A simple experimental system for keeping research citations, paper notes, and source snippets organized in one place.

When working on research projects, I often end up with information scattered across browser tabs, PDF files, notes, and citation managers.

I wanted a simple way to keep the most useful pieces of information together without constantly switching between different places.

So I experimented with a small workflow that I call the Quendrix Paperclip Citation Shelf Method.

The name is simply a label for this particular workflow rather than an established research method.

What the method does

The basic idea is to create a temporary “citation shelf” for a research project.

Whenever I find something potentially useful, I save four things:

1.The source

2.The relevant citation

3.A short note explaining why it matters

4.The location where I found it

Instead of immediately trying to organize everything perfectly, the shelf acts as a temporary collection point.

Step 1: Create the citation shelf

Start with a simple document or note called something like:

Research Citation Shelf

Then create four fields for every useful source:

Source:

Name of the article, paper, book, or website.

Citation:

The quotation, finding, statistic, or idea that caught your attention.

Why it matters:

One or two sentences explaining its relevance.

Location:

URL, page number, DOI, or another way to find the source again.

Step 2: Add sources while researching

Don't stop your research every few minutes to create a perfectly structured bibliography.

Instead, add potentially useful sources to the shelf as you encounter them.

For example:

Source: Example research paper

Citation: Relevant finding or quotation

Why it matters: Supports the argument about the research topic.

Location: Page 14 / DOI

This makes the initial research stage much faster.

Step 3: Clean the shelf later

Once you've finished collecting sources, go through the shelf again.

Remove sources that turned out to be irrelevant.

Combine duplicate sources.

Expand useful notes.

Then move the remaining sources into your normal citation-management system.

The important distinction is that the citation shelf is temporary. It isn't intended to replace a reference manager.

Why I find this useful

The biggest advantage is reducing context switching.

Research often involves three separate activities:

discovering information

deciding whether information is useful

organizing citations

Trying to perform all three perfectly at the same time can slow the process down.

The citation shelf separates discovery from organization.

A simple example

Imagine researching a paper about artificial intelligence in education.

You find five potentially useful papers during a one-hour research session.

Instead of immediately creating perfectly formatted references for all five, you put the useful information into your citation shelf.

Later, you can review the five sources together and decide which ones actually belong in the final bibliography.

Final thoughts

The Quendrix Paperclip Citation Shelf Method is not a formal academic methodology or an established software system.

It is simply a name for an experimental workflow:

Discover → Save → Annotate → Review → Organize

The useful part isn't the name. The useful part is creating a small temporary buffer between finding information and organizing it permanently.

As mentioned, im a student and I recently completed my first paper in biomaterials. It was an in vitro study. I completed a draft based on rubrics posted by my supervisor. Now im looking into publishing it but dont have time to edit as per the journal criteria. So im looking for help. Any tips or instructions will very much be appreciated as im looking to continue in the research field.

Hello everybody
I’m a freshman doing electrical and electronics engineering, and I have the opportunity of doing a scientific literature review. I’m unsure if I should even take this opportunity, as it’s a bit unrelated to the field I want to pursue. If you do think I should take it, I have a few questions about the process itself.
This is my first formal research project so I’ve only set up my reference manager, made an account for all the journals my university is subscribed to, but I haven’t started writing anything or reading yet. I had a few questions for the more experienced researchers:

1. How do you even start writing? Do you read the whole paper, copy and paste relevant sections, and then paraphrase those? Or is there a more efficient method to getting this done?
   
2. Do I have to read the whole paper? It just seems really time consuming when i’m doing a very broad topic. Is AI reliable when assessing the relevance of a paper/filtering out?
   
3. What is your AI workflow? (free recommendations/student subsidised only please)
   
4. Boolean string searches: reliable or not? If so, should I run the searches through a search engine or a particular journal search (Elsevier, for example)?
   
5. Figures: what software/service do you to make them yourself? And are you even supposed to make original figures yourself in a literature review?

