Seriously, I know there a lot of tools for writers out there but you know what I don’t seem to have? The time to explore them. Time. It is already a commodity in precious shortage so why should I use it learning to do something a different way when I already have a way that works. Who doesn’t think that is a philosophy for failure, yet what can we do about it?
I get so focused on meeting my immediate goals and deadlines I haven’t been able to even explore the tools I know are out there to make me more efficient. Is it the same for you? I expect it is because the 2013 AMWA Needs Assessment Survey shows that 34% of my AMWA colleagues are finding the work/life balance to be their biggest challenge. I wonder how much of that overlaps with the 18% who cite keeping up with technology and another 17% who state that keeping current with information as their challenges. There is relief out there and I am determined to use our AMWA 2013 Conference this year to help me find it. I am on a mission.
This year’s conference features a new session format Hands-on Demonstrations, and six of these sessions are offered. Hands-on Demonstrations are short (30 to 60 minutes), so you can easily fit them into your schedule, which is an advantage when you have tough choices to make. And, you bring your laptop or WiFi-enabled device to the session so you can learn as you go. That’s a time-saver right there.
As I look through the conference brochure, I see a Hands-on Demonstration on Word 2010 (as well as a session on advanced Microsoft Word), and another Hands-on Demonstration called “The ABCs of PDFS: Introduction to Adobe Acrobat X/XI.” I will choose one of these to brush up and enhance some existing skills. But I am looking for new tools. I will not be dissuaded. It is time for me to enter the 21st century. I’ve embraced social media with the same total enthusiasm I did the mosh pit back in the 90s (that’s a story for another day) so I have no intention of allowing technology to halt my progress now.
Finally, I found just what I’ve wanted to explore. Since a good portion of my writing these days is for educational courses and public health programs, an enormous amount of research and documentation is involved. I have been interested in learning about tools to catalog resources as well as keep those citations and bibliographies accurate and manageable. I am constantly collecting resources, many of which I’ll use repeatedly, and it would greatly improve my work/life balance if I could find an easier way to sort through that vast collection of archived material. A couple of the tools I had been hearing other writers banter about recently were Zotero and Scrivener.
How useful is Zotero? “Oh, I think it probably saved my life and my marriage,” says Judy Stone, MD, who is leading the Hands-on Demonstration “Beyond Index Cards: Using Scrivener and Zotero.” Dr. Stone, who writes the blog Molecules to Medicine on the Scientific American Blog Network, has used Zotero for organizing factoids for her book as well as for tracking references throughout her blog series about Dan Markingson and the University of Minnesota that explores the ethical lapses behind a patient death in a clinical trial. She will tell this story while she demonstrates how Zotero and Scrivener helped keep all her documentation accurate as well as preserved for future use. As Dr. Stone says, “When you are blogging about sensitive topics it is especially important to keep your documentation accessible as well as accurate.”
And Scrivener? When I heard about how Dr. Stone uses this versatile tool to organize her writing I couldn’t help but be embarrassed for myself as I was staring at my feet. Yes, my feet, because they were at that moment surrounded by pieces of 24 pages of course content that I had in desperation cut out with scissors and lined up with tape on the floor. This was my low-tech solution to reorganize them because my word processing program just was not flexible enough to quickly give me the vision I needed to reorganize my content without stopping to print it. With Scrivner, Dr. Stone outlines her thoughts on virtual index cards that she can shuffle and move about on the screen. Yes, I think Dr. Stone’s session is just the venue I need to examine these tools. It is past time to put my scissors away.
If you plan on learning about these tools at the AMWA Annual Conference, download the programs in advance so you’ll be able to follow along as Dr. Stone demonstrates their use. Zotero is an open-source reference management software that can be downloaded free. www.zotero.org One important point: Zotero does not work with Internet Explorer; you must have Firefox, Netscape 9.0, or the Flock browser. Find more information about Zotero on its website or the Educause site. Scrivener requires purchasing, but you can download a free 30-day trial. You can learn more about the virtues of Scrivener for all types of writing http://michaelhyatt.com/switched-to-scrivener.html and for novels in particular http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/07/writing-a-novel-in-scrivener-e.html. Dr. Stone will present two articles on the Markingson case and demonstrate how she imported these two articles into Scrivener. Download “A Clinical Trial and Suicide Leave Many Unanswered Questions” and “How the FDA Got The Markingson Case Wrong,” and you can walk through the process with her.
Other Hands-on Demonstrations at this year’s AMWA Annual Conference focus on EndNote, open-source website builders, and e-mail domains. And the National Library of Medicine is featured in two sessions, one of which offers a comprehensive approach in an extended format (2.5 hours).
So, what do you say? Time to learn about tools to make you more efficient? Look no further than the 2013 AMWA Annual Conference.
--Larry Lynam, 2013 Annual Conference Committee
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