Looking for PIM / Thesis Writing Software for the PC

Posted by Lucas
Oct 22, 2009 at 05:04 PM

Dr Andus,

Thanks for describing your setup. The distinction between creating the meat and creating the outline is useful. I actually find it easiest to generate text hierarchically to begin with (in a single-pane outliner like Ecco Pro, OmniOutliner, or Microsoft Word), but the resulting text often becomes unmanageable. I end up generating lots of complex hierarchies of text with various themes reiterated throughout, and ultimately it becomes extremely time-consuming to organize all the text, even though I produced it very quickly. Now that I have begun using ConnectedText, my workflow has changed. Instead of generating text in a hierarchy, I create a new “topic” for each significant idea (like in Ideamason). I can still indicate all the hierarchical relationships among my ideas using the built-in functionality for assigning topic relationships and categories (and this actually allows for richer webs of connection than a straight hierarchy does). The initial task of creating text takes longer, for me, with this method, but the overall time for a writing project becomes significantly shorter, because the text I generate is much more manageable and better organized. (And the dividends pay off even more when one is faced with a new writing project on similar themes, and it turns out half the work is already done.) The next stage with this method is very similar to what you describe doing with Bonsai, only it does not requite a separate program. ConnectedText has a built in Outline module that is designed for arranging existing topics into an outline for export (to be worked on, for instance, in a word processor). Anyway, it seems that the workflow here is somewhat similar to what you accomplish with WhizFolders and Bonsai.

So, what I am learning is that while I love the freedom of generating text in a single-pane outliner, I get better results when I am forced to separate the text I generate into discrete topics from the get-go. And this becomes even more palatable when I still have the freedom to assign complex hierarchical relationships (including bi-directional ones), as in CT. When I used outliners, I was always in search of robust “cloning”. But with a wiki like CT, I suddenly have infinite cloning. I can make any topic a parent and/or child of any other topic.

Lucas