PDF Workflows for Academics

I did a quick search on my Mac and I currently have 4, 832 PDFs on my computer. While not all of them are academic articles, a huge number of them are. PDF continues to be one of the most versatile file types and one that I prefer when passing files back and forth. Saving invoices, webpages — pretty much everything can now be saved as a PDF. As you work with PDFs here are a number of things you should know and tips you can use.

Creating PDFs from Digital Files

Many people are still under the impression that you need Adobe products in order to create and work with PDFs. While this was the case a while back, it is not the case anymore. On a Mac, you can "print to PDF" from anywhere on the computer. Simply hit print, and then hit the PDF button that appears in the bottom left corner. On PCs, in the export or save dialog boxes, you will have an option to save to PDF.

 

Creating PDFs from Hard Copy Files

At the beginning of my PhD studies, I already had a huge pile of PDF articles copied from many library visits. Except for being stapled, they were unorganized. Furthermore, I started preferring reading on my computer so that I could easily extract notes and organize my PDFs in my reference manager.

My solution was to digitize all of my articles (a long process but very worth it). Many new office printers can scan documents to PDF now. But if you do not have that ability, then getting a ScanSnap (which I now have on my desk) is the option for you. I purchased the smaller, cheaper option of the ScanSnap S1300, but if I had to choose again I probably would get the larger model ScanSnap iX500 as it can handle larger stacks of paper.

Apply OCR to PDF Files

OCR is short for Optical Character Recognition. It is the process of looking at an image and finding text in it. When you create PDFs from hard copy files, you are (usually) just creating images. In other words, you could not highlight any text in these PDFs, as there is no text there. OCR fixes this by finding the text and adding it to the PDF. There are several options out there for people to use.

1. Free. The free options are not as accurate (in other words the scan doesn't recognize the text as well) but free is sometimes all you can afford. There are several free online options, though not all of them will create for you another PDF (rather than giving you a text file). Here is one example.
2. Paid. There are several main companies that specialize in OCR. IRIS readiris, Abbyy fine reader, and OmniPage are the top choices. I personally make use of Abbyy, but it is because I use DEVONthink Pro Office, and Abbyy is built into that software. If you have need of major PDF software that can manipulate PDFs, options like Adobe Acrobat or PDF Pen on Mac also have OCR capabilities. 

Compress PDF Files

PDF files that are created from scans tend to be quite large, larger than they need to be. This is why you need to compress PDF files. Not only does it save hard drive space, but if you are using cloud backup  or a cloud reference manager, this will save you a lot of space. I compress every PDF file I create from a scan.

There are two ways that I know of for compressing a PDF, paid and free. The free option is an online option on the Small PDF site, check it out here. Another great free option right on your Mac is a service item. I created a simple service item on Mac. You can right-click any PDF file, go to "services" and choose this compress PDF option. I have zipped this service file for you. Place it in user>library>services. File here.  If you are using PDF software like Adobe Acrobat or PDF Pen on Mac you can compress as well.

Combine PDF Files

I sometimes need to combine PDF files into a single file. Again the big PDF software mentioned above can do this, but even Preview on a Mac can do this by simply dragging and dropping. I have also created a service for combining PDFs in the link above. On the great Small PDF site you can also merge PDFs for free.

Highlighting & Notetaking on PDFs

Because of my huge love of reference managers, I highly recommend working with PDFs within that environment. In this regard, Sente, Bookends, Papers, Endnote, Qiqqa, and Mendeley can all highlight and make notes directly on the PDFs (see my posts on reference managers here).

If you use Zotero or just don't use a reference manager, both Adobe Reader and Mac's Preview can highlight and make notes directly on PDFs. On an iPad GoodReader makes PDF style notes similar to Preview and Reader. Or you can use something like Notability if you want to draw freehand on a PDF.

Intelligent Searching Your PDF Collection

When you want to do some serious searching within your own PDF collection, you need to go a step beyond a general search. And, while you can search within individual PDFs in Reader and Preview, having an app that specializes in searching a larger collection and presenting it well is very valuable.

For this job, I personally use DEVONthink Pro Office. Within this app, I point to my PDF collection which is part of my reference manager library, and it can search it intelligently (DEVONthink probably has the most intelligent searching of any app). Another absolutely fantastic searcher on Mac is the FoxTrot Pro search tool. Qiqqa on the PC is the reference manager I suggest to PC users, as it does this very well too. (If you're a PC user and know of another good app in this regard, let me know in the comments!)

