How to record your study?

[mikes]

So now I really understand how to use accordance as a bible study tool and can use general and reference tools to find interesting and prompting content... what I cannot seem to do is find a good way to record my findings and thoughts together in notes that I would previously have taken down in my notebook with references to paragraphs and page numbers interspersed with my thoughts and references to previous pages in my own notebook.

 

Why not user notes?

1. No good way to refer to specific point in user, general or reference tools

2. No progression or ordering of content by either topic or personal timeline... the bible text is central as per accordance's design principle

There may be ways to work around this, but the work around will likely take more effort then just working from printed text and notebook. If that is your approach, I'd love to hear from you regarding the value you get from Accordance.

 

I've seen mention of Mellel, and I've seen logos users use MS Word. What are your successful toolsets and workflows in moving from findings in accordance texts and tools, to a cogent textual record or even sermon/lesson? What about a study journal?

[David Lang]

Why not user notes?

1. No good way to refer to specific point in user, general or reference tools

 

Mike, there is a good way to refer to a specific point in other resources: include a search argument that you can use as the basis for amplifying to a Tool.

 

Let's say you're studying and you find a great quote in Calvin's Institutes. Copy some text from that quote and paste it in your user note. For example, you might enter something like:

 

Institutes: "Due arrangement requires . . ."

 

Now, when you run across that reference in your user note at a later point in time, you can select the words "due arrangement requires," then select Institutes from the Resource palette. The Institutes will immediately be opened to the end of 1.1.3.

 

 

2. No progression or ordering of content by either topic or personal timeline... the bible text is central as per accordance's design principle

There may be ways to work around this, but the work around will likely take more effort then just working from printed text and notebook. If that is your approach, I'd love to hear from you regarding the value you get from Accordance.

 

If you want to organize a study record by some arrangement other than by verse, you would use a user tool rather than user notes. Organize it by date, topic, or whatever.

 

Hope this helps.

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

I use a User Tool for my lectionary Study. See this post for a discussion of my approach and a screenshot.

 

I write my sermons in NeoOffice. If I'm really organized, I add a "latent links" to it in the appropriate section of my user tool. Similarly I do the same (some weeks) with other non-Accordance resources I have on my computer. see this thread for a discussion of how to create "latent links."

 

Lorinda

[mikes]

Mike, there is a good way to refer to a specific point in other resources: include a search argument that you can use as the basis for amplifying to a Tool.

 

Let's say you're studying and you find a great quote in Calvin's Institutes. Copy some text from that quote and paste it in your user note. For example, you might enter something like:

 

Institutes: "Due arrangement requires . . ."

 

Now, when you run across that reference in your user note at a later point in time, you can select the words "due arrangement requires," then select Institutes from the Resource palette. The Institutes will immediately be opened to the end of 1.1.3.

 

I understand the work-around, and it is quite bulky and not exactly reliable (you have to test the uniqueness of your expression first, make sure that your reference to the tool is unique as well, e.g. am I looking at which Holman tool?)... all this makes this not exactly appealing to me, and would seem to point to a better way to do it outside the tool. While Accordance is REALLY good at bible-focused research and notes, the tools piece is clearly secondary. A kind of use and forget approach inside of the tool. Which points to people that are using the tool to have ways outside of Accordance to do this (one of the reasons I think books are still popular is the ease of access and reference friendliness.

 

I'm not looking for the work around to accomplish something inside of Accordance, I'm looking for the greater workflow that people use to get things done that sees Accordance as a tool, not the end.

 

 

If you want to organize a study record by some arrangement other than by verse, you would use a user tool rather than user notes. Organize it by date, topic, or whatever.

 

Hope this helps.

 

I'm intrigued by this concept, and I would love to do this, but the edit facility in accordance thus far is too clunky for me. I do silly things like use graphics (some I create in omnigraffle) and URLs to point to external links. It would be FANTASTIC if Accordance allowed the use of an RTF editor.. even just the OS TextEdit instead of the current built in editor, but I'm sure there's a reason things are the way they are (I work for a software company with software that, believe it or not, is more complicated then Accordance )

 

Do others use this approach of substantial use of the user tools for authoring?

 

To you, David, specifically, I VERY much appreciate your reply; it has been helpful and I knew about these specific functions, but never made the leap with the select and then right click to get to the specific resource. You HAVE been helpful! Love your blog too... follow it religiously!

[Fr. Matthew Thurman]

I posted this item under the "Start Up Page" discussion. It describes how I go about recording my study for homily preparation. What I've been practicing recently is preaching with only a handwritten outline that I prepare after I've done a lot of work taking notes in Accordance.