Ep. 3 — All hail Mendeley

Let me tell you a story about how assignment writing was made so much easier by this thing we call “Mendeley”.

I had heard numerous times about “Mendeley” but never really gotten to the part of learning about it or using it, cuz as they all say, “Who likes change?!”.

So many workshops to teach us about this easy-to-use reference manager, but never was I the one to attend and learn of its use, properly.

However, luck was on my side when my ScholarX mentor emphasized enough on its ease in building up citations and bibliographies (which take up so much of our time when doing write-ups and assignments) and succeeded in making me give Mendeley a try.

Mendeley (shorturl.at/fyKPR)

And so, the learning curve begins!

I was lucky enough to get a one-on-one crash course about Mendeley from my mentor, Dr. Nivanthika which most definitely saved up so much time and helped a lot with my on-the-dot, last-minute submissions.

Step 1:

Mendeley installation is extremely simple whereby simply typing “Mendeley desktop download” on the search bar and clicking on the first result that pops up, it can be downloaded, installed, and set up for use with just a few clicks.

As you open the app, you would see its very attractive but rather, complicated-looking interface. Of course, you would need a few tries of use to get the hang of it, but trust me, you would be amazed by how easy it makes life.

Step 2:

All those many pdfs of reading material you have everywhere on your laptop (in your downloads and so many different folders) which isn’t even easy to find, can all be saved up in this one place, where reading, highlighting and, putting up notes are all made possible. All pdfs you use, can simply be added to the desktop app by clicking on the “+Add New” icon at the top left corner and arranged as folders whichever way you prefer. Multiple pdfs can be used at the same time, editing whatever you want, however, you want.

Step 3:

And the best part of it is the ease in referencing! Once we get Mendeley added to Word, citations and bibliographies can be added in any style we want, by simply going to references and clicking on Mendeley where you can easily search up the respective research paper and select the referencing style you require. It automatically does everything for you once the input is given, no sweat!

Step 4:

The Mendeley web importer option is another amazing feature where we no longer have to fill up our PCs with downloaded pdfs and instead, can directly add all those reading materials to the Mendeley app. It will also show us all of the cited references in the particular paper, taking away hours and hours we would have to spend searching for material on the web. After adding all documents to the app using the web importer and syncing it, Mendeley becomes a one-stop-shop for all your reading and referencing needs.

Step 5:

Something I figured out just before starting on this blog was that, even when you change PCs (which I did), you no longer need to re-add all the pdf reading material to the PC cuz it’s already there in Mendeley and you just need to sign in!

So, all in all, I hope my butter-up on Mendeley convinced you to make a switch and make use of this app made for lazy people like us, in saving up in our sleep time.

(P.S; this was not a paid advertisement :P, just an honest experience share for all those lazy heads out there)