Following is a directory of digital tools and methods taught and supported by the Pollak Library for capturing, organizing, annotating, and writing up your research. Some of these tools support collaborative research, and some allow you to publish selected parts of your research as publicly-viewable bibliographies, notes, web pages, and/or databses.
Zotero is a free, open source, research and reference management system that gets locally installed on your computer. It is useful for capturing, organizing, annotating, citing, sharing, and collaborating on research sources. Zotero is available as a desktop application for Mac, Windows, and Linux; has iOs and Android mobile apps; and can be synced across devices.
CSUF Resources
Scrivener is a locally installed application designed for long-form writing projects such as articles, books, screenplays, theses, dissertations, etc. It has tools that facilitate outlining, organizing, writing, editing, and exporting writing projects in different publishing formats, as well as adding and moving source citations. Scrivener is available as a desktop application for Mac or Windows and for iOS devices. It requires a onetime single license purchase that can be used across multiple computers, and a free trial is available.
CSUF Resources
Notion is a web-based knowledge management and productivity platform. One of its primary features is pages, which can be used to build your own personal knowledge base where you can create, organize, update, and easily re-find your research notes. You can publish certain pages online to make them publicly viewable. Another primary feature is databases, which are useful for keeping track of projects, task, goals, etc. Databases can be as simple as a single table, yet can also be developed as relational tables that can also integrate custom functions.
CSUF Resources