Using Collections to Build A New Document?

I’m using Scrivener 3.1.5 under MacOS 10.14.6. I am by no means a mature Scrivener user, although I’ve been using simple features since the release of Version 2. Over the past few months, I’ve been studying the manual and watching the videos with great attention. I sometimes feel like the medical student imagining he has the symptoms of each disease as he reads about them!

My project is a lengthy non-fiction title intended to serve as a future primary resource. In the past week or so, the work was subjected to a thorough editorial review. The comments were excellent, focusing almost entirely on organization and flow. I’m grateful for the input, but I need help implementing the suggestions.

Here is one example: A Chapter (called Original) contains perhaps 40 or more paragraphs. Some of these paragraphs will be ‘harvested’ by moving to one of several different documents that I am calling A, B, and C.

The idea: I wonder if Collections might be useful here, a way to ‘build’ new documents A, B, or C? If I understand correctly, I can drag discrete pieces from Original to Document A, or B, or C.

But I couldn’t see how to identify discrete pieces of Original? I could use Copy/ Paste, which would be inelegant, and would not help me track paragraph movement, nor indicate if a paragraph has been moved.

Am I headed in the wrong direction? Perhaps creating Document D while referring to Original is a better road? Maybe so, but the word count here is something like 40-50,000, more or less. Lots of typing.

Can anyone comment on my thinking/approach?

Why not split “Original” into as many pieces as necessary, and move the pieces? Then merge back together to create the finished documents A, B, and C?

See the Documents → Split and → Merge menu commands.

Katherine