![]() ![]() One note about collecting research items in Scrivener: it’s not designed to serve as a large-scale database, and it can be overloaded. What makes this collected research especially valuable is Scrivener’s split-pane view.īy clicking the button in the toolbar, I can display two items from my binder simultaneously (Option + click will alternate between a horizontal and a vertical split pane): I can either open the file in an external editor and use the “Save As…” command to save a copy elsewhere on my harddrive, or I can use the “Export file” command in Scrivener’s File menu. If I want to export a file from my Scrivener project-if I want to send an article I’m working from to a colleague, for instance-that’s also easy. What’s more, any changes you make in the external editor will appear in Scrivener if you save the file (so, if I add notes to a PDF in Preview, after I save the file those notes will appear when I view the PDF in Scrivener’s viewer). These files can be viewed/watched/listen to within Scrivener, or opened in an external editor using Scrivener’s contextual menu. For my dissertation, I mainly collect PDFs of articles I’m working, notes on print sources, and scans of primary sources, which are for me mainly images of 19th Century religious periodicals.Ī Scrivener project file is really a folder, and the formatting of items you import is preserved. I could list more file types here I’ve not encountered many source files Scrivener won’t import. The second main category in Scrivener’s binder is “Research.” Here you can collect folders and documents, but also images, webpages (which can be retained as web archives or converted to text), PDFs, Office documents, and even audio and video files. When I get stuck in a chapter I immediately browse through my fragments, and often I find just the right prompt to break my writer’s block. Many of these never find their way into the main document, but Scrivener’s ability to collect and organize all of my thoughts about each project has proved invaluable. I also have a folder in my binder called “Fragments” in which I collect ideas, ranging from a single sentence to a few paragraphs, that I have yet to find a home for in the larger project. I can return to it when I have time to flesh it out. That snippet won’t sit in the middle of a longer document, taunting me, but I also won’t forget it. When I have an idea, however small, I create a new document in the relevant chapter and write it down. Most importantly, the binder approach allows me to write in bits and pieces, stops and starts. In either view I can click-and-drag elements to reorganize my project, as I can in the binder itself. Presents the shape of a folder or folders for more linear thinkers. Scrivener’s “Corkboard” view (shown above), displays for visual thinkers the synopses (more on that shortly) of each document in a given folder or folders as index cards on a corkboard. By allowing me to compose in short sections, rather than 40-50 pages at a time, Scrivener allows me to better visualize the arc of of a long piece. Remembering how the sub-sections of a chapter fit together, and then how those chapters fit together into a book, is difficult to do when looking at one continuous stream of pages. What I love about Scrivener’s binder metaphor is that I can compose each chapter not as one huge file, but as a series of shorter documents grouped under a folder or master document.Īs the texts required of me have grown longer, it’s become harder and harder to keep them mentally organized. The drafts category can only contain two things: folders and documents. That project, in turn, has a binder divided into two big categories: “Draft” and “Research.” You can also create additional categories. In Scrivener you don’t create a document, you create a project. ( Note: Click on any of the images to view a larger version.) Instead, I’ll try and detail why I find Scrivener valuable for academic writing and teaching. As with Things, I won’t aim to give a complete tutorial: Literature and Latte hosts a series of video tutorials on their website that will walk you through most of Scrivener’s features. So that’s high praise-perhaps a bit overblown-but this software changed the the way I think through, organize, and perform my professional writing. I don’t remember how I wrote before discovering it, and I can’t imagine writing without it. In fact, more than any other program Scrivener ensures my loyalty to the Mac platform and helps me quash my desire for a netbook (I’ve yet to find a comparable composition tool for Windows or Linux, but please let me know in the comments if I’ve missed one). If Things is an important part of my daily workflow, Scrivener is essential. Today I’m writing about Scrivener, an enhanced word processor from the folks at Literature and Latte. It seems I’m becoming the Mac software guy on ProfHacker. ![]()
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