Tools for the Doctoral Journey – Reading

Computer: Macbook Pro

I had this computer since 2013 and it worked really well. It is probably because I maxed out the specs at the time. I didn’t see the need to buy anything new for this.

Cloud Storage: Dropbox 2TB Individual Account

There is a lot of material to manage in a doctoral program so it is best to keep organized from the beginning. It is not unusual to have to read 5-10 journal articles a week. Each of these could be 20+ pages each.
You want to keep them all.
My program has 12 week quarters all year round and I was taking 2 classes per quarter.
In Dropbox, I created a folder for each class.
- I then created 12 sub-folders for each week of class, labelled “Week 01, Week 02… Week 12”
- I also created a folder for “Classwork” which included syllabi etc.

I converted as much as I could to PDF so I could store them all here.
I linked Dropbox to every computer I worked on, as well as to my iPhone and iPad so I could access all my files from anywhere.
$9.99 / month (yearly subscription)
https://www.dropbox.com/plans?trigger=nr

Google Scholar

As much as I love my university library, the database search engine function is archaic and requires you to use specific terms. This uses Google’s search engine technology to find articles.
General Use
- After I find articles I like, I check to see if they are peer reviewed using Ulrichsweb (see below) and then click through using to Kopernio (also below) download them.
For Literature Review

Click on hamburger menu, settings, Bibliography menu, Show like to import citations into “RefMan”
This creates an “Import into RefMan” link option at the bottom of articles.
When I find a research article I like, I click on that link and it will import into Mendeley
Free
https://scholar.google.com/

Ulrichsweb

This uses your university credentials to help verify that research articles come from peer reviewed (refereed) sources. The icon even looks like a referee uniform.
Free
http://ulrichsweb.serialssolutions.com/login

Kopernio

This is a browser plug-in for Chrome that uses your university credentials to simplify access to full research article PDF’s.
I then add them to a class folder or temp folder in dropbox
I then add it to Mendeley
Free
https://kopernio.com/

Ebook to PDF Convertor: Epubor Ultimate and Epubor-kcr-converter

I live in a small apartment and I don’t have a lot of room for books.
That takes Kindle Ebooks and converts them into PDFs so that I could
- Read and annotate them on my iPad (see below)
- Include them in my Citation Manager (see below)
- Listen to them on my iPhone (see below)
$29.99 one time
https://www.epubor.com/ultimate.html
$14.99 one time
https://www.epubor.com/kcr-converter.html

Reference and Citation Manager: Mendeley

I used this to store reference information for every article, book and website I came across.
I created a folder structure that mirrored what was in my cloud storage.
I then linked the articles from Dropbox to the folders in Mendeley.
The PDF documents could then be so seen here and searched within the program itself.
For things that could not be put into PDF format like books and websites, I also created a reference citation.
As I wrote, I would search through the entire database using key words
I would then skim through the articles it would serve up for relevancy.
I would use the Word add-in to drop the reference into the body of my writing.
I would finally add the reference to the end of my document.
For Literature Review
- I looked up articles in Google Scholar
- I then added the references (if not the whole PDF) to Mendeley

Tablet: iPad Pro and Apple Pencil

This was the first model that had the Apple Pencil. It was about 3 years old and it also worked well.

Reading and Annotating: iAnnotate for the iPad

As mentioned above, there is a LOT of reading in a doctoral program. I started out printing every article out until I realized after the first week that I printed out over 100 pages. This was going to be unsustainable for the long haul and I needed another solution.
I had a new iPad with a pen so I decided to try reading and highlighting PDF’s electronically. This worked out really well.
iAnnotate connected to my Dropbox account seamlessly.
When I needed to read something, I just called it up from the app.
The PDF’s were clear. The pen felt natural had options to highlight and annotate.
I was able to search through the document using key words.
When I was finished, I closed the document. Any annotations were saved along with the PDF back to Dropbox which also synced to Mendeley.
$9.99 one time
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/iannotate-4-read-markup-share/id1093924230

Phone: iPhone

Speed Reading without Annotating: Voice Dream Reader for the iPhone

Again, there is a LOT of reading in a doctoral program.
I didn’t have a lot of time to read, but I was also commuting 2 hours a day for work.
Voice Dream takes PDF’s and reads them around via voice recognition software.
It didn’t sound as robotic as you would think and after playing around, I found an Australian accent that really gibed with me.
I was able to change the read back speed to a fairly high rate and would be able to “read” and get the gist of a 20 page article in an hour.
If you think about it, this amounts to 40 pages a day or 200 pages a week.
I would then jot down notes after my drive and skim through the articles if I didn’t have time to do a proper read.
$9.99
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/voice-dream-reader/id496177674

Post-it Tabs: Post-it Tabs Value Pack, Assorted Primary Colors, Durable, Writable, Reposition-able

Colored Pens: Sharpie 1802225 Pen, Fine Point, Assorted Colors, 6-Count

In a program like this, you do a lot of manual note-taking. It was good having a number of different colors to emphasize different thoughts
$10.34 one time
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LU2QA6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Highlighters: Sharpie 27145 Pocket Highlighters, Chisel Tip, Assorted Colors, 12-Count