Collaborating via PDF

While MS Word might work for collaborating, not everyone uses MS Word. For example, I use Mellel as my word processor, and during my PhD I had to find a convenient way for my advisors to annotate my files, as Mellel is a Mac only app, and moving from Mellel to MS Word would muck up my process. The solution I found was absolutely perfect for my needs, it is a.nnotate. It allowed my two advisors to create notes, for them to see each others notes, and a way for me to quickly scroll through their notes. You need to pay for credits, but it is not expensive and was very worth it for me.

Another newer option which I haven't fully tested but seems to be a nicer, slicker, version of a.nnotate is Kami. Kami is free, but there are advanced options for pay as well. It also has a Chrome extension. In fact, Kami also does a lot of what has been mentioned above (OCR, combining, and splitting PDFs). I highly suggest checking out Kami if you need to do a lot of collaboration on PDFs, I certainly will be.

Is there anything I missed or any apps I should have mentioned? Let me know in the comments.

Hand Off! How To Be More Productive on your Mac By Using Your Mouse Less

Every laptop comes with a trackpad and every computer has a mouse. We recognize how much our hands are on our keyboard, but often it escapes us how much time moving our right hand back and forth goes to the keyboard and the mouse. Using the mouse, while sometimes necessary, is actually used a LOT more than it actually needs to be. I would wager a guess that 50-75% of what you do with your mouse could have been done without it.

The following hacks are Mac specific, because I'm a Mac user. But while the apps I might mention are specific to Mac, many of the suggestions should be just as helpful for PC users.

Shortcut keys

The most important thing you can do to use your keyboard more, your mouse less, and generally work faster, is to learn the shortcut keys for your most used apps. Learning how to quickly highlight a word, a whole line to the front/end, or a whole document from the cursor to the beginning/end of the document, will save you tons of time. Along with those, know the much used Cut, Copy, and Paste shortcut keys. In your browser, know how to open and close tabs, move the page up and down, etc. Bottom line, you can do almost everything in an app without the mouse.

app 1: Cheat Sheet

The Mac app called Cheat Sheet is a great little app to help you learn your keyboard shortcuts when you forget them. Once the little app is installed and running in the background, all you need to do is hold down the command key for 1 second to bring up a sheet showing you all of the current keyboard shortcuts available to you. While I have most of my essential keyboard shortcuts memorized, I still pull of Cheat Sheet from time to time.

The Help Menu

One of the most helpful aspects of the help menu in every app is that you can type in the menu item you are looking for. This is particularly helpful for apps with massive menus (hello photoshop!). Test it out and try if for yourself. After you click the help menu, type in the menu item you want - it will highlight the item, and you can launch it by hitting enter.

What I just mentioned above still requires one mouse-click. One additional hack will remove the need for clicking the help menu with your mouse. Go to System Preferences>Keyboard>Shortcuts>App Shortcuts. Create a new shortcut in the "All Applications" called Show Help menu, and assign Command+/ to this.

Now what you have is a global keyboard shortcut that will do the equivalent of clicking the Help menu. After doing this, you simply type the menu item you are looking for, then hit enter.

app 2: Alfred or Launchbar

For productivity specifically, Launchbar is the most important app I have installed on my Mac Alfred is almost identical, and the advantage is that there is a free version of Alfred on the Mac store (though I do recommend purchasing the upgrade anyway). If you are totally unfamiliar with either of these, then Alfred is cheaper, so go with that.

These apps are launching apps. The latest version of Spotlight tried to be more like them, but still falls WAY short. I have control+space assigned a global shortcut key for Launchbar, which brings up a small menu. From here, I can do an unbelievable amount of things:

• launch an app
• open any file
• launch a bookmark
• run a google search
• create a calendar event
• look up a contact
• bring up the last 20 items from my clipboard (i.e. what has been cut and pasted)
• do a math calculation
• play/pause iTunes
• For the more tech savvy, run workflows of applescripts
• and so much more (including customizing it for yourself)

To top all of this off, these apps learn your typing. For instance, my play/pause iTunes is simply typing in "pp" in launchbar. I had to do that a few times, but now it knows that "pp" means play/pause iTunes. It will do this for everything you use it for.

Launchbar is a constant in my workday. It is so second-nature to me, that I frequently do my Launchbar shortcut when I'm on a different computer, and then HATE it when I realize I have to work on a computer without it. Alfred or Launchbar will change your Mac experience for the better.

Speak It!

