PerspectivesAre you interested in submitting a Perspective Article? Be sure to read The Science Advisory Board's Editorial Guides for Perspective Articles. Click here. Streamlining Scientific Publications: A Review by Gabriel Dorado1, Pilar Hernández2, María del Pilar Dorado3 If we had to decide which application to carry with our Mac to a deserted island, it would be Endnote . (At least if we had to spend our time writing scientific papers.) We have been using EndNote since version 1.0 (back in 1989; yes, even before Internet was popularized), when it was only available for the Mac. The reason is straightforward: it is intuitive and easy to use, yet powerful and comprehensive. That is the Mac look and feel, the Mac way. Over the years, we have been testing and evaluating every single bibliographic reference application that has been available, and we have yet to find anyone that beats EndNote. In fact, EndNote was so good, that Thomson purchased it some years ago from its original developer (Niles Software, formerly Niles & Associates). Yet, the main problem with EndNote and any other bibliographic application is inertia. Some people refuse to use them, because they think that such tools are difficult to use (some of them are!). Likewise, since they have always done their bibliographic work “manually”, they believe that it is the best way for them to continue working (just as what happens with the use of the operating system itself). To those people we say: give EndNote X1 for Mac OS X a try. Because knowing it will mean loving it for sure! It is not just that EndNote will literally save you days, weeks or even months of hard work; you will also enjoy using it. Such a tool allows you to build or change the reference layout and format in seconds, instead of hours or days of hard work. Additionally, EndNote has the power to prevent common bibliographic mistakes, like references in the text not listed in the reference list, and vice versa. And if you import your references online as we do, gone are the days in which the reference contents are incomplete or contain typos. After all, that is the main reason why this bibliographic tool was developed years ago! The new EndNote X1 (version 11.0.0.2377) returns to its origins (which is most welcome), in the sense that it is more Mac-like than previous versions. It sports a more intuitive interface, with a better integration with Mac OS X in general and spell checker in particular. We are not arguing that EndNote does not have rough edges or room for improvement, which it has (see below). But, for us, it stands as the best bibliographic package in the market, hands down. The EndNote X1 installation is quite simple. Just double click the “EndNoteX1Installer.dmg” disk image and drag and drop the “EndNote X1” folder to the Applications folder, as the installer directions indicate. We have found that you can also drag and drop it to any other place you may want, which is handy to organize your applications in subfolders. Double click the “EndNote X1.app” inside, enter the product key (or select the 30-day trial; see below) and follow the prompts (e.g., if Word is open, you are asked to quit it, for EndNote to install). Once installed, you are ready to discover and enjoy the new EndNote X1 features. In short: • Group references. Use groups to view and manage subsets of references in your library. Create up to 500 custom groups per EndNote library. If you use playlists in audio applications like iTunes, you know how to use this EndNote feature. Just drag and drop references into groups. • View authors. Display single or multiple author names for each reference in the library reference list. This comes in handy to review more information instantly. • Fonts. Select your choice of font and size to display the library window, general text that you enter, search text, and field labels. • Share. Export and import custom reference type tables, to easily share them with EndNote users. • Spelling. Spell check a single reference or your entire library with the Mac OS X spell checker. Easily convert older custom dictionaries to the Mac OS X spell checker format, with the provided dictionary converter. • RTF & Open Office. Scan and format Open Office documents as well as “rich text format” (.rtf) files with the format paper command. • Toolbar quick search. This new engine (similar to the Spotlight or Safari search feature) also enhances your productivity to search all fields in a library or group, without opening a new window. • Cite While You Write (CWYW) in Word X and Word 2004, with a new convenient tab to replace the tools menu of previous versions. These features will be also supported in Word 2008 for Mac, which is expected by January 2008. • Mac AppleScript support, to automate repetitive tasks and extend EndNote X1 functions between applications. This is much appreciated in the Mac community. It is also worth mentioning the integration of EndNote X1 (standalone) with EndNote Web, a companion product available via ISI Web of Knowledge. This is great to CWYW not only with the former, but also with the latter. Or if you want to perform searches via web and then transfer the hits to EndNote X1 for future reference and use. Likewise, it is great to see EndNote again as a Universal application (that is, native for both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs), as well as multicore and multiprocessor Macs. Yet, the current EndNote X1 does not seem to take full advantage of the new Intel cores, as shown by both the Activity Monitor (Apple) and the Menu Meters (Raging Menace), exhibiting about 50% usage of the cores instead of 100% (or near), which would format about twice as fast. There seems to be some ground to grow and improve for EndNote. On the good side, it is nice to see that EndNote X1 is intelligent enough as not to duplicate a reference formatted list if the format bibliography feature is activated in a document containing a previously formatted reference list. In such a case, EndNote X1 checks and “repairs” or “updates” the list as needed. Other EndNote X1 features can be found in the application Help menu, as well as the EndNote web site. There are also online