Rebecca J. Hogue

Category: Workflows

  • Writing Tools: Scrivener and Bookends

    Writing Tools: Scrivener and Bookends

    Part of my preparation for the start of grad school – in case you missed it, I’m starting an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Kings College this summer – is to figure out the best tools to support and organize my writing.

    When working on my PhD and my memoir, I use Scrivener for writing. I find it lets me be both organized and disorganized at the same time. Sometimes the disorganization is what my brain needs – that is, just a place to dump ideas. But after a while, I need to get organized, or I cannot find things. And so, I’m organizing my Scrivener files and planning where each different type of writing will go.

    Next is citation management. In my PhD I used Bookends. It is a Mac only option, so isn’t often seen in the list of recommendations for citation software, but I’ve found it to be both flexible and very robust. However, since it has been a few years, I wanted to see what my other options were. I did a little research and confirmed that Bookends is still the best choice for me. One of the reasons it works for me is because it works with Bookends, where other software doesn’t.

    I’ve done some testing with short bits of text, and it works OK. It isn’t perfect for longer bits because I have yet to figure out how to carry over my MS Word footnotes into Scrivener. I will need to explore that further.

    I expect that my writing process will change as I work more on figuring out the style of writing I want to use in my various memoirs, as I shift from echoing a blogging format more into a narrative format.

    For what it is worth, here is my current process. I’m open to suggestions on how to improve it.

    In Scrivener:

    1. Write a first draft. I have taken Stephen King’s advice to heart and I write a crappy first draft.
    2. Edit draft until I feel it is ready. To help with editing, I use the Mac built in text-to-voice tool. I listen to what I have written and make corrections where needed. This really helps to point out where my brain is filling in words that aren’t there, or where I have the wrong word typed in.
    3. Compile into a Microsoft Word document.

    In Microsoft Word:

    1. Run a Bookends Scan. This converts any of my footnotes and in-text citations into Chicago style formatted citations.
    2. Run a spelling and grammar check. I run through the text again using the MS Word spelling and grammar. Although I have both Scrivener and MS Word setting for Canadian English, they each seem to pick up different things. MS Word grammar check also makes suggestions for when I’m being too wordy, which fortunately, isn’t too often. I’m learning from it!
    3. Listen using text-to-voice. I do one more run through with text-to-voice and make final updates.

    In Scrivener:

    1. Import the Word document back into Scrivener. I store my final document in Scrivener. I have folders for text that has been published into blogs as well as submitted to various writing competitions. This makes it easier for me to figure out if I have previously “published” or “submitted” works.

    Do you have any suggestions for how I might improve my process?

  • Using iAnnotate to mark student papers

    I've blogged before about using iAnnotate to take notes on my iPad, written with the context of academic research in mind. In this video, I demonstrate how iAnnotate can be used to mark student papers. This process is especially nice when using a third generation iPad with the dictation feature (an option available in Settings > General > Keyboard > Dictation). 

  • Workflows – Annotating PDF Articles on the iPad

    This is an updated version of the original posting on February 5th. This version includes a updated procedures and new video clips.

    This workflow requires the following applications on my Mac (or PC):

    • A browser (I use Firefox)
    • A PDF reader (I use Acrobat 9)
    • Dropbox
    • Mendeley

    In addition, I require the following apps on my iPad:

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  • Presenting with the iPad – Part 2 Setting up an Ad Hoc network

    This article is part 2 in a series.  The first article in the series provided an Overview of presenting with the iPad.

    Setting up an Ad Hoc network (otherwise known as peer-to-peer network) is actually quite simple on the Mac. I think it is just as simple on the PC, however, I no longer have a PC laptop, such that I cannot test solutions. If you can test these configurations on the PC, I'd love it if you would either blog at your site and let me know so I can link to it, or you could do a guest blog post here.

    If you do not require Internet sharing (and this is a big IF), then setting up an Ad Hoc network is not complicated. What you want to do is create a new network on your Mac or PC, then connect your iPad to it. Once the network has been created, and your devices are connected, you can use applications such as Air Server and Reflection to mirror your iPad display on your laptop (for projection to the screen) or Air Display to use your iPad as a secondary monitor for your laptop (useful when you want that second screen while travelling).

    To setup an Ad Hoc network on the Mac:

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  • Presenting with the iPad – Part 1 Technology Overview

    When I first thought about using my iPad for presenting at conferences and in the classroom, I thought the problem I was trying to solve was rather simple, and if all I wanted to do was connect my iPad to a VGA projector, then the solution is simple. Buy an iPad to VGA adaptor and connect the devices. Done. The problem with that solution is that the iPad is tethered to the projector via a really flimsy connection. The iPad connection port was not designed for something as heavy as the VGA cable (especially the SmartBoard cables). It only took a slight bump of the iPad for the connection to loosen and disconnect, causing the display to go blank. This solution required that the iPad be stationary. It definitely does not use the iPad to its fullest potential.