I've mentioned elsewhere my use of Dragon Dictate for Mac. While I tend to just use it for Dictation, the reality is that Dragon Dictate can actually do voice commands as well - effectively making keyboard shortcuts into spoken commands. Again, I'm so quick on my keyboard that I don't feel like messing with my flow. But if you just can 't seem to remember those keyboard shortcuts but do want to save time with this type of stuff, Dragon Dictate may be able to help.

Do you have any other keyboard hacks that I missed? Let me know in the comments!

My Brain Dump of Advice for Current and Future PhD Students in Theology

I have just recently graduated with my PhD in New Testament (yay me!). I did the degree part-time. Everyone's situation is different, but I think there are a whole lot of principles that will apply to any PhD student in theology, whether you are doing a residential degree, distance degree, part-time, or full-time. So as you read this brain dump in no particular order, keep in mind that I'm writing it from the perspective of a Biblical Studies student.

• Get your tool belt ready. A carpenter is only as good as his/her tools. I know you are not working with your hands like a carpenter, but you still need good tools. Here is what you need:

  • Tool 1 - Word Processor. You need to pick a word processor and learn how to use it well. You will save yourself a whole lot of time if up front you make the effort to learn how to use your word processor. If you're on a Mac, Mellel, Nisus, Word, or Pages are your choices. (I'm a Scrivener fan but haven't yet done enough with it to say whether it can handle a large academic project like a PhD). If you're on a PC, it is probably Word or Open Office only. The following items are some of the things you want to know how to do; Pg numbers, footnotes, section breaks, character and paragraph styles, cross references, and customizing your TOC generation.

  • Tool 2 - Reference Manager. If you don't utilize a Reference Manager from the start...you're an idiot. It will be your main tool for keeping your sources organized, not to mention the fact that it will write your bibliography and footnotes for you. Check out my posts here and here on reference managers.

  • Tool 3 - Bible Software. I'd be terribly surprised if every theology student didn't already utilize Bible software. While Bible scholars tend to be the main users, theologians and church historians can benefit greatly as well. All the major apps (Accordance, Logos, Bibleworks) have primary literature and church history literature, as well as lots of secondary sources, with Logos having the largest secondary source library. If you don't yet know how to work with your Bible software, take the time to learn it well (my Logos tutorial course can really help Logos users).

  • Tool 4 - Note-taking app. Depending on your Reference Manager, you may have an app to take notes in already, but you may need something else. I used Devonthink Pro as my digital file cabinet, but there are others you can choose. Evernote, Onenote, CP Notebook, Yojimbo, are all good options.

• Eliminate distractions. You'll be in front of your computer a lot, don't let it distract you. Check out my posts here and here and here on this topic.

• Work on it daily. When I first started my PhD I read a book called How to Write a Dissertation in 15 minutes a day. That title was an overstatement, but it drove home a good point – try and work on your dissertation every day, even if only 15 minutes. Obviously you want to aim for more time, but if you have a day full with other things, give it at least 15 minutes to keep it fresh in your mind. It needs to keep percolating. If you don't do this, the problem is that when you finally get back into it, it takes you a long time, sometimes days, to finally get your head in the right space again. This shouldn't, theoretically, be as much of a problem for full-time students.

• Start writing from the beginning. While it may have made sense to read all of your sources before putting pen to paper for a 10-page essay, this is a different beast. You need to start writing almost from the start. Sometimes the writing will just stay in your note-taker, sometimes not. But after you've read a few books and have a basic outline, start a new word processor file called "dissertation" and start writing in it from the start. The other reason this is important is because writing always begets more writing. You need to write a lot of words, and they need to be good and coherent. The more you'll write, the more you'll write.

• Have a master outline. Another PhD book I read at the beginning gave me a great tip that I followed. Have a text file called Rolling Master Outline." This will be a constantly evolving and changing document. Have a heading for each chapter, and underneath it have a summary of the chapter (even if it hasn't been written it yet). Include in this document the expected word count for each chapter, and when you do a chapter, what the word count actually is, as well as a revised chapter summary. ALWAYS keep this up to date, it should change as you write because your chapters will change as you research and write. Finally, include this document whenever you send a chapter along to your advisor to read – they're busy people with a lot on their minds, and this will help remind them what you're doing and where you're heading

• Find abstracts, reviews, and create your own summaries. There is so much information for you to process that you need helps to jog your memory. Rely on ATLAS to find book reviews, and use NT Abstracts, OT Abstracts, and Religious and Theological Abstracts (all of these are online databases) to find abstracts for journal articles and essays. If you can't find an abstract for something, then make sure you write one for the item — actually you should do this anyway when reading a full article/essay. And for your own purposes, don't be afraid to utilize other author's work too. For example, early on I I read a few published dissertations on subjects that were relevant to my own topic, and all of them had a lit review. I copied and pasted these summaries into my reference manager to create abstracts for items.

