Building on the earlier suggestion, I've found that RemNote Pro Student Plan is honestly the sweet spot for thesis work when you're on a tight deadline. It lets you upload PDFs directly and highlight them to create notes that link back to the exact page, so you never lose your spot. No coding required, unlike Obsidian, so you wont waste your entire weekend just setting it up. A few reasons I'm satisfied with it:

• PDF annotation is built-in and feels super snappy
• It handles references and sources automatically
• The structural layout keeps your research grounded so you dont have to worry about AI making things up The student discount brings it way under your $10 budget. Honestly, it has been a lifesaver for my own organization and I have no complaints. Just breathe, you can definitely get this sorted by Monday!

^ This. Also, I would suggest being careful with AI summaries. Using SciSpace Academic Pro Subscription ($10) helped me:

• Literature mapping
• PDF extraction Double-check citations manually tho!

Helpful thread 👍

TL;DR: Give NotebookLM by Google a shot. It is free and only uses the PDFs you upload, so it actually stays grounded in your research instead of making things up. Honestly, I totally get the Notion fear... it is fun for aesthetic planning but I would not trust it with a masters thesis either since it pulls from everywhere. I have been super satisfied with NotebookLM because it is way more reliable for academic stuff. You just dump your research papers in and it creates a grounded guide. You can ask it specific questions and it gives you citations with page numbers from your own files. No complaints here, it just works and saves a ton of time. Since you are on a budget, definitely grab Zotero 7 Reference Manager too. It is the gold standard for organizing papers and costs zero dollars. If you want a better way to read and highlight, check out the Readwise Reader Student Plan. It is around five bucks a month with the discount and fits your budget perfectly. It has an AI feature called Ghostreader that can summarize complex sections while you are reading. Way better than generic AI because it is focused on the actual text in front of you. Seriously, do not stress about Obsidian right now... it is a total rabbit hole and you really do not have time for that learning curve before Monday. Stick to the stuff that is easy to set up.

Quick reply while I have a sec... Are you mostly dealing with dense PDFs or trying to link concepts across web sources? In my experience, Obsidian is a total nightmare on a deadline. I've tried many tools, but Heptabase Academic Plan is what finally clicked for my research. The visual whiteboards make mapping arguments way easier than that crazy graph view. Are your papers all in one folder right now?

Same setup here, love it

Saw this earlier but just now getting a chance to reply! Honestly your thesis is gonna be great, dont let the tech overwhelm you... I am curious tho, are you mostly dealing with a specific set of like 30-40 core papers, or is this a massive 200+ paper literature review? Knowing the scale helps a ton for choosing the right tool. I am obsessed with Elicit Plus Plan for this kind of heavy lifting! It is amazing because it uses a specific workflow called Data Extraction where it pulls out things like population size or results into a structured table. I love it because it is specifically designed for academic papers, not generic notes. It is fantastic for staying grounded because it shows you the exact sentence it used for its answer, so you can verify everything instantly. It really helps with the hallucination problem you mentioned. Plus, it is way easier to manage long-term than a messy graph view... honestly a lifesaver for masters work.