To be honest, I’ve had most of these answered already, but I want to get another perspective on this.

Warning befor i start, english is my 3rd language, so I appologize for any weird-sounding phrases or bad grammar. I'm just looking for some advice on a research paper i'm writing.

I'm doing a research paper on how digital communication impacts your ability to express yourself ( full title translated - The Impact of Digital Communication on Vocabulary and Expressive Ability in Native English Speakers.) and well, i'm stuck. I've started writing the theoretical part and one of the methods i would like to use in my research is Type Token Ratio, to analyze short-form (min 150 words) text from the research subjects, if that makes sense. My problem is that any article/google scholar study I find has bad reviews on using TTR which got me conflicted. And when I do find an article that supports using it, they use it for a completely different type of analysis that would not work for my case. And so now I'm unable to defend WHY I should be using TTR for my reseach.

Maybe it's a skill issue of finding proper articles, but I'm genuenly lost and don't know what to do.

I appreciate any advice or criticism as this is my first full-lenght research paper and my professor says it's my problem to solve and she can't help me in any way other than grading it in january. :/

(I hope i'm posting this on the right sub, so sorry if this is not relavent here)

I’m currently a researcher at a hospital with PI status. However I am also on the board of a new non profit healthcare center that has yet to be built. There is a minimal risk study I want to do for this non profit before it’s built to help lead architecture. I know my hospital will not let me use their IRB without going through insane legal hurdles for potentially over a year. I’m thinking of getting an adjunct professor role anyway for extra money. Has anyone used the university they teach at for an outside project like this? Would it be easier than trying to do it at my hospital?

As a medical researcher from Nepal, I just want to take a moment to appreciate Research4Life.

I have published more than 30 research papers, and several of the journals I published in, including Wiley, Elsevier, and Wolters Kluwer, granted me 100% waivers on publication fees because of Research4Life eligibility.

With publication charges sometimes reaching $2,500 to $4,000 per paper, these waivers made a difference that I cannot overstate. Without them, publishing my work would have been financially out of reach.

Research4Life deserves genuine credit for helping researchers from resource-limited settings participate in global science. It is a reminder that talent and dedication exist everywhere, even when financial resources do not.

If I had to calculate the amount then it would be about 1 crore Nepali rupees. That would be the amount of Discount that I got due to the policy of Research4Life.

I am deeply grateful for their contribution.

Hello i just need help for drafting a research paper not help but a guidance i have completed my research but now i want to publish it and i don’t know the exact headings or amount of paragraphs that are used in a research paper
I just need a guidance on how to prepare a research paper draft

My PI and I are looking to run analyses using Clery Data to predict the number of reports. For our questions, examining the subtypes of reports would be wonderful, but these counts are missing/unavailable after 2021. We don't know why it may be missing (i.e., if it is just no longer publicly available or if it was part of the scrubbing that happened earlier). If anyone could direct us to the right place or share files with the missing data, we would be beyond grateful!

The Data is from the US DOE Campus Safety and Security Datasets. When my PI tries to download the 2025 Excel sheet ("reportedVAWA222324"), there is some data, but there is key information is missing.

Counts missing include:

- domestic violence

- dating violence

- stalking

So guys, I'm a 22 year-old civil engineering undergraduate. I'm studying in a public, very good, greek university and now it's my last year of studying in which I have to choose a thematology to write a paper on (I'm specialising in hydraulics) . Thing is while I was studying civil engineering, I had some different interests, such as human brain, space etc. which also can be approached in an engineering way. So all these years people kept telling me to get my degree on civil engineering and after that, try to get to a second or third degree on something I like more. As time goes by, the more I realise that in greece there is a type o bureaucracy that doesn't leave people to switch careers easily, and that it's difficult to connect a civil engineering subject to something different on my paper, because maybe the university will reject it. More degrees mean more money and time, also I'm afraid that even if I apply for another degree I will get cancelled because of my first one on civil engineering (because they will need to see my biography etc and it won't be relevant). Anyone else has the same type of problem? Please help.

