In research, literature review and collection of related data is a critical and vital part. Even with precise keywords search it is inevitable to end with a pile of PDFs. Printing all articles for better sorting also lead for chaos and depression.
In this modern era, there are certain software solutions for these data management, annotation and even some of them have in-built search engine and citation manager. Here, I present you my pick of top five as a suggestion. You can get them downloaded and reply me a feedback.
1. Mendeley
Mendeley is a reference manager and also annotates the PDFs. It keeps all your documents tidy and ready to insert as citations and bibliographies in your manuscripts. It supports Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, and LaTeX formats.
It even keeps your documents synced between devices like mobile phones and iPads. It can be synced in web and create backup.
It also enables the sharing with different users and groups through the connected networks.
You can download Mendeley here.
2. Zotero
Zotero is a web browser add-on, helps to collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources in the browser itself. It automatically senses the content and allows to add in the personal library. It enables the addition of PDFs, images, audio, video files and snapshots of web pages.
It also create citations in Word and OpenOffice without ever leaving your word processor and add references to an email, a Google Doc, or some other editor simply by dragging one or more references out of Zotero.
It helps for the automating syncing with different devices and web according to the choice.
Collaboration of different group in the terms of document sharing, discussion threads, notes are also possible in the Zotero.
You can download
Zotero here.
3. Qiqqa
Simply Qiqqa is a PDF management software, it import all your PDF documents and OCRed, tags auto-extracted and helps to quickly populate any missing meta data. It enables full-text search and duplicate paper detection, which are vital in the data management.
It facilitate the PDF highlighting, automated jump links, tablet sync, and so much more. It also gives a printable annotation summary reports for revision, and create mindmaps of your thoughts.It also reveals connections about, and between papers and concepts in a totally unique way.
Qiqqa connects to Word to make citing and bibliographies a breeze.
It also make possible to sync with the private cloud with unlimited storage.
You can download Qiqqa here.
4. Papers
Papers is a design software for research. It facilitate to view, browse and search your library in the iTunes style. The citation and format of reference are enabled with-in word processors in a unique way.
Organizing and naming files on your hard drive were made style-n-ease with Papers' automatic management. Built-in search engines help you find anything you might be looking for. Once you found the article you want, just download it directly into your Papers library.
It helps to share your collection with colleagues and peers, and also to discover new papers and collaborate.
You can try Papers here.
5. EndNote
Most bibliographic databases allow users to export references to their EndNote libraries. It is also possible to search library catalogs and free databases such as PubMed from within the EndNote software program itself.
EndNote can automatically format the citation into whatever format the user wishes from a list of over two thousand different styles.
EndNote can also organize PDFs on the user's hard drive through links to files or by inserting copies of PDFs. It is also possible to save a single image, document, Excel spreadsheet, or other file type to each reference in an EndNote library.
You can try EndNote here.