In case this triggers any interesting suggestions or comments: I've just begun outlining my doctoral thesis (in the social sciences), and as it's going to be a complex piece of work (8-9 chapters, 80-100k words in total), I found that using several outliners across two monitors allows for a reflexive process of outlining that seems to be the most effective in helping me clarify my thoughts.

The process and setup is as follows: in Scrivener (for Win) I begin by using the index card (corkboard) view to develop the overall structure, while also using the hierarchical outline in the binder view. I may even do some ad hoc writing as I go along. From time to time I switch to Natara Bonsai, where I'm constructing a bare-bones equivalent of the exact same hierarchical outline. At times the Bonsai outline moves ahead, then I go back to Scrivener and update it, or vice versa. It's a reflexive, mirroring process. The benefit of this is that Bonsai allows for a single-pane view of the entire outline, which is not possible in Scrivener, as it doesn't allow you to see what's inside a "document" (an item on their outline view or corkboard).

More or less simultaneously to the Scrivener-Bonsai mirroring, I'm constructing yet another version of the exact same outline in Storybook, which allows yet another way of visualising the outline. The most helpful is the "chronological view" which allows you to see multiple "strands" (or storylines) side-by-side, which I'm using to separate different levels of analysis which belong to different disciplines but which are mixed up or even simultaneous at times in the text itself. Also, the "chapters" view is very useful because it allows me to see all the "documents" (scenes in Storybook or index cards in Scrivener) in all the chapters in one single view, which is not possible in Scrivener because it only shows the index cards of the particular hierarchy that you are viewing.

Basically all three software provide a totally different view of the text, its elements, and its overall structure. Obviously if these were available in a single software, I would have gone for that, but being able to open three iterations of the same outline in different views would be crucial.

Dr Andus wrote:

Basically all three software provide a totally
different view of the text, its elements, and its overall structure. Obviously if
these were available in a single software, I would have gone for that, but being able to
open three iterations of the same outline in different views would be crucial.

I'm pretty sure that all these views are available in InfoQube (and more, such as MapView).

Pierre
InfoQube designer
http://www.infoqube.biz

Pierre Paul Landry wrote:

I'm
pretty sure that all these views are available in InfoQube (and more, such as
MapView).

Pierre,

thanks for the suggestion. InfoQube is on my list of software to check out, so I will definitely do. But I have to say that for the moment I'm very pleased with the visualisation capabilities of my current Scrivener+Bonsai+Storybook arrangement. Scrivener already allows for some pretty sophisticated visualisation with its combination of binder, cork board, outline, scrivenings and split pane views. This is then greatly augmented by Storybook with its 3 innovative views and 8 or so charts. What I also like about all 3 software that they keep the visual interface very clean, so I can stay focused on the writing task.

But I do look forward to testing InfoQube.

Hi there -- I am also working through the dissertation process and I've been using the following for similar purposes: Writing Outliner for Word + ConnectedText + Noteliner, along with Citavi (for references), Atlas.ti (for analysis), and MyNotesKeeper for random thoughts, ideas, and journaling. I don't know how I ever worked with a single monitor -- all these apps are open on my 2 x 24-inch monitors.

Thanks for sharing your setup.
Glen

p.s. The other must-have's in my research workflow are Macropool's WebResearch and PersonalBrain for web-based content, link, and URL management.

Dr Andus wrote:

simultaneously to the Scrivener-Bonsai mirroring, I'm constructing yet
another version of the exact same outline in Storybook, which allows yet another way
of visualising the outline.

Overall I'm impressed; I have a couple of practical questions:

- Is there a non-manual way to transfer the outline from Scrivener to Bonsai; e.g. as tab-indented text, OPML or whatever?

- Can you explain how you construct the _outline_ in Storybook? With the Stoybook info types I would expect that you can get 3-4 levels max, i.e. parts, chapters and scenes, plus the parallel strands, is this enough for you?

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

- Is there a non-manual way to transfer the outline
from Scrivener to Bonsai; e.g. as tab-indented text, OPML or whatever?

There are some ways to import and export for both (mostly as text or RTF) but I haven't tried that and I'm not sure how convenient that would be.

As I'm constructing an outline from scratch, there is nothing to import or export for me. I'm using simple copy and paste between Scrivener, Bonsai and Storybook back and forth to build my outline incrementally and keep them up-to-date. I'm focused on maximising creativity right now, and I'm finding that creativity is helped by being able to distill the messy planning process in Scrivener into a distilled logical outline in Bonsai and a big picture outline in Storybook. Scrivener provides a meso-view (of index card chunks of text), Bonsai provides the micro-view of a logical outline of each idea (which will probably become topic sentences of paragraphs), and Storybook provides the macro-view of the book as a whole.

- Can you
explain how you construct the _outline_ in Storybook? With the Stoybook info types I
would expect that you can get 3-4 levels max, i.e. parts, chapters and scenes, plus the
parallel strands, is this enough for you?

It's basically a process of distillation. I come up with some text and structure in Scrivener, I distill it into an idea-by-idea logical outline in Bonsai, and then I zoom out and reconstruct the overall big picture view in Storybook. So the Storybook outline is a very chunky one where each "scene" represents a section in the chapter (a "document" or index card in Scrivener). The main benefits of Storybook so far are 1) the ability to split the "scenes" (Scrivener index card titles) into "strands" and view them side-by-side (I have 3 right now), which is not possible in Scrivener, as it can only display them linearly (one index card after the other). This allows for visualising the complexity of the text better, by making various plot-lines visible. 2) The "Manage chapters and scenes" view is very helpful to see the chapters side by side, while each of them displays all the scenes (which in Scrivener is not possible because it only displays top level index cards, as opposed to index cards contained within index cards, or scenes within scenes). This view also shows the colour coding for the strands, which is also very nice.

