Scholarly Smackdown: Google Keep vs. Trello

Looking for a very basic project management tool to create to-do lists, stay on-track, and maybe even get things done? On today’s Scholarly Smackdown we will discuss two possible options: Google Keep and Trello.

Both tools feature:

  • Bulletin board format that shows a page of lists
  • No cost options
  • Online-only web application with neither a desktop version nor a way to work offline
  • Good usability
  • Mobile versions for iOS/Android that you can sync across platforms
  • Limited customization

Both allow users to:

  • Make to-do lists and checklists
  • Incorporate images into lists
  • Collaborate with groups — with unlimited team members
  • Add due dates for list items to be completed
  • Archive your lists when you’re done
  • Pin lists to be a priority
  • Put all the things needed for a project in one place and share with folks who need to see it

Google Keep is Google’s app for note-taking and task managing for yourself and your groups.

Google Keep screenshot

Google Keep’s advantages are:

  • Built-in and included in Google Apps so it’s ready to use and available to Illinois students
  • The app version for Chrome has a web scraper capability, which allows you to attach things you’ve scraped to your lists
  • Integrates with Google Docs, so it is easy to send work you have in Keep to Google Docs
  • Allows you to draw in your notes
  • Fairly intuitive
  • Reminders and Notes are separate; Reminders are notes that include a time stamp
  • Voice notes on Android

Trello was developed by Fog Creek Software and is now owned by Atlassian, the wizards behind our wiki. It is a great software for staying on top of things.

Screenshot of Trello

Trello free version advantages are:

  • Easy to sign up for and get started
  • Easy-to-access documentation and instructions
  • Much more granularity possible at the free level than Google Keep; you can create cards within lists within boards
  • Attach files up to 10 MB to your boards
  • Due dates on cards
  • One Power-up which is a special feature and there are a lot to choose from, such as integration with Slack

The paid versions of Trello are:

Overall, both Google Keep and Trello are great products for basic task management for both yourself and your groups. If you want something simple and love all things Google then Google Keep is probably your best option. However, if you are planning something with a lot of sub-steps and you want to be able to create really detailed checklists then you probably will prefer Trello. And of course, let us know about your favorite digital tools for preventing scholarly smackdowns in the comments!

Writing the next great American novel, or realistically, finding the “write” tools to finish your thesis

The Scholarly Commons is a great place to write the next great American novel; in fact, I’m surprised it has not happened yet (no pressure dear patrons — we understand that you have a lot on your plates). We’re open Monday-Friday from 9-6 and enjoy a well-lit, fairly quiet, and overall ideal working space, with Espresso Royale and the Writing Center nearby. But actually getting that writing done, that’s the real challenge. Luckily, we have suggestions for tools and software you can use to keep writing and stay on track this semester!

Writing Your First Draft:

Yes, MS Word can be accessed for free for University students through the Web Store and you can set it up to better address your research needs with features like the Zotero and Mendeley plugins to incorporate your references. And don’t forget you can go to Word > File > Options > Proofing > Writing Style and select Grammar and Style and Settings to set what Spellcheck will check for so that passive voice gets underline. However, believe it or not, there are word processors, other than MS Word, that are better for organizing and creating large writing projects, such as novels, theses, or even plays!

Scrivener

Scrivener is a word processor created with novelists in mind that lets you organize your research and notes while you are writing. With an education discount, a license for Scrivener costs $38.25. Scrivener is very popular and highly recommended by two of the GAs here at Scholarly Commons (you can email Claire Berman with any questions you may have about the software at cberman2 [at] illinois.edu). To really get started, check out our online copies of Scrivener: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide and  Scrivener for Dummies!

Mellel

Unfortunately, Mellel is only available on Mac. An educational license for the software costs $29. To some extent Mellel is similar in style and price to Pages for Mac, but also shares similarities with MS Word for Mac. However, this word processor offers more options for customizing your word processing experience than Pages or MS Word. It also provides more options for outlining your work and dividing sections in a way that even MS Word Notebook version does not, which is great if you have a large written work with many sections, such as a novel or a thesis! Mellel also partners with the citation managers Bookends and Sente.

Markdown Editors like Ulysses

Ulysses is a simple and straightforward word processor for Mac, but you do have to write in Markdown without a WYSIWYG editor. It costs $44.99 for Mac and $24.99 for iOS. However, it has many great features for writers (such as built in word count writing goals for sections of a paper, and Markdown makes outlining work very easy and simple). We have discussed the value and importance of Markdown elsewhere on the blog before, specifically in our posts Digital Preservation and the Power of Markdown and Getting Started with Markdown, and of course, want to remind all of our lovely readers to consider doing their writing in Markdown. Learning Markdown can open up writing and digital publishing opportunities across the web (for example: Programming Historian tutorials are written in Markdown). Plus, writing in Markdown converts easily for simple web design without the headache of having to write in HTML.

Staying Focused:

Maybe you don’t want to buy a whole new word processor. That’s fine! Here are some tools that can help creating the “write” environment to get work done:

Freedom : costs $2.50 a month, so Freedom is not free, indeed. This is an an app that allows you to block websites and even the internet, available for Mac, Windows, iOS devices. This app also has a lock feature that will not allow you to make changes to what is blocked for a set period of time.

RescueTime : another app option. Taking a slightly different approach to the rest here, the lite version of this app helps you track how you use your time and what apps and websites you use the most so that you can have a better sense of what you are doing instead of writing. The premium version, which costs $54 a year, allows you to block distracting websites.

SelfControl: a Mac option but Open Source, with community built Linux and PC versions, and most importantly it’s free! This app allows you to block websites, based on their server, for a set period of time, in which there is basically NOTHING you can do on your computer to access these sites. So choose which sites to block and the time limit wisely.

Editing Tools:

Hemingway

Named after Ernest Hemingway, this text editor is supposed to help you adapt his style of writing, “bold and clear.” When you paste your text into the free web version, the applet gives you the text’s reading level as well as pointing out instances of awkward grammar, unnecessary or complicated words and adverbs, and sentences that are too long or too complicated.There’s a Desktop version available for $20 though I honestly don’t think it’s worth the money, though it does give another simple space on your computer to write and get feedback.

A note about Grammarly 

This is an alternative to MS Word spell check with a free version to add to your browser. As a browser add-in, it checks automatically for critical spelling and grammar mistakes (advanced ones cost a monthly fee) everywhere you write except situations where you’d really want extra spell check such as Google Docs and can be wonky with WordPress. You can always copy and paste into the Grammarly window, but at that point, you’re probably better doing spell check in MS Word. There are also only two versions of English available, American and British (take that Australia!). If you are trying to learn English and want instantaneous feedback while writing on the internet, or studying for high school standardized tests, or perhaps a frequent YouTube commenter in need of a quick check before posting, then Grammarly is for you. For most people at Scholarly Commons, this is a plugin they can skip, though I can’t speak for the paid version which is supposed to be a little bit better. If you uninstall the app they try to guilt trip you, so heads up.

SpellCheckPlus: It’s BonPatron in English! Brought to you by Nadaclair Language Technologies, this web-based text editor goes beyond MS Word’s spellcheck to help identify grammar errors and ways to make your writing sound more normal to a native (Canadian) English speaker. There is a version that costs money but if you don’t import more than the allotted 250 words of text at one time you will be fine using the free version.

Let us know what you think and any tools we may have missed! Happy writing!

And to learn more and find more great productivity tools, check out:

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