• Learn to Read. Guess what: not every item you find is worthy of a front to back read - in fact few things are. (I talk about this more in my book Surviving and Thriving in Seminary if you’re interested). Learn how to take 5 minutes and evaluate an item to determine if it is worth more time or worth a full front-to back read. When doing a dissertation, your time is precious.

• Take good notes. In the same vein as finding or writing abstracts, taking notes and making highlights is another way to tame the mountain of info that you’ll be reading. There are plenty of items that I have cited, and read front to back during my dissertation writing, and looking at the title I can’t remember a whole lot about them now. But in 2-3 minutes, I read my abstract and skim my notes and highlights, and I’m back on top of things.

• Utilize good translation tools. I’m not super-strong in German or French, but with the right time and tools I slowly work my way through import sources in German and French. While some may turn to Google Translate, there is something better called Google Translator toolkit that allows you to correct the translation a phrase at a time. If you’re a PC user another software translation app is Promt - I’ve heard good things. Bottom line, no matter how strong or weak you are in these other languages, your study dictates what you should read. It is inexcusable to ignore critical secondary sources because you're too lazy to do some translation work.

• Harvest good resources. You’ll be on constant lookout for relevant resources. The standard place to go is ATLAS (see my screencast here), and you’ll also get into the habit of always checking everyone’s footnotes and bibliographies. For fellow Biblical Studies folks, you should also check out Index Theologicus, BILDI, and BiBIL.

• Google Books is going to be very helpful. Again, check out my Google Books post. The number one way Google Books helped me was to quickly check books that I see in a footnote or bibliography. It was a quick and easy way to quickly evaluate a book to see if it is worthy of more attention or not.

• Understand that your thesis will evolve. You’re advisor will help you to get crystal clear on your thesis – but don’t make the mistake of thinking that your thesis won’t or can’t change. It wasn’t until the very end, when writing my conclusion, that I was able to be crystal clear on my thesis and my contribution. A good way to keep working on this is to work on a 30 second elevator pitch, as well as a 3-5 minute summary of the whole thing. People will be asking all of the time what your dissertation is about - use this opportunity to refine your elevator pitch or summary.

• Give yourself time before submissions. I wasn’t great at this, but there were a few chapters that I was able to finish up a week or so before I agreed to send it in. This gave me a few days away from the chapter so that I could look at it one more time with fresh(ish) eyes before submitting.

• Present chapters to groups when you can. For full-time residential students, sharing a chapter in a seminar isn’t as hard to do, and is often mandatory. But those of us who are part-time or at a distance will have a little more difficulty. Still, take the time if you can to present a chapter at a seminar or conference. Get any feedback you can. We have a seminar classes for our MA, and I took that time to present chapters through the years.

• Work on transitions, summaries, and conclusions. One of my difficulties in writing is being crystal clear about what I am saying. Often times I would assume too much. Don’t assume your readers are experts. For each major section of a chapter, make a good transition from the previous section. Most major sections should end with some sort of summary statement or section. Finally, every chapter conclusion needs to tell them in micro-form exactly what you’ve already told them in the chapter. For those interested, here is the layout of how I broke down my chapters. The first number corresponds to the chapter number (p.s. this breakdown is something I myself copied from a published thesis):

  • 1.1 Introduction

  • 1.2 Main section 1

    • 1.2.1 sub-section 1

      • 1.2.1.1 sub-sub-section 1 (if necessary)

      • 1.2.1.2 sub-sub-section 2 (if necessary)

    • 1.2.2 sub-section 2

    • 1.2.3 sub-section 3 (and 4 and 5, as necessary)

    • 1.2.4 Summary and Relevance for Thesis (this section summarizes all of 1.2 and forces you to summarize the section and draw it back to the thesis and how it contributes)

  • 1.3 Main section 2

    • same as above

  • 1.4 Main section 3 (and 4 and 5, as necessary)

    • same as above

  • 1.5 Conclusion

• If at all possible, say no to as much as you can so you can say yes to your dissertation. I was awful at this, truth be told. My reality was saying yes to too many things, allowing myself to get side-tracked on other items of interest, and then having to burn the midnight oil as deadlines drew near. This was my biggest overall failure during my PhD - I got too side-tracked on too many other projects. I enjoyed the projects, and some couldn't be avoided, but if I would have said no, I probably could have finished 6 months to 1 year earlier than I did. And instead of going down rabbit trails, keep a list of things you want to read more about AFTER you're done.