Dr Andus wrote:

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

>- Can you
>explain how you construct the
_outline_ in Storybook? With the Stoybook info types I
>would expect that you can get
3-4 levels max, i.e. parts, chapters and scenes, plus the
>parallel strands, is this
enough for you?

So to answer your question, I'm not really using it as an outliner in the sense you describe it. I'm using Storybook as a "structure visualiser."

Dr Andus wrote:

As I'm constructing an outline from
scratch, there is nothing to import or export for me. I'm using simple copy and paste
between Scrivener, Bonsai and Storybook back and forth to build my outline
incrementally and keep them up-to-date. I'm focused on maximising creativity right
now, and I'm finding that creativity is helped by being able to distill the messy
planning process in Scrivener into a distilled logical outline in Bonsai and a big
picture outline in Storybook.

The point I'm trying to make about "reflexivity" is that as I change one outline in one software, the other two become out of sync, and so as I try to manually update the other two, I realise I can further improve the outline in the other software given its different visualisation, so then I have to return to the first software and update that one and the third one. And for some reason this really seems to work, I've never been this productive with writing before. So creativity seems to emerge from the minor disparities between the three outlines, as I keep tinkering and trying to keep them identical. So maybe it's "recursivity," rather than "reflexivity."

Thanks for sharing, Dr. Andus.

I made the experience that retyping (not copying) the outline elements can also help getting more clarity. Instead of Storybook I used Storylines for a project some time ago. And your post made me think about combining Scrivener with Storylines.

Franz

Franz Grieser wrote:

I made the experience that retyping (not copying)
the outline elements can also help getting more clarity. Instead of Storybook I used
Storylines for a project some time ago. And your post made me think about combining
Scrivener with Storylines.

Thanks for the tip. I took a look at Writer's Cafe and it does look similar to Storybook. Its StoryLines feature is definitely interesting. I also think that Scrivener is missing a trick by not providing a similar visualisation function.

Fascinating. I'm glad to find I'm not the only one who uses multiple outliners/applications to write things - I've always been rather embarrassed by this, because I often find myself playing around with ideas in several different programs (my favourites - currently - being TreeSheets, UV-Outliner, Noteliner and a number of different iPad applications, including OmniOutliner, Numbers and MagicPad). I usually end up by transferring the text into a single application, and from there into Word for final formatting/client output.

I save web data in a number of different places, too: again, my current favourites are (on the PC) Local Website Archive - I use the free version - and (on the iPad) Notebooks, which can import pages from URLs. I also save web pages to an intranet set up in Plone, which has some powerful search functions (and is now very easy to install, thanks to some great work by the developers of version 4.0). We also run an intranet based on Kerio Workspace (you may remember we were early beta-testers), but the search function in Workspace is still rudimentary, so it's not a great place to run fast searches (no hit highlighting, apart from anything else!). I'm toying with the idea of experimenting with Microsoft SharePoint for storing bitexts - you can install the 2010 version on Windows Home Server 2011, apparently, which would make for a cheap but very powerful solution if it all does what I think it does (Search Server Express comes with SharePoint built-in, I'm told, plus hugely enhanced search features - I've not had a chance to experiment with this yet, but will certainly report on it when I do).

I used to use the Scrapbook extension for Mozilla Firefox for storing web pages - it's very, very good - but now use Chrome almost exclusively. Which means I've tried to like Evernote, but for some reason find it very annoying.

Another powerful search engine for personal use, capable of searching through and displaying many different types of documents as web pages, is the IBM Yahoo version of OmniFind. We use it to index e-mails internally; the only negative is the need to trigger indexing manually. The search results are Google-like, and as I say, you can preview documents in HTML format directly from the server, which saves a lot of time.

Sorry, this has turned into more of a general ramble. But I'm encouraged that the CRIMP mentality may actually have some creative value, too!

Cheers,
Bill

Franz, if I understand you correctly, you are stating a principle that I have learned the hard way: there is a limit to how productive automation can be in *writing* projects. The CRIMPer in me has long wanted software to do everything. But no software can *write* or *think* for you. Retyping is in fact a time-honored method of learning. (Former teachers of mine have talked about how, in their student days, they would retype their lecture notes--on something apparently called a typewriter--as a way of assimilating the knowledge.) No matter how helpful digital technology can be in capturing, organizing, and finding information, only writers can write.

Cheers,
David

Franz Grieser wrote:

I made the experience that retyping (not copying)
the outline elements can also help getting more clarity.

Actually, Supermemo does an interesting job of thinking for you via its cloze deletion process of continually refining text down into key memory hooks. It's an iterative process that improves analysis.

The BrainStormWFO sorting procedure is another iterative process that allows analysis and also synthesis, leading to a complete mindmap from a series of extremely simple decisions.

Writing can't be iteratively automated because it's too r-mode, but you can strengthen the neural pathways, so to speak, by frequently "downloading" essays from brain to digital, and efficiently filing them to alleviate fear of loss that they'll be forgotten. This regular downloading increases the r-mode's writing ability on the given subject. And there are lots of tricks one can use to bypass the various friction points that arise while writing.

My personal experience is that nothing works better for memory and concept development than handwriting. Actually, not having used a typewriter, I am unable to conclude whether the problem lies in the typing or in the PC screen, but I know that the combination of pen and paper works best for me.

critStock wrote:

Retyping is in fact a time-honored method of learning.
(Former teachers of mine have talked about how, in their student days, they would
retype their lecture notes--on something apparently called a typewriter--as a way
of assimilating the knowledge.)