tutorials (always available), webinar classes (regularly scheduled), onsite classes (by arrangement) and even instructor support, which is most useful if you want to provide EndNote training at your organization. At the time of writing this review, some online tutorials were not available (broken links) and the ones available showed in a small window with small fonts that may be hard to read for some people. You can also view a tour of EndNote X1 new features from here. Bear in mind that the Mac tutorial describes the Windows features, not the Mac features. As an example it shows the EndNote X1 support for Word 2007 (yet that is a Windows-only version of Word!). In fact all the screen captures and videos correspond to the Windows interface version, not the Mac one! Hopefully, Thomson will fix these issues soon. A more rough edge is the possibility to connect to remote commercial (not free) bibliographic databases like the ISI Web of Knowledge via the EndNote built-in Connection Manager. It is certainly possible to make it work off-campus, but it is a tricky task (no problem when working from our offices at the University, or when using VPN, yet the latter is less convenient). It would be great if Thomson could somehow provide efficient support to quickly activate such a feature, since more and more people work off-campus these days, either at home, while traveling, etc. Minor glitches are the way EndNote displays the Style Manager, Filter Manager and Connection Manager when you select (tick) and sort by favorites. Not all favorites are shown if they happen to be sorted before or after the last selected line, after clicking the Favorite tab to sort. You must scroll upwards or downwards to see them all. That may be misleading. On our wish list for EndNote is the possibility to search for particular journal style layouts. The current implementation of Style Manager allows you to select from a list of thousands of journals (which is great), but not the inverse. Thus, if you have a pre-determined style that you must use (but you do not know a priori the journal supplying it), searching the style that best fits may be a daunting task of manually checking each and every one of the thousands of supplied styles - a task that may take weeks of work and that obviously no one will want to undertake! The EndNote Output Styles is a useful resource, but may not be as useful as required when searching for a particular style. Usually, too many styles are shown as hits (hundreds or even thousands!), when maybe one or two actually correspond to the exact and specific searched style! Another suggestion to improve EndNote is the integration and uniformity of the search formats for the different databases (or at least, to start with, for the most popular ones). For instance, the search format for, say, author, is different if you search in the ISI Web of Knowledge or if you search in PubMed. Even worse, such search formats do not always correspond to the ones you use when searching those very same databases via web, which is utterly confusing. It is also frustrating that the Online Search window does not have the very same interface as the Connection Manager, lacking the useful feature of the favorite tab, for instance (yes, you can display only the favorites from the popup menu, but it is not the same). The number of EndNote X1 references to be inserted into Word should not be limited; the current version can only insert up to 50 references. It would be also nice if EndNote created the bibliographic reference list not necessarily at the end of the document, but where the mouse pointer “I” beam (cursor) is located, and in any case after a prompt for use confirmation. That comes handy when having tables, figure legends, etc. after the reference list (as usually happens in manuscripts to be submitted for publication). On the other hand, the list of formatted references are displayed using the selected style, as expected, yet no journal-specific indent formatting is applied, which would be much welcome. Additionally, the AppleScript support should allow one to use other word processors (besides Word) with EndNote. It would be great if Thomson and Apple could arrange to fully support the Apple Pages word processor (part of the iWork package). EndNote X1 can be downloaded for $239.95 or $89.95 (upgrade). The physical shipped package is $299.95 or $99.95 (upgrade). Students can purchase EndNote for just $109.95. A valid student ID is required to purchase the Student Package. For more information or to download a free trial (which is fully-functional for 30 days and can be activated with a license code), just point to the EndNote web site. Note that if in the installation process you do not insert the license code, then you should uninstall and reinstall it again to enter it. That is certainly not convenient and hopefully Thomson will allow activation of EndNote at any time during the 30-day trial or later. Additionally, note that the uninstaller is hidden inside the “Customizer” of the EndNote X1 menu. We would rather call it “Installer/Uninstaller”. All in all, EndNote X1 for Mac OS X is a jewel. It has the power to save you a lot of hard bibliographic work, besides preventing the common bibliographic errors and assuring a high quality bibliographic result. The day you give it a try, you will wonder how could you work without it before. Acknowledgement Supported by “Grupo PAI AGR-001” and “Grupo PAI TEP-169” of “Junta de Andalucía” (Spain). References Thomson Corporation (2007): “EndNote X1. User’s Manual”. The Thomson Corporation (Philadelphia). Web: http://www.thomson.com. Gabriel Dorado1, Author for correspondence, Dep. Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Campus Rabanales C6-1-E17, Universidad de Córdoba, 14071 Córdoba (Spain), eMail: bb1dopeg@uco.es; 2Dep. Agronomía y Mejora Genética Vegetal, Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible (IAS-CSIC), Alameda del Obispo s/n, 14080 Córdoba; 3Dep. Química Física y Termodinámica Aplicada, E.P.S., C/. María Virgen y Madre s/n (esquina Menéndez Pidal), 14071 Córdoba ### << Previous Next >> [ View All Perspectives ] |
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