Congratulations and thank you to Othman Talib!

Othman became an Advisor just last month after letting us know about the hundreds of seminars he was teaching all across Malaysia since 2011. How Othman managed to stay under our radar for a long time…we don’t know how, but we are sure glad to know him now!

His talks integrates Mendeley with the academic thesis writing process and he’s developed an entire program of maximizing Mendeley and academic writing, full of interesting acronyms like:

ZDOT (Zero Draft of Thesis);

SROT (Speed Reading On Target);

FBOT (Filter Based On Theme);

OTOT (Operational Template of Thesis);

AFOT( Article’s Framework Of Thesis)

…and so on. If you can’t tell, Othman really loves his acronyms. Have you seen a common theme in his acronyms?  “As you notice my name is OT (Othman Talib) and now I’m OTFM (Official Trainer for Mendeley)!! People and friends call me just “OT” or “Dr. OT” he said.

Othman has written a book about Mendeley in Malay and is now working on its English translation.

How did you get into research and what do you research?

I received a Bachelor in Chemistry, Master in science education (both in Malaysia) and Doctor of Education in Science Education from The University of Adelaide, Australia.

I’m interested in research regarding science animation and now in the process of developing Apps for Organic Reaction Mechanisms.

How long have you been on Mendeley?What were you using prior to Mendeley?

I used EndNote during my studies. Then in 2010, I tried Mendeley because its free!! I was so surprised Mendeley is so easy to learn and then I started to use it in my research. Then I posted the steps of using Mendeley in my blog and now my blog is approaching 1 million reviews!

How does Mendeley influence your research?

Mendeley is a superb Reference Manager. Its easy to use, to learn and such a complete package for managing articles. I combine the use of Mendeley with my own technique, Zero Draft of Thesis (ZDOT), Dropbox, and MS Word, it becomes a complete, efficient and fast way to prepare an academic manuscripts (thesis, proposal, project, report etc)

Why did you decide to become an Advisor?

I just love to share with others in the Mendeley Advisor group.

How have you been spreading the word about Mendeley?

I’m a lecturer of Research Methodology at Universiti Putra Malaysia. I’m also a consultant for my university as well as a speaker for Malaysian Postgraduates Workshop Series. I’m also an advisor for few government agencies. Most of the institutions invited me because they want to learn Mendeley from me.

I wrote a lot about Mendeley in my blog, as well as in my Facebook. I have thousands of friends in facebook and thousands of followers for my blog. My books such as ZDOT and Mendeley are also sold out and need to be reprinted!!

Feel free to explore my Facebook and blog. You can see the word Mendeley even if you don’t understand the Malay language.

What book are you reading at the moment and why?

I have my own books and my books are the best!!

Any fun fact people might be surprised to learn about you?

I not only teach the participants how to use Mendeley, but also how to use it effectively. I have written another book entitled “Research and Thesis: If I had only known” which motivate readers the fact that writing thesis / proposal is far easier with tools such as Mendeley.

What is the best part about being a researcher?

I love to explore. I love to share and teach. I already won 3 gold medals for my animation and got the opportunities to present my research at the  international level.

And the worse?

Nothing….. every single day is waiting to explore !!

What is the one thing you want people to know about Mendeley?

A free brilliant reference manager !