NoteControl

  • editor rating: good
  • Comments
  • April 25, 2012
  • Pros

    Captures and organizes notes, audio, images, websites, and documents. Integrates WorldCat for citation and source search. Generates impressive Word documents in style sheets from APA, MLA, and Chicago. Sports a familiar Outlook-style interface. Integrates with MindView mind-mapping software.

  • Cons Limited citation and source search options and results. Limited Mac support (Web only). Clunky interface. More expensive than the competition.
  • Bottom Line

    When it comes to capturing and organizing research, NoteControl is more expensive and more proprietary than Firefox-friendly Zotero, but it's also much more dexterous.

By William Fenton

Note(s)
In addition to the various Captures, I found myself relying heavily on NoteControl's Text, File, and Web Notes. I used Text Notes for prewriting; I liked that I could insert citations as I worked (though, as I'll soon discuss, Citations and Sources raise issues). With File Notes, I uploaded research, namely PDFs. Web Notes presents perhaps the most innovative solution: When you drop a URL in the path, it automatically populates a screenshot of the Web page in the body of the note. For sites with media, such as the Mary Rowlandson Wikipedia page, you get a useful visualization. For more text-heavy sites, however, it's not helpful. I found myself relying on the Keywords field to tag my websites to make them easier to find through the software's search functionality.

Inbox
All Notes and Captures appear in the NoteControl Inbox, which resembles Microsoft Outlook. I created folder hierarchies to sort all my research. Unlike Zotero, which copies items from the Library to the various folders, leaving original items in the Library, NoteControl moves items. On the one hand, I appreciate the satisfaction of clearing out an inbox as much as the next guy. On the other hand, I'd like a central view where I can see all my research in one place. Thankfully, the NoteControl Search function lets you prowl all your folders and subfolders for titles, keywords, and more.

Sources and Citations
Curiously, NoteControl proves most troublesome when it comes to a central feature of research: sources. Certainly, I commend MatchWare for partnering with WorldCat. Using the integrated search, all you need is an author, title, or ISBN to retrieve results from the voluminous database.

The problem is that the search isn't intelligent. In fact, it's dumb. First off, there's no advanced search, which sounds like a quibble, but when you're dealing with a database as expansive as WorldCat, you're going to want the option to search for an author and title. The integrated search lets you specify only content (Books, Films, Journal Articles, or All Types) and language (German, French, Spanish, Danish, English, and All Languages). Moreover, if, for example, you type text in the search field and specify the content as book, NoteControl washes out your text. Again, this may sound like a quibble, until it washes away a German scholar's eight-syllable name.

And heaven forbid your search term generates a lot of results (as a simple search in WorldCat almost always does). NoteControl offers no way to sort results or view more than ten results per page. The biggest issue, however, is the lousy journal support. I'd love to see NoteControl bolster search with deep JSTOR integration, as does Zotero. As it stands, though, I found myself relying upon the Manual Entry Mode for most journal sources. Thankfully, once you have the sources in NoteControl, you can draw from them to create citations.

Export(s)
Much like MatchWare's mind-mapping software, NoteControl excels at exports. For those who rely upon their information visualization software, there's now a MindView Export (and MindView has gained a Citation button). For everyone else, there's a superb Microsoft Word Export, through which you may select a style sheet (APA, MLA, Chicago, ISO690, Harvard, or Standard), define hierarchy (Folders and Notes or simply Folder), and include a linked table of contents or title page. The result is a document with macros that looks and functions well on Word for Windows or Mac. Finally, both MindView and Word exports are clever: NoteControl treats folders as headings and notes as content related to those headings.

TakeControl
NoteControl accommodates many kinds of research and many means of organizing research. Certainly, it doesn't succeed in all areas. The Text capture tool proves counterintuitive, the Sources functionality needs work, and Macintosh support is lacking, which may prove a significant issue for many Apple-owning educators. These users, and others, may prefer the dead simple, browser-based, Editors' Choice Zotero. I would love to see Matchware nest NoteControl in its flagship mind-mapping software, MindView. To conduct, organize, and visualize information in one place would be prove a potent tool for educators and business professionals alike. However, even as a standalone product, NoteControl deserves a hard look from customers seeking to take control of text, images, Web pages, documents, and print sources in a research project.

More Education and Reference Software Reviews:
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•  more

Will Fenton
By William Fenton Contributor

As a contributing editor, William Fenton specializes in research and education software. In addition to his role at PCMag.com, William is also a Teaching Fellow and Director of the Writing Center at Fordham University Lincoln...

Follow William Fenton Twitter: @WilliamFenton
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