• Work hard. A PhD is more about hard work and perseverance than it is about brains. Work hard and success will follow.

• It is good to have a reader (or advisor) that isn’t an "expert" in your area. What I mean is if you are doing a dissertation on Paul, have someone who works more in the Gospels as a reader/advisor if you can. While it may seem natural to think that having an advisor that is an expert in your specific area is what you need, the truth is that a reader or advisor that isn’t an expert in your subject can be really helpful, as they can often help you more on the issue of clarity in your argument. If your readers/advisors are both experts in your area, find someone else (another student or prior teacher) to read your chapters as well.

• Be ready to read the Bible in your Oral defense. If your doing a biblical studies dissertation, you have of course been working in the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. In working so much with your passages, it can sometimes happen that you don’t actually keep up the practice of sight-reading. Keep it up, because you’ll likely be doing it in your oral defense.

• Be ready for the big questions in your Oral defense. You of course need to be ready for any question that may come to you. So as your defense comes near, read through your dissertation a lot. Take notes or use sticky notes on a hard copy that you bring with you. But also be ready for the big questions: what lead you to the topic? what do you feel is your original contribution? What areas of study have opened up? Summarize your thesis?

• Back up your stuff! Sign up for Dropbox to save your files if you don’t have cloud-syncing in your apps. Don’t lose info!

• Get Primary Languages on your Transcript. We're always having students at ADC who want to go on to a PhD, and here is what I suggest they aim for. Aim for 4 full years of your primary language (Greek for NT, Hebrew for OT) and 2 full years for the other. If you can get Aramaic, German, and French on there, all the better. Bottom line, the more primary language credits you have on your transcript, the stronger an application you will have.

• School Chosen. Advisor. STRENGTH OF YOUR WORK. Yes, having a degree from a good school that has a solid name is great. And having a well-known advisor is great too. But that is only going to get you so far. In the end, it is the strength of your work and your determination as a scholar that will determine your success. Keep this in mind as you search for a school or search for a scholar to study with. A good-named school is great, as is a big-named advisor. But in the end, it really still is up to you and still comes down to the quality of your work. There are plenty of ABD (all but degree) doctoral students as well as students who didn't find any work in their field afterwards who went to top-notch schools and had top-notch advisors.

• Block out big chunks of time. Again, this shouldn't theoretically be as hard for full-time PhD students, but for us part-timers, you need to not only work on your dissertation a bit every day (as suggested above) but intentionally block out big chunks of time (think 2-weeks minimum) when you are eating, sleeping, and working on your dissertation.

• Don't Overplay your hand in your dissertation. There is a natural tendency when studying a subject to think that it is more significant than it actually is. Students do this a lot too. But It is safer to be modest than to over-reach. Frankly, I did exactly this thing in my dissertation. I chose a particular phrase to describe my findings that over-played my hand, and it is something that I was called out on in my oral defense and something which I need to correct.

Do you have any more suggestions or questions? Let me know in the comments?

photo credit: m00by via photopin cc

Utilizing Logos 6 for Academic Research, Pt. 2: Supercharged Word Studies

In my previous post, I talked about the Ancient Literature connections that Logos 6 introduced – which allows its users to see the important connections with non-biblical literature. In this post I want to explore some new features of Logos 6 that greatly advance word studies in the primary languages.

If you are a Logos user, you already know about the built-in word study assistant called "Bible Word Study" (and if you don't, you really need to get some Logos training). The first 3 features discussed below are part of the Bible Word Study guide (or any customized guide you create).

 

Clause Participants

The Clause Participants section of the Bible Word study has two modes, Grammatical roles or Semantic roles. Using the Greek verb εὐαγγελίζω, the following images show you the results:

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I find this type of information especially useful for verbs, but the information is certainly applicable to other word types. Doing a search like this for εὐαγγελίζω, we see that Paul is the main "declarer of good news" in the NT. This type of information helps to widen the scope of our word studies, by seeing more of the information from their contexts, as well as related words and characters.

Sense Usage

A cool feature of the Bible Word Study has always been the translation wheel/pie chart, which allows you to see at a glance the various ways a word is translated in your English translation of choice. The new Senses section adds a new wheel/pie chart and builds upon Logos' unique work of the Bible Sense lexicon. In this chart, rather than seeing the words used to translate the word in question, the Senses chart shows you the various uses in terms of meaning (or sense usage). This is, ultimately, the more important question to ask when you are discussing the meaning of a word in its context – a word may be translated using the same English word but have different meaning from verse to verse.

