Claridge-Chang Lab
  • About
  • People
  • Papers
  • Join
  • Blog
  • Contact

Why Google Docs is better than MS Word for Collaborative composition

8/24/2017

0 Comments

 
MS Word offers a huge range of advanced features. However, Google Docs is vastly superior for collaborative composition.
  • Simultaneous collaborative editing. Using realtime version control, multiple people can edit the same Google Doc—even the same sentence—all at once. Because you can see where someone else is working, you can easily avoid writing over the text they are working on. No version control system, not Word Track Changes, Merge Documents, nor even git–GitHub offer such seamless collaborative editing.
  • Threaded comments. In MS Word (at least the version I use on Mac), you cannot respond to a comment in a thread. All you can do is add a new comment, and your correspondent has to figure out which new comments are responses to their question. Threaded comments means that--rather than email back-and-forths--nearly all discussions about the text happen in context of the relevant text.
  • All-to-all communication. For MS Word, if one person is handling the version control by email and Track Changes approvals, they must be involved in every editing decision. This puts more work on them. In Google Docs, sections can be more easily delegated to subgroups in the writing team, who (due to thread comments) can easily communicate with each other directly.
  • Paperpile. If you use paid citation plugin Paperpile, anyone can insert a citation and anyone on the team can see the full citation. Paperpile is powerful citation software that is beautifully integrated into Chrome. See a paper on PubMed/ScienceDirect or a PDF? Click one button and it is now searchable and citable from within your GDoc.
Email and MS Word are technologies from 1971 and 1983, respectively. Their combination was never intended to be the final word in compositional version control. However, desktop word processors still do beat GDocs for typesetting; so I use GDocs for composition, followed by Apple Pages for typesetting the final manuscript.
0 Comments

Anion channelrhodopsins inhibit zebrafish behavior

8/13/2017

2 Comments

 

Zebrafish embryos move spontaneously. In fish expressing anion channelrhodopsin, green light induces paralysis.
Video by @GadistiAisha pic.twitter.com/GhgxKbbpG5

— Adam Claridge-Chang (@adamcchang) July 5, 2017
Check out our recent preprint, a collaboration with the Jesuthasan group. We find that anion channelrhodopsins are effective inhibitors of zebrafish embryos, and that GtACR2 is not trafficked to the plasma membrane well.
2 Comments

    Author

    ACCLab

    Archives

    September 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    October 2021
    September 2021
    September 2019
    March 2019
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    August 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed