Tue, 18 Oct 1994 08:53:37 -0700 for by KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU (PMDF V4.3-11 #5489) id <01HIF3PM09KG9EHCM7@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>; Tue, 18 Oct 1994 10:53:28 -0500 (CDT) Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 10:53:28 -0500 (CDT) Date-warning: Date header was inserted by KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU From: 1k1mgm@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU (Christopher Gunn) Subject: Re: academic data management To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU >I've never seen a bibliographic manager? What is it and how is it >different from using a database? or Word Perfect's List of Authorities? Well, a program like EndNote (for Macs, DOS and, maybe, someday, in the far distant future, Windows) lets you create a bibliography in the form of a sort of structured database. Then, when you're writing a document, you can select a reference from a reference window, and paste into your document what is in effect a coded pointer back into the reference database (something like [Durkheim, 1977, #241], where #xxx is the database reference number). Then, you post-process the document you've written with the program so that the coded reference [Durkheim, 1977, #241] gets turned into (Durkheim, 1977) (if you're using APA style or an analogous one) and a reference of the type 'Emile Durkheim, _The Elementary Forms....' gets appended as a bibliography. This would be no particular big deal unless (a) you have a zillion references and emit monster bibliographies, or (b) need to use the ability of the programs to do stylistic variants. EndNote claims the ability to do references and bibliographies in the styles of 250+ journals or something. There are people here at my day job (in computational chemistry) who would KILL YOU if you tried to take away their EndNote. But, they *do* have zillions of references and have to emit papers in particularly 'terse' bibliographic styles (Am. Chem. Soc., _Science_, etc.). APA style and its allies is a much looser, more naturalistic, manuscript-writing-oriented way of handling references. If you only do one style (or a few, in the APA-ish category), and typically have reference counts in the low dozens per paper, a bibliographic manager would probably be a time-*waster* rather than a time-saver, particularly if you had to enter all the data by hand. (If you already have the material in a database or structured list (e.g., Unix REFER format), you could probably import it into a reference manager without too much trouble.) My wife, who's in social psychology, makes fun of me for using EndNote and considers it techno- geekishness (and a time-waster). I like it and think that it's already cost- and time-effective. The big players in the Mac world (with which I am most familiar) are EndNote and Pro Cite. The orientation of Pro Cite has always been bibliography management _per se_ (in a library-science sense) rather than note management for paper-writing, although it will apparently do the latter. It used to be that Pro Cite was a lot more expensive, but now I think 'academic' pricing for both is in the $150-200 range, with Pro Cite maybe cheaper. I used to have a booklet with pricing information in it but I can't lay my hands on it. College bookstores would know. EndNote has a 'plug-in module' that's compatible with Mac Microsoft Word 5.1, i.e., it can function (sort of) like a native set of Word commands. Compatiblity with Mac Word 6 (ack!!) and presumably Windows Word 6 eventually is promised. The plug-in module for 5.1 *is* convenient, although the combination is sluggish on 68030-class Macs. I don't know whether to recommend EndNote strongly or not. I think it's awfully expensive for software that's really in what used to be the Mac 'desk accessory' class, and there really isn't a unique student discount. Their 'academic' price is something like 75% of the 'list' price. It's not that hard to understand the logic behind that, I guess, although I'm not willing to endorse it. Kit Gunn, Univ. of Kansas Christopher Gunn Molecular Graphics and Modeling Laboratory 1k1mgm@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu University of Kansas Phone: 913-864-4428 or -4495 Malott Hall Lawrence, KS 66045