Best Practices

There’s no universal solution—everyone has unique workflow habits. As designers, we share these best practices to help you work smarter.

Project-Centric Management Over Folder Organization

ivySCI encourages organizing literature via projects instead of traditional folder hierarchies.

What’s a project?

A project is any research effort you’re actively pursuing, such as:

Why projects?

Reduces mental overhead: Skip folder categorization—just assign to a project.
Simplifies access: Documents are tied to specific work, making them easier to locate.
Prioritizes research: Eliminate administrative busywork (folder management) and focus on your work.
Your intellectual focus and time are your most valuable resources.

Let ivySCI handle the organization, so you can concentrate on what matters—your research.

For project and tag management, please refer to our article: Tagging Best Practices for Literature and Notes

Naturally, we categorize documents— it’s intuitive. But folders grow rigid, making retrieval a hassle (even with search).

ivySCI recommends multi-dimensional tagging:

Example: A cancer drug study can be tagged by drug class, treatment modality, disease subtype, detection method, and side effects. This creates a flexible, interconnected system, enabling analysis from any angle.
Tag Analytics: Use built-in tools to identify trends (e.g., frequent topics, methodology patterns) for deeper insights.
We have written an article specifically on tag management: Tagging Best Practices for Literature Management

When reading, annotate actively:

These tools help:

While handwriting on tablets (e.g., iPad) is convenient for quick drafts, digital notes in ivySCI offer critical advantages for research:

Text Searchability: Find any note instantly (handwritten notes can’t be indexed—no more "lost notes").
Cross-Device Sync: Access notes on your laptop, tablet, or phone—perfect for lab work, field research, or team collaboration.
Integration with Workflow: Tag notes, link to projects, and analyze tags—creating a unified research ecosystem (handwritten notes exist in isolation).