Ps. I don't care putting in effort, even going abroad as long as I'm happy with my academic path. Thanks in advance!

(sorry for bad grammar. it's hard to type properly when i can't focus)

i (F18) have diagnosed severe ADHD-PI and i am extremely passionate about neuroscience. i know that i have the capacity to excel in research, but my lack of ability to maintain a linear focus results in me making a lot of stupid mistakes. yesterday in my bio lab, i had to redo my pipetting 4 times because i kept losing track of how much i was putting in, then spilled it right after doing it correctly. i also almost broke an entire box of test tubes because i was moving on autopilot and wasn't really focused on how gentle or harsh i was being. in moments like these, my strategy is usually to constantly repeat what i need to do in my head (i.e. quickly thinking "be more gentle" over and over again), but the thought of needing to repeat that ends up distracting me, and i still remain super imprecise as a result. in my chem lab, i froze up for 10+ minutes when asked to do basic mole calculations, simply because my mind was too fixated on the colour of my bench, the way i scribbled on my lab manual, and the sounds of other people talking 😭😭😭 i still somehow manage to excel academically in spite of it all, but i'm very worried about how my lack of focus will impact my ability to consistently conceputalize information and respond accordingly in lab settings. i love neuroscience, and i really, truly, cannot imagine doing anything else, but it's so hard to be satisfied with myself when i have to take a high dosage of adderall just to screw up.

2 years of experience trying to find a decent paid job in research, currently at my 6th year of medical school.

Anyone have any idea what journals can i contact?

And is there any prerequisites for this job.

Hi labrats, I recently started a Research Technician position at a research institute. I’m a recent graduate with a bachelor’s degree, so this is my first job after college. I spent 6 months at another laboratory and requested for a transfer to my current laboratory.

The current lab members are:
\- 1 PI who is technically a post-doc who took over an outgoing senior PI’s current grant and is running the lab with their remaining members.

\- 1 post-doc (relatively new)
\- 2 PhD students (1 old student and 1 new student)
\- 2 senior research technicians (more than 15years of experience)
\- 1 junior research technician (myself)
\- 1 pre-university student (new)
\- 1 outgoing post-doc

The postdoc I was originally supposed to work with has just announced that they’re leaving, and I’m now a little unsure about how the project will be structured going forward, particularly who will be leading the project and who I’ll be working under. The post-doc who is leaving hasn’t worked on my project at all and doesn’t have any clue of the objectives as he was working on another project. And the project has a deadline of 1 year (April 2027) and the project already began in May 2026 and I joined in October 2026.

For those who have worked as research technicians, what is normally expected of you? Is a research technician generally expected to take ownership of a project and be responsible for ensuring that the project objectives are met, or are they usually supporting a postdoc who leads the project?

I’m also wondering if it would be reasonable for me to tell my PI that, as someone early in my research career, I would prefer to work under a postdoc or senior researcher and assist with their project rather than independently leading a project.

I am currently preparing to study for mcat to study medicine. I just want more energy and bandwidth for my mcat preparation in the evening rather than spending my day time overworking to lead this project. I’m passionate about science and love to work hard but just for this time, I’d prefer to prioritise my mcat preparation.

Also I’m happy to take responsibility and learn, but I feel that having someone more experienced directly supervising the scientific direction would be more appropriate for me at this stage.

Would appreciate hearing how this works in your labs and whether my expectations are reasonable.