    To use the iPad to its fullest potential, I need a wireless method of connecting the iPad to the display. In the classroom, this allows me to walk around the room and update the screen from wherever I happen to be. It also allows students with iPads to wirelessly project their work. In a conference setting, it means that I can use my iPad to advance my slides and script without the worry of accidently bumping it and disconnecting the display. Initially, I thought this was a simple problem; however, as I worked to find a reliable solution and navigated throught the different applications and blog posts, I didn't see a simple explanation of the problem or where the various solutions fit in.

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  • Reviewing literature on the go

    I'm writing this while sitting at a campsite enjoying a short lull in all the noise associates with children playing and dogs barking. One of my hopes on this trip was to get some reading done. But the process of reviewing literature requires more than just reading (at least it does for me). It involves annotating the articles as I read, and then capturing both my annotations and my general reflections in a summary soon after I finish reading the article. If I wait too long after reading before summarizing, I risk loosing my thoughts.

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  • A big idea a day – today’s idea “idea technology”

    Over the next month I’ll be doing a lot of reading. In order to prepare for my comprehensive exams I have more than 100 articles to read – I’m about half way through. As I read, I’m finding that I’m learning lots of really interesting things, and I find myself wishing I had an opportunity to use some of this new knowledge in conversations – but all my time is being spend reading. So, instead of conversing, I figured I’d try to blog about one “big idea” per day based upon my reading. Now, I might not make one every day, but I’ll try to get out at least 5 per week.

    Today’s “big idea” comes from Hooper, S., & Rieber, L. P. (1995). Teaching with technology. In A. C. Ornstein (Ed.), Teaching: Theory into practice (pp. 154-170). Needham Heights: Allyn and Bacon.

    In this article about technology adoption, the authors describes two types of technology, product technology and idea technology. Product technology are the products created by manufacturers or companies, and idea technology are the ideas that support the use of the technology in learning context. For example, consider my post on Workflows. In this post, I had realized that in order to understand how I used my iPad, I needed to explain not just the applications I used, I also needed to explain the workflow. The iPad itself and the application (iAnnotate) represent product technology. These are things that you can buy (although iAnnotate is just software, it is still a prepacked “thing”). The Workflow represents idea technology, that is, it explains a context and a way in which to make use of the technology within a specific context. In order to increase the likelihood of technology adoption, “effective uses of technology in education require a blend of product and idea technologies” (Hooper, S. & Rieber, L.P, 1995, p.162).

  • File (dis)-organization

    A friend asked me other day what I used to organize my files. There is irony in this question, if you saw what my hard drive looked like! I am completely file inept. I seem to be incapable of sticking to single file system.  I forget where I filed things previously, or decide I want them to organize them by a different category. I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that I am hopeless at managing my own files – so I need a solution that does this for me.

    Like many of you, I am sure, I am prone to searching for articles and downloading them onto my computer. It is almost an addiction, and gives me a sense of accomplishment; however, the simple act of finding and downloading does not necessarily lead to reading – rather it leads to a cluttering of PDFs on my computer!

    My husband, trying to be helpful, provided a suggestion: “Give the unread PDF filenames that involve tags, and then placing them all in a single folder called unread”. That way, I would be able to find all my unprocessed PDFs easily enough. Unfortunately, that just doesn’t work for me. Not only do I suck at tagging (just as bad as filing as I can’t agree on a specific key words from one sitting to the next), I also seem to have an aversion to having too many unread PDFs in one place. I want them to be separated into small stacks (folders) so that no one stack is overwhelming. I think maybe if they were all in one folder, shear volume of files would paralyze me, and I would never make progress! So alas, I have given myself permission to be completely unorganized w.r.t my unread PDFs. This permission has actually provided a large sense of relief (deep sigh).

    Now, once I have read and annotated a PDF that is a different story.  An annotated PDF represents work that I’ve done, so it needs to be organized. When I started out my PhD, I searched for software, knowing that this is an age old problem and someone must have solved it by now (actually, the problem isn’t that old, but certainly it existed back when I did my Masters more than 5 years ago – so there has been ample time for someone to come up with a solution).

    I tried out Zotero briefly, but found it was too buggy for me and didn’t seem to do what I wanted. I tried Bookends for almost a year, and really liked it, except that it only works on a Mac – so I found myself worried. I didn’t want to commit to only using my Mac for my thesis (Microsoft Word on the PC has features that Word on the Mac doesn’t and I find Word on the Mac to be limiting).  Finally, I was led to Mendeley. It isn’t as elegant as Bookends, but in many ways it is better.

    By default Mendeley manages your references – it keeps track of them and allows you to keeps notes associated with references and it places them nicely in the correct format in your papers. It, however, also has a feature for organizing your PDF files – but it isn’t enabled by default. To enable it, you need to open Mendeley Preferences > File Organizer. With this turned on, whenever a drag a PDF file onto the Mendeley desktop application, it not only adds it to my references (trying to automatically populate the reference information), it also puts a copy of the file into my Mendeley References folder (renaming it based upon the naming conventions that I specified in the Preferences > File Organizer. To make sure that I don’t have two copies of the same PDF, I delete the original after entering it into Mendeley (so only the copy in the Mendeley folder is kept) – multiple copies of the same annotated PDF is a disaster, as then I would never know which is the one with my most up-to-date annotations.

