself in line, academically. I hope you find this listing helpful (and it will be adjusted as I discover new and/or better tools).

 File Management
The grad school file management struggle is REAL! Here’s what I use to keep my files organized & backed up:

 Evernote is the salvation of my grad life! There’s a 60MB monthly upload limit for free accounts, but premium accounts get 1GB monthly for a $45 annual fee. Basically, if you can time your uploads right, you don’t ever have to pay.

1.  As can be expected in a master/PhD program, there are TONS of articles & chapter excerpts to read. We get many of them online through our library. When I’m doing online research, I can save websites with helpful tips or research information by using the Evernote Clipper. I just click the cute little extension button at the top of my browser, select the folder, add any tags, & voila!
2. Sharing & collaboration, FTW! Every single note has its own URL, so you can share the link with whomever you wish. Same thing with notebooks and notestacks.
3.  I’ve taken to using my free 2GB account at Dropbox to save things I’m done using for a while. Lots of other people use it to store documents they’re working on from multiple places. Although Dropbox doesn’t have a dedicated email address for uploading, there are several third-party options for that. It’s also great for sharing large files with others (instead of using mediafire, yousendit!, and the like). The same feature can be used to collaborate on documents.

Writing

I LOVE using GoogleDocs because I can access whatever I’m working on from anywhere with an internet connection. I usually start writing here and then either download or copy/paste into MS Word to add in & format the references. But things over at the GooglePlex are moving, so I haven’t had to do this as much. Maybe by the time I get started on my dissertation, they’ll have the ability to connect with RefWorks or maybe create their own reference manager so that I don’t even have to do any of that.

 Grammarly, a grammar-checking program trusted by more than 300,000 students and endorsed by hundreds of universities, helps take care of that!


Books:

I love words (in case you couldn’t tell).  I especially love when they come together as stories or guides.


Bigwords.com is my first stop for book shopping. This site does all the book shopping legwork for you when you’re shopping for deals on books rather than spending half of your stipend or financial aid in the bookstore. If you have memberships to B&N or Amazon Prime, they automatically calculate your discount, so you don’t have to do any double-checking.