Blog
Blog
Practical guides for researchers: writing literature reviews, citation styles, reading papers and organizing your library.
How to keep up with new research papers in your field
A practical system for keeping up with new papers: the alerts worth setting up, how to write a saved search, and a weekly triage routine.
8 min readResearch project management for PhD students: a practical system
A simple way to manage a PhD: split the thesis into projects, set goals and milestones, plan weekly tasks, and keep papers and drafts with each one.
7 min readHow to set up a shared reference library for your research lab
How to set up a shared reference library for a lab: what to decide first, tagging conventions, duplicates, PDFs and onboarding new members.
7 min readHow to write a literature review: a step-by-step guide
A step-by-step guide to writing a literature review: set the scope, search well, take notes that synthesize, and structure a draft that argues.
5 min readAPA vs MLA vs Chicago: which citation style should you use?
How APA, MLA, Chicago, Vancouver, IEEE and other citation styles differ, which fields use each one, and how to choose the right style for your work.
5 min readHow to write an annotated bibliography (with examples)
What an annotated bibliography is, the three kinds of annotation, how long each should be, and a worked example in APA and MLA format.
5 min readHow to read a scientific paper quickly and well
A practical method for reading research papers: the three-pass approach, what to look for in each section, and how to take notes you will actually use.
5 min readSystematic review vs literature review: what's the difference?
How systematic reviews, narrative literature reviews and scoping reviews differ in purpose, method and effort, and how to decide which one you need.
5 min readHow to organize research papers so you can find them again
A simple system for organizing research papers: one library per project, consistent tags, notes linked to each paper, and habits that keep it tidy.
5 min readA literature review, start to finish, in Mosaic
From an empty project to a cited draft: how to run a literature review with your papers, notes, tasks and writing in one place.
4 min readComparisons
Mosaic vs Zotero
Mosaic vs Zotero: one workspace for your papers, tasks and citations. What each does, feature by feature, and how to bring your Zotero library across.
Mosaic vs Mendeley
Mosaic vs Mendeley: Mosaic keeps the papers, tasks, briefing and citations for each project together. Feature by feature, and how to import from Mendeley.
Mosaic vs Paperpile
Mosaic vs Paperpile: both run in the browser and cite in Google Docs and Word. Mosaic adds project tasks, a briefing of new papers and a built-in assistant.
Mosaic vs EndNote
Mosaic vs EndNote: Mosaic puts the papers, tasks, new-paper briefing and citations for each project in one web workspace. See how the two compare.
Mosaic vs Elicit
Mosaic vs Elicit: Mosaic keeps your library, PDFs, tasks and citations in Word or Google Docs in one project, with an assistant that answers from your papers.
Mosaic vs Jenni AI
Mosaic vs Jenni AI: keep writing in Word or Google Docs while Mosaic holds the library, PDFs, tasks and citations. A Jenni AI alternative, compared.
Mosaic vs Anara
Mosaic vs Anara: Mosaic runs the project around your papers, with tasks, a scheduled briefing and citations in Google Docs and Word. A fair side by side.
Mosaic vs SciSpace
Mosaic vs SciSpace: one workspace per project for your library, PDFs, tasks and citations in Word and Google Docs, with an assistant over your own papers.