    When added to my Workflow for annotating PDFs, this means that everything I have read and all my associated notes are stored in Mendeley. Mendeley then allows me to create multiple folders and drag various articles to the folders. A single article can be contained in multiple Mendeley folders. Because these folders are virtual collections, and not actual file folders, I don’t end up with multiple copies of anything. I just end up with a mess of folders – but I can change how I organize them on a whim without loosing any information. In addition, Mendeley desktop is completely searchable (and it searches within the PDFs it stores), so when I wonder to myself “Where was that quote about design research and deconstruction”, I can search for those words, and if I filed it, Mendeley will tell me where to find it!

    So with the combination of giving myself permission to not worry about where unread PDFs are (although eventually I’ll need to go through my hard drive and clean them up just to clear the space), and using Mendeley to store all my read articles and notes, I’ve found a way to adequately keep track of my reading and references – at least until something better comes along!

  • Workflows – Annotating PDF Articles

    In looking at activities to promote the adoption of iPads among faculty, it occurred to me that in order to help people appreciate the usefulness of the device, I need to do more than just recommend some apps that make my life easier. I also need to describe the workflow surrounding the apps.

    A while back, I created a post to demonstrate how I Use iAnnotate to take note on my iPad (complete with cheezy video). Of course, this little demo is useful if you already have means for getting files to and from your iPad, and if you already have a strategy for managing those files on your computer. But, for those that are new to the iPad, my post leaves out too many details, that it is of limited use to those that just bought their iPads and are trying to figure out how to use them.

    With this gap in mind, I’ve created an example of a work-flow that explains the complete process of reading and annotating my PDF journal articles.

    This workflow requires the following applications on my Mac (or PC):

    • A browser (I use Firefox)
    • A PDF reader (I use Acrobat 9)
    • Dropbox
    • Mendeley

    In addition, I require the following apps on my iPad:

    I believe workflows are often best described with a visualization, so here is a picture of the workflow:

    On my computer:

    1. Search for article. The process for finding article is beyond the scope of this point, but might make a nice future one! In short, I typically use Google Scholar to find articles. I have configured Google Scholar to use my university’s library, so retrieving articles is usually quick and easy.
    2. Download PDF, Save in Dropbox. I use Dropbox as the primary mechanism for transferring files between my computer and my iPad. Dropbox is free and a lot of applications integrate with it directly, making is a practical way to share files across devices. The software must be installed on both your computer and your iPad. If you don’t already have a Dropbox account and are planning to sign up, I’d appreciate it if you used my referral link, as it gives me more “free” storage space.

    On my iPad:

    1. Open in iAnnotate. The first time you use iAnnotate with Dropbox, you need to setup the connection between Dropbox and iAnnotate. Fortunately, iAnnotate has added a connection type of Dropbox, which means all you need to do is add your Dropbox account information and it just works. In iAnnotate, I open the Library then go to Connectivity. I select Dropbox, browse for the document and select it. Upon selection, the document is downloaded to my iPad. I then go back to the Library tab and select the document again, which opens it in the reading pane.
    2. Read and Annotate. For details on how I do this see Use iAnnotate to take note on my iPad (complete with cheezy video).
    3. Email Annotations. This is another one of those buried iAnnotate features. I click the tool box and under Document there is an option to E-mail Annotation Summary. This allows me to email all the text that I highlighted in the document, so that I don’t need to type in any quotations, and it allows me to store the key quotes in notes.
    4. Sync back to Dropbox. This is literally a click of a button. I click the Sync button and select Sync with Server.

    On my computer:

    1. Copy from Dropbox to Mendeley. I literally drag-and-drop the file from my Dropbox folder to the Mendeley desktop application. Once that is done, I double check that Mendeley has added the citation information correct. Here is a video (without sound) of how to look up articles in details by DOI.
    2. Add emailed Annotations into Mendeley. On the notes tab for the article, I copy in the Annotations that I emailed myself in step 5.
    3. Delete file from Dropbox. I have setup Mendeley to organize and store my files. Mendeley stores them locally on my machine, as well as a copy on the Mendeley server, so I don’t keep a copy on Dropbox anymore. I may choose to move my local Mendeley reference directory back to Dropbox at some point in time just to have the extra backup. Either way, I still need to delete the copy that came from my iPad, so that I don’t end up with multiple copies on my computer. For me, multiple copies means I can’t figure out which one is my master version.

    On my iPad:

    1. Delete file from iPad. Finally, I go into the iAnnotate library and delete the file from iAnnotate. If I want it again, I can always get it from the iPad Mendeley app, or I can copy it back into Dropbox and repeat this process.

    That’s it! That being said, the process is a little more convoluted that I’d like it to be. It would save me a fair bit of file management if Mendeley would integrate with iAnnotate. Mendeley does include some annotation capability on the Mac, but it doesn’t transfer to the iPad and the Mendeley PDF viewer on the iPad isn’t nearly as good as iAnnotate.

    Was this useful? Do you want me to do more Workflows?

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