Writing Tools, or “Magic Software”

I also wrote my dissertation in Wordperfect. I loved the “reveal codes” feature. I now use Scrivener for long manuscripts, Pages for heavily formatted documents and Google Docs for shared/collaborative docs.

I use LaTeX to typeset all of my papers, and the initial investment in time to learn the markup has paid dividends throughout my graduate career. I use Kile for Linux as my front-end, but you can use any text-editor (which is nice for when I access my .tex files off Dropbox, I can edit them on any computer). The advantages of using LaTeX are well documented, but I’ll list some of those that matter the most to me:

Bibtex: using bibtex files is a lifesaver. Easy bibliography management coupled with easy citation (I need to cite Chomsky’s Aspects of Syntax? All I need to enter is \cite{chomsky1965} and it provides the citation I need. Do I need to change the style for a certain journal’s standard? Well, I change one line at the end, and it reformats all of my citations in the right style.

Isolation from formatting: I can’t stand dealing with formatting issues, especially in Word, while I am writing a paper. LaTeX is a mark-up language, so you can worry about the writing, and then just have it do the formatting for you. Occasional hiccups are easily fixed later. This just helps me lock in to the writing aspect of my project.

Other formats are easy: switching from the normally stringent requirements of my dissertation to writing a letter is a breeze. One set of skills allows you to create anything, from my note sheets with complex syntax trees, to letters of recommendation, outlines and presentations (with Beamer).

Symbols: it is a breeze to incorporate the symbols from symbolic logic and formal linguistics which appear regularly in my own work. Need a tree? A single line of code does it. In one recent paper I kept needing to use a complex set of symbols to represent denotations, so I just created a new command, which allowed me to have it produce that set of symbols just with the command, \den{whatever}.

Learning LaTeX does require an initial investment of time. I’m a bit of a tech geek, so I relished that (plus, it was easy work that wasn’t writing!), but I think the payoffs have been worth it tenfold. I would recommend, to Quinn in particular, playing around a bit with LaTeX. While there are plenty of complex coding options, most of the basic stuff is just like the HTML type environment you are talking about. LaTeX and HTML are similar in that both are markup languages. Bolding something in LaTeX is just a matter of \textbf{some bold text}, in place of the use of HTML tags. I’ve just learned the more complex stuff as it is has become necessary.

I’ve been using OpenOffice Writer and Zotero with the plugin for references – the excellent implementation of styles in OpenOffice makes it great for large, complex documents, and adding references with one click is hard to beat. I have an APA template (including the new headings etc.) if anyone is interested. Ecojustice is part of my research, so the fact that both OpenOffice and Zotero are free and open source doesn’t hurt either.

I use the most appropriate tool for the given task.

I know that’s a bit of a blanket statement, but here’s what I mean:
I’m a nerd, and one of the tech-things that I enjoy is finding new tools. Simply, I think of stagnation is a cardinal sin. What worked yesterday, might not today, or at least, might not work as well as todays tool (or it might just make you look silly in front of more technically inclined students/faculty/staff/etc).

As such, I have basically no loyalty to software beyond it’s ability to deliver.

I use WordPress to build sites because it’s the most feature complete, and it’s plugin depot is the largest. If Joomla were suddenly able to surpass those qualities, I’d drop WP like a sack of rocks. Same goes for my word processors.

Like most people, I got used to Word. Until I got my first Mac (with iWork) and played with Pages. Suddenly my documents look better, and the little things like having to manually update the table of contents aren’t an issue. (Pages does that automatically, whereas in Word you have to manually refresh the ToC after adding a section) One less thing to think about gives me that much more mental resource to give to my writing. Say goodbye Word.

When I have to write how-to’s for I.T. or the dept. I use Screen Steps. Could I make a heading -> image -> and caption in Word, Pages, NoteBook, etc? Sure, but would it be as easy or fast? No. End of discussion.

Speaking of notes, for note taking, or general clippings, brief writing, information clipping etc, Circus Ponies NoteBook is absolutely unbeatable. It’s down right made of awesome.

Most applications now have video tutorials on their sites. And the one’s that don’t are almost without fail on YouTube. I simply can’t justify wasting hours trying to use a app for one thing, when it was designed for another, just because I’m “comfortable” with it. Especially when I can sit down and spend five to fifteen minutes watching YouTube or another video tutorial, on a purpose built tool that can save me hours over the course of a project.

I have a section in Google Reader dedicated to I Use This.com, MacUpdate, and Version Tracker (as well as Daring Fireball and a few other tech blogs that frequently post about powerful software) and when one of them posts something that perks my interest, I dive in. It takes little time and effort to browse the feed- only clicking on what I want- but the result is nearly always having (or knowing of) the test tool for the job- something that I am constantly asked about by colleagues. And, no student is going to pull the wool over my eyes with an intentionally corrupted document (there are even a few sites that sell manufactured Word doc corruption so that a student can buy himself some time- can you tell the difference?), or lame software excuse, “incompatibility problem”, or by offering me the excuse that they just don’t understand or know how to use tool x, y, or z. I can help them (often to their dismay, as now they have no valid reason to blow homework off for the weekend ;) or at the very least, suggest an alternative to a given software.

Speaking of which, alternativeto.net is amazing.

All in all, I see now reason to be dedicated to a single tool. There are lots of them out there, and while one could say a hammer is a hammer, a carpenter would surely take issue that his framing hammer is the same as a roofing hammer or a soft mallet.

I concur with the LaTEX users out there. Finished my masters degree with LaTEX. If you are using Linux
groff is very nice as the markup is simpler than LaTEX. Instead of BibTEX you can use “refer” with groff. For editing documents I’m having trouble believing no one has mentioned Vim. Somewhat of a learning curve but the rewards are extremely high and it’s power will continue to amaze and surprise you even after years of use. The commands are much simpler than emacs as well.

A good starting point for LaTEX is “Text Formatting with LaTEX: A tutorial” From Academic and Research Computing. There is a great LaTEX tutorial by Tobi Oetiker out there, but the title escapes me. For Groff I recommend, “Typesetting in UNIX using Groff”, by Dean Allen Provins of the University of Calgary. On Linux/Unix platforms you can easily create templates and macros using a vast assortment of tools such as: m4, perl, sed, awk, make ….etc ….etc. One of the strengths of plain text markup is that you now have access to a whole range of tools for manipulating it and being lazy.

Tutorials for Vim are everywhere and plentiful. I’ve tried most editors and continue the search, but so far, Vim is the cream of the crop by a country mile. Runs on any platform unlike other less civilized software. Syntax highlighting for all markup languages.

Have fun!

Chad

Quinn and others here should check out, if they haven’t already, Ulysses from the Soulmen (formerly Bluetec) … it is not a word processor but a semantic text editor that offers a really useful set of main text and side note buckets, a beautifully customizable full screen view, export to whatever word processing format you desire (incluing LaTex), and a nice organizational matrix to keep a given project’s files in order. It is kind of like Scrivener, and when Scriviner came out I thought I would switch to it; but I actually found I still preferred Ulysses and then the 2.0 of Ulysses confirmed me in my preference.

The key with Ulysses is that you write with no formatting whatsoever, just tags that you key yourself for customization at export. I just use {brackets} for italics, since nothing I write ever has bold or underlining in it. For me, it is very liberating to just concentrate on the words I’m writing and not be fretting about how the paper I’m working on will look printed out. I don’t want wysiwyg until I’m actually truly on the verge of printing!

Scrivener for non-linear writing and taking your writing apart to the smallest manageable unit.
LaTeX for formatting.