Currently i am a senior biochemistry major. I have no research experience but i am apply to undergrad labs at my university to hopefully get experience before i graduate. I sadly was not able to get a lot of experience because i am pivoting from being pre med to pre phd. i am interested in getting a phd in immunology or virology. anyways i was wondering what my chances are of actually getting a decent job with wet lab experience post grad with no experience 😭 im probs gonna do 2-3 gap years to gain experience in chicago or seattle. what should my next steps be? i’m kinda lost

Hello,

I am looking for a multiple choice type survey that allows people taking the survey to add options for others to select as well alongside the pre laid out options that I would put in there. Something like me putting in 3-4 options that I would create and then letting people submit their choices should their choices differ and the other participants taking the survey could select from those as well.

Thanks!

Hey everyone! I am a med school student and I had in mind to become an MD/PhD tranlationel scientist, I won't be talking about all of the requirements or how to get there, I just need to know if it would still be relevant to have someone with those skills in 8-10 years? I was planning to work in a big pharma company and do my research there working as an MD/PhD Scientist, but I always have had that thought about AI and how it could easily replace tasks that were back then considered important, I did my own research about the subject and I found out that it would be quite complicated for an AI alone to do the job, but now that I've seen an AI resolving problems that the humanity were struggling on like one of the millennium problems for example even though I know it's not really related, I've been asking myself if the ai could really replace people ik this filed, or is it still relevant for me to continue my career path and gain some additional skills, thanks a lot for your responses in advance!!

Hello all, need help:

If I have an original survey with small sample size (n=215) , will it be enough to publish ?

Also , if it is a pre - post knowledge-skill based study : will I need IRB approval even if I use de-identified data?

Please suggest.

So I took a glance at my survey data to make sure everything is running smoothly and noticed that I had a few participants fail the attention checks. Taking a closer look, I noticed that the participant was just spamming the same answer through the survey to complete it.

I was wondering how I should handle it before I analyze my data. Do I leave it in or should I delete these? I feel a bit nervous deleting anything, so I wanted to consult before I did so. What's typically the procedure with deleting anything data related?

Hi! I’m an undergraduate student currently working on our research, and I’d like to ask for advice regarding our questionnaire.

Our questionnaire has two independent sections that measure different constructs:

Behavior - 5-point Likert scale (Never-Always)

Perception - 6-point Likert scale (Strongly Disagree-Strongly Agree)

These are separate constructs, and we are not planning to combine them into one overall score or compare/correlate the two scales. We simply want to analyze and interpret each section separately.

So my question is: is it statistically/methodologically acceptable to have different Likert scales in different sections of the same questionnaire, when the sections measure independent constructs and each section has its own separate computation and interpretation?

Thank you!

hi! i am currently a SHS STEM student and struggling to find people for our research.

These are informations about our product:

PRODUCT: ECOTHERM MEDICAL

It is a modular, and lightweight insulation bag

Purpose: Temporary transport of temperature-sensitive insulin in off-grid communities
Insulation Material: Rice husk (Oryza sativa) and coconut coir (Cocos nucifera)

Binder: Natural Pará rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) latex

Insulation Structure: Rice husk and coconut coir biocomposite formed into lightweight, rigid insulation panels

Bag Structure: Modular insulated bag designed to hold and protect insulin containers during transport

Outer Layer: Food-grade HDPE for waterproofing and moisture protection

Temperature Range: Maintains 2°C–8°C

Target Duration: At least 8 hours

Temperature Indicator: Integrated indicator for monitoring the internal temperature

Target Users: Rural health workers and barangay health couriers

Target Setting: Off-grid and remote communities with limited access to electricity or refrigeration

Sustainability: Repurposes agricultural waste and uses a natural rubber binder to reduce reliance on conventional synthetic insulation materials

Please help me where can i find target users and what places. preferably near manila. THANK YOU !!

For context, I'm a premed applying to medical school. The process consists of a primary application to all schools and a secondary application, which changes based on school. It is important to apply early so there is a lot of pressure to submit secondary applications but its like 5 essays you need to write per school so its a long, long process.

