Papers: Software for Research
What is it?
Papers is a software application for Mac OS X, iPhone and iPad that manages your library of (scientific) literature. It can be downloaded from http://www.mekentosj.com: the Mac-version costs €59 / $79, and there is a free 30-day trial available. Papers Touch, the iOS version, costs €12 / $15: this is a so-called “universal binary”, which means the same app runs both on iPhone (or iPoud Touch) and iPad.
Papers for Mac
The main screen is visible in Figure 1, and is comparable to the interface of Apple’s iTunes. In the left column there are several default folders, containing your library and a search field for example. Below there are both “smart folders” (that automatically aggregate content based on some conditions, like author or title words) and normal folders to which you can drag articles. In the middle you see the articles and a preview below. Although you can read the article in this preview, it is more comfortable to open it in a new tab or read it full screen. The right column shows the article’s information, including abstract. I found this to be very useful: when reading an article, sometimes I want to look back to the abstract. This way I don’t need to scroll back.
Figure 1: Papers for Mac - Home screen (click to enlarge)
Since Papers 2 arrived, it is also possible to manage your references with this program, like EndNote does. Figure 2 shows how this works: when typing in e.g. Word or Pages, double-press the Control-key and a menu pops up. Simply type in the name of the author, a topic, or what you are looking for, and select from the list. This functionality is called “Manuscripts” and works like a charm.
Figure 2: Papers for Mac – Manuscripts (click to enlarge)
Papers Touch
Reading from the small iPhone screen can be cumbersome because the articles are in PDF and –therefore- do not adapt to screen size (in contrast with the EPUB format that is used for many eBooks, but also available for our articles on Surgical Neurology International). Reading from the iPad goes very well, as can be seen in Figure 3. Synchronisation between the library on your Mac and your iOS device is done wirelessly (WiFi) – no iCloud (yet).
Figure 3: Papers Touch on iPad (click to enlarge)
Discussion
I have been using Papers for a few years now, and am hugely impressed by the app. The addition of “Manuscripts” in Papers 2 made EndNote obsolete for me. A minor disadvantage is that the number of available reference styles is still limited, but it is steadily growing. Such styles are made in the so-called Citation Style Language (CSL), which can be done by anyone who is a little familiar with the HTML and XML language.
I recently created the CSL style for Surgical Neurology International, that can be downloaded from our Author Instructions page. It has also been submitted to the original CSL styles repository, so you can expect it to be included with the app soon.
Conclusion
Excellent app, 5 out of 5 stars without doubt. And one of the reasons to buy a Mac.
Pieter Kubben
Information Technology editor
Surgical Neurology International
Elekta Perfexion
More info is available here.
Decision support for depressed cranial fractures
And here is number 5 out of 5 of the surgical guidelines of the Brain Trauma Foundation: depressed cranial fractures. In my earlier posts you read about on epidural hematoma, acute subdural hematoma, traumatic parenchymal lesions, and posterior fossa mass lesions. Before implementing the final part I needed to fix a technical problem. I ended up creating a workaround that does the job, so here we go…
Step 1: the original text-version of the guideline’s recommendations
Step 2: create a flowchart
(click for full size version)
Note that the double line around the first decision moment is my way to indicate that both factors should be present (a logical AND-operator).
Step 3: convert into an app!
As you can see, the text is a little too long for the iPhone’s display. Of course, on iPad there is no problem because of the larger screen. I have not tested this one on Android yet. At least this is something I have to work on, probably I should decrease the font size on iPhone a little bit.
So, here is how the full Brain Trauma Foundation section on the surgical guidelines look in the iPhone menu of NeuroMind 2:
Now they’re just in the order in which they appear in the guidelines. Probably I will change this into alphabetical order later on… The latest developments on NeuroMind 2 are available here.
Pieter Kubben
IT editor
Surgical Neurology International
Papers style added to Author Instructions
One month ago we gave you a sneak preview on our upcoming reference style to use with Papers, a Mac-alternative for EndNote. Now we made this style available for download at our Author Instructions page.
It has also been validated and uploaded to GitHub, according to the suggestion of our reader Rintze Zelle.