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 Case Frames (Semantic Roles)

Building off of the incredible amount of work in semantics that Logos has done, the new Case Frames section of the Bible Word Study guide provides you with a break-down of semantic usage and relationships pertaining to your word. The example below shows that ἄρχω as a verb is primarily used in relation to events. Logos' presentation and easy to understand definition opens up the world of semantics to all Logos users.

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Morph Charts

Morph charts offers a visual presentation of any hits you receive for a lemma. This information has also been present in table form in the past in a morph search, but these morphology charts are much more user friendly and easier to see the full picture. The Morphology charts are part of the new Interactive Media resources in the Tools menu, and is also accessible in the top of the Bible Word Study.

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Utilizing Logos 6 for Academic Research, pt. 1: Ancient Literature Connections

With the advent of Logos 6 comes some great new features for both pastors and scholars. Over the next little while, I want to highlight some features that I feel really stand out for scholars in particular. The first is the new Ancient Literature Dataset, which is accessible in the passage guide (or any customized guide you create).

This dataset was created by Ken Penner (a former colleague at Acadia Divinity College) and Rick Brannan (whom I hope to be working with on a new Logos product soon!). I have so far been really loving this new feature of Logos 6. This is, in essence, an extensive cross-referencing system of non-biblical sources. But it goes above and beyond a simple list of potential cross-references, by also categorizing them.

To help introduce this great new dataset, I’ve asked Ken and Rick a few questions.

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1. First guys, thanks for this product! It is probably my favorite new feature of Logos 6. I want users to appreciate how much time a project like this must have taken. How long has this project been in the works?

[Rick]: You’re welcome, Danny! Wow, I really don’t know in actuality as far as exact time. It was in January 2013 or earlier when Sean Boisen asked me about the Cascadia Syntax Graphs of the Apostolic Fathers (which was and still is languishing on pre-pub), and why it was valuable. In thinking about that, I realized what people really want instead of a syntactic analysis like that is to be able to know when something in the Apostolic Fathers is relevant to the verse or passage they’re studying in the Bible. The connection between Isaiah 54 and 2 Clement 2 is a great example of this, and finding that sort of stuff is really only possible if you’re a search ninja that already knows the material.

Once the connection of relevant ancient reference for the Bible passage one is studying was made, the floodgates were opened. There is all sorts of ancient material related to the Bible that you might want to know about for a given verse or passage. So making a high-quality index of it seemed natural. The other thing that seemed natural was to classify the relationship between references as best as possible. It’s one thing to have a reference associated, it is another (very useful) thing to know what the relationship is between the Bible reference and the ancient reference. Once I got there, I wrote a lot of code to analyze all sorts of stuff, and was able to isolate some references. At that point, it was obvious there would need to be qualified human intervention to classify references (or rule them out altogether), and that is when I started talking with Ken because this stuff is right in his wheelhouse.

[Ken]: This one was pretty quick and intense. Rick pitched the idea to the company on April 15, 2013. I started on it in May; that was my summer and “research/publication” time for the rest of the year. We estimated:

• Dead Sea Scrolls Sectarian: approx. 230 hours
• Josephus: approx. 440 hours
• Philo: approx. 180 hours
• OT Pseudepigrapha: approx. 650 hours

2. The product page says this dataset catalogues “relevant passages from the Apostolic Fathers, Philo, the Talmud, Mishna, Judaic literature, Josephus, and more.” Can you fill out the “and more” part for us. And were there any major bodies of literature that were not included or perhaps will be in the future?

[Rick]: Apostolic Fathers is a small subset of the wider patristic literature. Another set of data included are “Church Fathers” which is more wide ranging. Think of the superset of ECF and Fathers of the Church (and, when we can do it, Ancient Christian Writers) as the basis for this stuff, minus the Apostolic Fathers stuff.

• New Testament Apocrypha
• Dead Sea Scrolls Sectarian Material
• “Judaic Literature” includes stuff like the Mekhilta and Pesikta as well.

Not included: I’ve considered some references with the Rule of St. Benedict and other early monastic rules, (relevant Logos product is the Benedictine Studies Collection), but there are so few users of that collection, we need to consider it a bit more before allocating resources to do it.

[Ken]: Nag Hammadi, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, Context Of Scripture, Ugaritic material, and the Amarna letters as well.

