07/08/2026 2:25 am
Topic starter
Notifications
Clear all
Other LLMs Forum
4
Posts
5
Users
0
Reactions
21
Views
0
Honestly im just losing my mind trying to organize all these academic papers for my dissertation. Ive got like 60 tabs open on my laptop right now and every time I think I found a good quote I immediately lose it in some random folder. My budget is pretty much non-existent since Im a grad student living in Boston and I need this sorted by next month or I am actually going to scream.
I tried using those basic AI summarizers but they just hallucinate half the content which is super dangerous when you need to cite actual sources. Its like, why do they have to be so confident when they are wrong? Ive been looking into tools that actually let you chat with your own PDFs but I cant tell which ones are legit and which ones are just scams trying to steal my data.
- Does anyone actually use NotebookLM for research?
- Is there anything else that handles citations without messing them up?
So I was thinking maybe there is a better workflow out there than my current mess of sticky notes and digital clutter. Does anyone have a tool that actually works for complex stuff or am I stuck doing this the old fashioned way forever...
4 Answers
12
07/08/2026 3:30 am
Honestly, just grab Obsidian Obsidian MD Desktop Edition for linking thoughts. Couple it with Zotero Zotero 7 Reference Management Software and you wont lose track of those papers ever again.
11
07/08/2026 3:30 am
To add to the point above: you absolutely need Mendeley Reference Manager 2.115 for its offline reliability and robust PDF annotation tools! It is fantastic for keeping your dissertation citations locked down without any risk of data loss. I love how it builds a library that stays local on your machine. Seriously, stop relying on cloud-based AI that might hallucinate your findings. This is the professional standard for keeping your research organized and safe forever!
2
07/08/2026 2:50 am
Adding my two cents, try Elicit AI Research Assistant. It is way better at citations than NotebookLM. It actually tracks sources properly so you wont lose your mind.
1
07/08/2026 2:25 am
Oh man, I totally feel your pain! Living in Boston on a grad student budget is brutal and juggling that many papers is basically a nightmare. I was in the exact same spot last year until I finally found a workflow that stopped me from losing my mind. Honestly, you should absolutely give NotebookLM a try! It is surprisingly good at sticking to the source material since it basically anchors its answers to the PDFs you upload. I used it to synthesize a mountain of literature for my own project and it was a total game changer. Since you need to be super careful with citations, I suggest grabbing a dedicated reference manager like Zotero Standalone 6.0 to keep your actual files organized while using the AI to query them. It is completely free and open source, which is just amazing when you are broke! I usually keep my main library in Zotero and then drag the specific PDFs I am currently chewing on into NotebookLM. It makes searching through massive amounts of info so much faster without those scary hallucinations. Just keep an eye on your storage if you are syncing files, but honestly, it is the most reliable setup I have found. You can do this! Once you get that first folder organized, the stress level drops like crazy. Hang in there!