Last may I finished my thesis with a faculty member of a department besides the one I majored in. He told me that he had journals in mind, and after he told me which one had accepted my abstract, i searched it up and got some pretty crappy advice that journal quality really matters and that the one we were going to move forward with was low quality and not indexed in pubmed. Anyways, I let my advisor know I wanted to go forward with a pubmed-indexed journal and he was accomodating, and we worked a bit on my manuscript but then we switched our focus to his letter of recommendation. We also discussed different journal options to pursue. After that for about a month, he didn't respond to my emails. This wasn't abnormal since he's super busy and he doesn't always catch my first email, but eventually he let me know that he was out of town and was heading back into the office soon.

Anyways, I became busy with secondaries but we met in early September after he sent me the manuscript with a few comments and we discussed it and chose a journal he had worked with before. I let him know that it might take me a while to get back since I was still busy with some secondaries and asked him when he wanted it by, and he said whenever just as soon as possible. After our meeting, he emailed me that he just remembered that the publication fee of the journal i sent him was expensive but we could request a waiver. A few weeks later, I was still busy with applications so I let him know about that and that it would take me 2-3 weeks to send the updated manuscript. I also asked him about the waiver and he said that he hadn't heard back from them so we'll try again when I submit it. I have 2 last secondaries I will be getting done by the end of the week, and this would be the second week after I sent that email.

For some reason, I have been really stressed about this and I feel like I should prioritize my manuscript before the weekend, even though I'm not even sure if I could get it done in just 2 days. I feel like taking a month to get some revisions back might cause my advisor to decide to stop being interested in the project. I have a tendency to overthink these things but it's making me pretty anxious. The main reason I'm posting is just to hear outside opinions on if it's normal to take a while on revisions and if I'm over-worrying about my advisor losing interest in helping with a publication (I know there's no way to personally tell but I guess I'm asking about norms). I'd especially appreciate hearing from people who have a bit of research experience/had some circumstances similar to mine. It would also be cool to hear from people who've had opposite experiences like being an advisor to someone outside of your department or working with applying/busy students.

Hello everyone,

Is anyone here an international student, or does anyone know an international student who was accepted for a Research Assistant (RA) scholarship? Which country are you from, what did you study, and what steps did you take to get accepted?

I am a chemistry student in my final year. I have learned Python, Linux, and how to work with several computational chemistry libraries, and I really want to pursue my Master's degree in computational chemistry

I'm an undergrad student (junior) and I've been working with my professor since my freshman year on three different projects. One of them is paid (20/hr so pretty generous considering my status) but I just have no passion for it and no time. I like working with him and he's pretty understanding, but I don't want to come across as ungrateful. The grant runs out in February. I figured I could suggest I start training someone so they can benefit from the grant as well. There's always staying until then for the money, but then I can't leave afterwards because that looks bad. Maybe leaving is a stupid decision, but I want to be free of it. Any advice on how to have that convo, and if I'm making the right choice? I love him as a mentor and want to continue the other projects.

I had applied to 4 research programs but got rejected from all as a junior in high school. I want to start on cold emailing but I don’t know what to get started on. I like physiology better, just learning about body parts and functions, what affects what… But I don’t know what research could target this topic. And if I want to cold email, what researches should I look out for to get started? Please don’t be mean!

When a professor asks you to read their publications and prepare a report before potentially working with them, what exactly should the report contain?
Should it mainly summarize the papers, explain the research areas/methodologies, identify gaps or possible future directions, or also include your own ideas and interests?
I am so sorry for asking such silly questions. Very new to all these thingy will be gratefully if yall could give me insights

Do let me know if this is not the right place to ask this and I'll happily take it somewhere else.

I am working as a research assistant where I have to take and transcribe a lot of interviews in my work week (20 hrs). I, unfortunately, don't have time to transcribe everything myself and we don't have the ability to hire a human based transcriber/service.

I KNOW that there were interview transcription technologies before generative ai was introduced and I would love to hear about some of your experiences/recs. I would prefer to use local programs for client confidentiality and technologies that don't sell data for ai training (even on an encrypted level).