3. Something that I think is very unique to what you’ve done is the additional categorization/tagging. To help users understand what these categories are, could you please provide us with a brief definition of the tagging that is used, as well as any other comments you might feel is necessary for users to understand these designations:

[Ken]

• citation – Introduced by a citation formula such as "it is written." Does it have a citation formula? It doesn’t matter whether or not the wording exactly matches.
• quotation – Intention to quote a phrase of this canonical passage. Is the wording intended to reproduce verbatim this specific scripture for at least three words?
• allusion – Intention to paraphrase the words of this canonical passage. Is the wording a paraphrase of at least a clause of this specific scripture? Does the relationship appear to be intentional?
• echo – Reader who has read both would be reminded of a similar scriptural passage. Does the verbal parallel evoke or recall this scripture (and possibly others) in a reader's mind, without apparent authorial intention to reproduce the exact words?
• topical – Similarity of subject matter. Is there a general referent in common with this scripture, without using the same word? Is its meaning similar? This is like Lexical, but for ideas rather than words.
• historical – Reference to the same specific event or situation, whether historical or fiction. Is there a specific referent in common with this scripture, whether or not the event is fictitious or in real history?
• lexical – The same or cognate word is used. Is there a word in common that is useful for lexical studies, but without evoking (even unintentionally) this particular scripture?
• phrase – Similarity of subject matter AND the same or cognate words are used. Is there a combination of words in common with this scripture, without being the same specific referent (which would be Echo or Historical)? This is like Lexical, but for phrases rather than words. Examples: verb & subject, verb & object, noun in genitive relation with noun.

[Rick]: These definitions are actually coded within the resource used by Logos, it just isn’t visible (yet). It may be available in some future version.

There are a huge number of references (over 180,000 at present, but that will increase with the next round of Church Fathers data I’m working on). Ken reviewed the references for Dead Sea Scrolls Sectarian Materials, Works of Philo, and the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. I reviewed the references for Apostolic Fathers, New Testament Apocrypha, and Works of Josephus. Other datasets were classified algorithmically. The material classed as ‘Judaica’ was fairly explicit in the way it interacted with the Biblical text, so most references were classed as quotations. The material for Nag Hammadi was similarly explicit, so a classification of allusion was preferred. Outside of a few possible examples, Ancient Near-Eastern Materials have no direct intertextual relationship when you are dealing with intertextuality in the direction we were (so, does the material use the scriptural material directly in some way) so those references were largely topical, and classified as such. The Church Fathers has been the hardest nut to crack because there are so many references in so much material. After considering and working the problem for awhile, I was able to make some guesses about contexts of occurrence and thus assign relationships of either topical, allusion, or quotation. These aren’t exact, but presently there are over 100,000 references in the Church Fathers material, so all we can really do is make educated guesses and hope we’re close. I think we’re close on these, but fully expect examples of miscategorization — probably a lot of stuff that are allusion or topical but should really be quotation.

4. Given these designations, please give some suggestions for how users can best utilize this feature and make good use of the tagging designations.

[Ken]

• Category ⇒ Use
• Citation ⇒ Canonical studies
• Quotation ⇒ Textual Criticism
• Allusion ⇒ Historical Interpretation
• Historical ⇒ History
• Echo ⇒ Theology
• Phrase ⇒ Theology
• Topical ⇒ Theology
• Lexical ⇒ Word studies

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Thanks very much Rick and Ken!

I want to end this post with  1 tip on how to utilize this new feature. If you are a Logos user, you know (or should know!) about the Passage Guide and how it works. But what you might not know is that you can create your own guide templates. For the ancient literature dataset, what I did was create a new template (Guides>Make a New Guide Template) called “xrefs” in this guide I added to sections: 1) Ancient Literature, and 2) Cross references. After that, I open in a side panel this new guide, and link it to my open bible panel in a link set. Now, whatever verse you are on, the panel will fill with the cross references from biblical and non-biblical sources. See my screenshot below and try it out for yourself!

View fullsize

How to Set a Productive Mood on Your Computer

I’m not a fan of silence, particularly when I’m in my office working. But I’m also an easily distracted person. For awhile, I tried to multi-task my mind by listening to podcasts while working. While I enjoyed the podcast content, it didn’t take me long to figure out that this was bad for productivity. I then moved to just putting iTunes on random. While this was better, I would start to sing along or focus a little too much on the lyrics. I then tried to make a playlist of more ballad-type songs or hymns. Still not great. But I knew that what you listen to while you work can either help or hinder your productivity.

what you listen to while you work can either help or hinder your productivity —Tweet That!

