Very simple bibliography?

[danco]

I am trying to work out the best way to create a very simple bibliography for an article (perhaps about twenty items that I do not expect to use in another article). I have looked at various forum posts on bibliographies, and downloaded Bookends. My current feeling is that, although the free version might be enough for me, the learning curve is too great for me to use it at present. The same would apply to other bibliography programs.

What I am thinking of is the following. I am wondering what people think of this approach, and whether it can be improved.

1. Create a folder named Bibliography, and put each reference into a separate file in this folder.

2. When I need a reference in the text, use a link to the relevant file.

3. Tidy up the references, removing the link, and putting in the data in the right form (at present I do not know whether footnotes or the Harvard style of reference will be asked for).

[howarth]

Another tricky aspect to bibliography is getting the format correct for each reference type: book, chapter in a book, article, online text, etc. A simple way to do that is NoodleTools, which is free for students and faculty, $4 for an individual. You log on, enter the data in a web form, and NT generates a formatted citation for copy/paste into your bibliography. The styles supported are MLA and APA.

NoodleTools: noodletools.com/

[chefpogo]

@danco

I am trying to work out the best way to create a very simple bibliography for an article (perhaps about twenty items that I do not expect to use in another article). I have looked at various forum posts on bibliographies, and downloaded Bookends. My current feeling is that, although the free version might be enough for me, the learning curve is too great for me to use it at present. The same would apply to other bibliography programs.

Browsing this forum I often feel like I’ve misunderstood something when it comes to bibliographies in Scrivener. That is, I find the “footnote”-feature very easy and simple to use. Others seem to not.

I’ve just published a 300 page biography crammed full of references on every page, and the footnote feature works like a dream. I add footnotes consisting of author name and year as I go, and simply refer to works that I maintain in a larger reference list sorted alphabetically. When I then compiled my manuscript and opened in Word, I had the footnotes be listed continuously at the end of the document, before the reference list. I ended up with about 500 footnotes.

Though, this assumes that you prefer having your bibliography referenced to through small superscripted numbers scattered through the text.

Anyway, just my thoughts…

f.

[xiamenese]

@danco

I am trying to work out the best way to create a very simple bibliography for an article (perhaps about twenty items that I do not expect to use in another article). I have looked at various forum posts on bibliographies, and downloaded Bookends. My current feeling is that, although the free version might be enough for me, the learning curve is too great for me to use it at present. The same would apply to other bibliography programs.

Actually, I’m a recent acquirer of Bookends. I have to say I found the learning curve minimal for the kind of thing that you want. Tracing the information on the various books I want to include and entering it is the most difficult part … from there I found it as easy as falling off a log …
Mark