2.1 - get a tool actually built for drafting: non-linear word processors
Welcome to Season 2 of Grad School is Hard, But...where I give you all my best tools to make things a little less hard. To kick things off, we're talking about non-linear word processors. If you've ever done any of the following: completely lost where you were in the document; scrolled up and down for seeming minutes, trying to find where you left off; got completely confused; duplicated text; moved things around that you shouldn't have; gotten really overwhelmed, trying to start at the beginning; mixed up versions; mixed up drafts; then maybe a non-linear word processor is the way to go.
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Welcome to Grad School is Hard, But... A Thrive PhD podcast. I'm Dr. Katy Peplin and this is a show for everyone who's doing the hard work of being a human and a scholar. And in season two, I'll introduce you to various tools that might make the hard stuff from writing to managing your time to taking care of your brain just a little bit easier.
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In this week's episode, I am going to let you in on one of the biggest secrets that I have about writing long, complicated academic projects. Don't do it in Word. Or Pages or Libre Office or any of your more standard word processors. Now, if it's working for you and you feel like it's fine. There's no bumps at all. Feel free to skip the rest of this episode, and catch me back next week.
But if you have ever done any of the following: completely lost where you were in the document; scrolled up and down for seeming minutes, trying to find where you left off; got completely confused; duplicated text; moved things around that you shouldn't have; gotten really overwhelmed, trying to start at the beginning; Mixed up versions; mixed up drafts; then maybe a non-linear word processor is the way to go. Now by nonlinear word processor, what I mean is a piece of software that makes it easy for you to create collections of smaller bits of text that you then assemble into a longer, more linear draft.
Word and all of its other competitors are pieces of software that in my opinion are really great for things like formatting, sharing your work back and forth, once you have a draft that's all in a straight line. That has a beginning, a middle and an end. And you feel like the order is more or less locked in.
Other pieces of software can help you so much in the earlier drafting phases. Because they let you do things like create smaller documents that you remix and shuffle around to create new organizational schema. It might let you see more than one document open at a time so that you can compare or write directly from your notes or your outline. They might let you put all of your notes, outlines, research, sources, everything all in one place to minimize, clicking out, and therefore getting stuck in whatever sticky parts of the internet or your computer you tend to get stuck in.
These tools are meant to support the earlier messier non-linear phases of drafting. Where you might have a project that could turn into a conference paper and also a dissertation chapter and maybe a guest lecture. And instead of having 15 different word documents labeled: early draft, crappy draft, final draft, final, final draft, final draft for lecture. You get what I mean! You have everything all in one place that you can export and move around as you want to.
The first and most popular version of this software is something called Scrivener, which is definitely paid software. You do have to pay to use it. However it has some of the most generous trial policies that I've ever seen. But other pieces of software that would fall under this umbrella of non-linear word processors are Evernote, Notion, Obsidian could be used this way. Even Google docs has some pretty cool hyperlink functions and folder structures that you can use to replicate.
These tools are good for a couple of things, and I'm going to list them out now. Number one, I think they're good for projects that have a lot of possible formats. Whether that's possible organizational structures, whether you're going to start with this case study or that case study.
Or, you know, this is a body of research that might have four or five different related, but distinct outputs, like a conference paper, a chapter, so on and so forth. It lets you shuffle and see all of these things, keep them together and keep them with the research that they belong to so that you're not trying to manage a thousand different files with slight but meaningful differences.
Number two. I think that this kind of software is particularly awesome for people who want to create really dense links between their research notes, outlines, primary sources to help them see and work with these things more completely. So if you're a scientist and you have A paper that you're supposed to be doing. And it has the same seven sections every time - this might not be necessary for you.
But if you are an anthropologist or historian or an archivist or a person who works with interviews that you're coding, it can be really helpful to have a piece of software that organizes itself around all of the different things that feed into your writing for those early draft stages. So for example, when I was using Scrivener, I would have four panes open at any one time, all within the same document window.
I would have the draft I was actually working on. A scratch pad so that I could capture any notes and things that come up because my brain is very busy while I'm writing. It would have the original source that I was thinking about. And also the long outline that I was working from. And I didn't have to have those in four different Word documents. They were all there in one thing so that I could see them and bounce between them.
This is great. If you, like I mentioned, tend to get stuck when you click out of a document and then suddenly you're in the rest of your life and not doing your writing.
The other function that these are really, really good for are when you are feeling completely overwhelmed about where to start.
The worst thing about opening up a blank document, calling it dissertation proposal, and then trying to start writing is that naturally you're going to start writing at the beginning. And beginnings are some of the hardest parts. I never recommend that people start with the beginning unless they have a really good reason to, I always say write from whatever feels the clearest to you.
It might be the subsection three quarters of the way into the chapter, or it could be the conclusion, or it could be, you know, the second paragraph or the 15th. But nonlinear word processors, let you open up a file easily quickly say, Hey, this is this case study. I write it out there and then shuffle or reshuffle it, depending on how your structure and organization end up being through various revision processes.
Okay, last bit a caveat. If you try one of these pieces of software, whether it's Scrivener or Evernote or Notion, any of these nonlinear word processors, and immediately you feel overwhelmed, discombobulated if it doesn't really click with your brain, it feel free to bounce on out of there.
There is no need to use a non-linear word processor. If it doesn't immediately strike you as something that would be really beneficial. But if you've been really struggling to keep track of various drafts, and want a little bit more flexibility and support and options to play in the earlier drafting stages. There's no better place to do it than a non-linear word processor.
Thanks so much for being here and I will see you next week.
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