It was then that I came across a little website which swiftly turned into a little app: Coffitivity. Coffitivity is a website, but is also a Mac app, iOS app, and Android app. Coffitivity creates white noise that replicates a busy coffee shop – which many find to be a great atmosphere for work. This set the right mood for me to be productive. It took away the silence that I dislike but didn’t distract me. This is a jewel of an app!

After using Coffitivity for awhile, I heard about Focus@Will. This web app creates several different tracks to listen to, and were created in partnership with a leading neuroscientist to try and help increase focus (read the sciency stuff here).

Focus@Will is free to use for a 60 minute session per day, or you can pay yearly fee of just of under $50 a year. I used Focus@Will for three weeks and liked it so much that I subscribed to it. I have not regretted it one bit. The only thing I didn’t like was that on my desktop, Focus@Will runs through the browser - it would be nice for them to have a Mac app that could run in the menu bar so that I don’t need to run the browser. But I took matters into my own hands and used Fluid to make the Focus@Will web app into a desktop app.

Once in awhile I go back to Coffitivity, but Focus@Will is now my main mood setter for a productive day. I would encourage you to check both of them out, as they are both great apps that may help you the way they help me.

How do you set a productive mood for yourself? 

jaronbrass via photopin cc

Getting Anti-Social to Ramp Up Productivity

One of the biggest impediments to my own productivity are the time wasting sites -– in particular Facebook and YouTube. I enjoy both sites, so I do not want to totally ditch them. Not only does Facebook keep me connected, but as I mentioned before, it is how I keep up on reading interesting articles.

However, during times of stress I tend waste even more time by checking Facebook way too often or getting lost down the black hole of amusing YouTube videos. This is why I now use an awesome app called anti-social (Mac or PC). Antisocial tells you to choose an amount of time, then choose URL domains to block during this time. It can also block you from email during that time. For me, it is Facebook.com and YouTube.com. I started with antisocial's suggested 45 minutes, but am increasing the blocks of time to one hour or more. This is about being intentional in using your time to be productive.

If you need even more restriction, you can purchase Freedom, which blocks all internet access. This doesn't work for me, as I am often doing academic research online. But this may work for you.

If you’re like me, sometimes you lose a little self-control during high stress periods. Using these types of apps can help you stay on target, keep focused, and be productive. 

Why and How I ditched my RSS Reader

For a long time I read blogs using Google Reader. Even before its unfortunate demise I found myself frequenting Google Reader less and less. And when I did go to it the feed list was so long I didn't end up reading much of it at all.

Once google Reader closed down I moved over with the rest of the world to Feedly. Then I had a thought - what if I just didn't bother? So I tried it out for awhile.

This choice coincided with my late adoption of Twitter. I decided to use others as funnels for interesting articles, rather than sifting it all through for myself. On Twitter I follow:

   * For leadership stuff I follow Michael Hyatt on Twitter
   * For productivity I follow Time Management Ninja on Twitter
   * For parenting and leadership I follow Tim Elmore on Twitter
   * For finance and debt stuff I follow Dave Ramsey and CanadianFinance
   * I follow others too, but these are some of the main funnel-type tweeters

In addition, lots of my Facebook friends are, naturally, interested in a lot of the same things I am. Plenty of my friends post good stuff on parenting. Lots of my students and colleagues share good posts on the Bible, Christianity, Biblical Studies, and Theology. And even my atheist brother posts good science and atheism stuff too :-) Because I am friends with numerous bloggers and scholars, my Facebook newsfeed keeps me well informed.

Moving to this type of method over an RSS reader also means that the better stuff is what I end up reading – the cream rises to the top, since at least one person has recommended it over the other stuff out there.

The last step in my system is using a Read Later service called Pocket. It saves articles for me to read later. It can waste a lot of time to read everything as soon as you come across it. Instead I batch it together at convenient times. Pocket is free and it is very simple to save articles (or anything else) directly from my browser or my twitter client of choice (Tweetbot for Mac and iOS).

This approach may not work well for you, but it has been great for me. About the only place I need to be careful is in the number of tweeters I follow. I try and be diligent to prune the people I follow if I'm not getting much good stuff from them but they post a lot.

I'm also careful to batch my Twitter scanning time. I've never had the temptation to check twitter more than once every day or so (not so with Facebook - I'll be posting about this in the future). Twitter, for me, is mainly about scanning through to find interesting stuff to throw into Pocket or to answer the occasional question that comes my way.

So there it is. Have you ditched your RSS Reader? If so, leave me a comment - and any suggestions for improving my system are welcome too.

andyi via photopin cc