Tell me about your paper-writing bookends workflow

A place for users to ask each other questions, make suggestions, and discuss Bookends.
Dellu
Posts: 268
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2016 5:30 am

Re: Tell me about your paper-writing bookends workflow

Post by Dellu »

Labels & Rating are also very powerful tools.

For me, for publications that I need to read from start to end, for one specific project (article), I rate them 5--
- for publications I will check; need to careful examine: I rate them 4
- for publications that might be relevant, but not sure about: rate 3

All of them receive the project keyword (tag).

They are then collected with smart search.
As I find more useful publications, I do the same: rate + tag--
The smart searches are more useful because they can update themselves. They also unify the bookends-internal keywords and finder tags.
rickl
Posts: 182
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 4:47 am
Location: Japan

Re: Tell me about your paper-writing bookends workflow

Post by rickl »

The smart searches are more useful because they can update themselves. They also unify the bookends-internal keywords and finder tags.
The second part of that is new to me. Do you mean that Bookends automatically writes all tags to attachments?
alanterra
Posts: 77
Joined: Wed Dec 20, 2017 4:55 pm

Re: Tell me about your paper-writing bookends workflow

Post by alanterra »

Most of my workflow is similar to what is described by others. I am working with a lot of non-electronic documents, so I need to keep track of which library/repository that they are in, so I use the following.

My color labels are: No Label/Have notes/Have read/To read/Find/Not Located/Deferred/In Process/Problem/Archived

Most of these are self evident. Deferred means that I don't have it and am not currently looking for it. Archived means that I have it, but I don't want to read it (e.g. downloaded material that I don't intend to read, but can't bear to delete). In Process means that I have it on order somewhere.

I then use tags to keep track of which project I need the item for. So a smart folder of label = Find & keyword = "For Project A" gives me everything I need to find for that project. A smart folder of label = Find & keyword = "For Project A" keyword = "At UCB" gives me everything that is at UCB.

I have a custom field for Call No (Custom 1). This is the name of the library + the call number. So I can create smart folders for what I need at each library.

Finally, I have a custom format that starts with the call number, so I can print my list of items for a particular library before I leave.

What I haven't figured out is where to put notes when I read something. If I put them in the Notes field of Bookends, I can't easily find them from outside Bookends or use file-based tools to search. If I put them in the Research folder of a Scrivener document, then they are hard to find in a different project. If I put them in a document attached to the reference (a .rtf or .pdf), they are hard to scan quickly. I am mostly using the Scrivener research folder for notes, but right now my notes are scattered all over the place.
Post Reply