For various technical and work flow reasons, I have to write my manuscript in MS Word, but I have a ton on research I want to organize in Scrivener. The basics seem simple enough, but I was wondering if anyone has developed a template geared to using the program to compile, store and organize research for a non-fiction book. Thank you.
How much research? If you’re talking about a detailed technical volume with hundreds of references per chapter, I’m not sure Scrivener is the tool I would recommend…
Generally speaking, the two most obvious schemes are to order research material by chapter or by topic. For a biography, say, you might have sections for “early life,” “education,” “early career,” etc. Or, alternatively, “parents,” “wife and family,” “public service,” etc. Which one to choose really depends on how you work and how you plan to structure the project.
Whichever you choose, you’ll want to make sure you capture full citation information, both so that you can cite the work accurately and so that you can find the original source if you ever need it.
Another question is whether to include original source materials, or your own notes, or both. That may in part depend on what the original source materials are. You might import a collection of technical papers in its entirety, but wouldn’t necessarily be able to do that with a collection of medieval manuscripts.
Katherine