Working Smarter, Not Harder
If you spend any time in the SCA, you might be exposed to doing documentation: either when you wish to enter something into an A&S competition, or if you are looking through entries on an A&S table, or if you read a local newsletter or the TI or CA. Now, it is not a requirement for any SCAdian to do a research project, but, if you plan on doing any kind of arts or sciences, I would recommend that you do a little bit of research on whatever it is you plan on working on.
Now, it might be that you are doing something from a single source, or you are entering a competition that doesn't require any documentation, but I recommend that you spend some time putting together some documentation on your project, what its origins are and the method you used to make it. This will help you improve your A&S skills and help others work on similar projects. You might have access to information that others do not have; such as an out of print book, or an item in a museum that isn't available to the public. You might be using wrong information: I have some documentation for period cookies, but my primary source, according to cooks better than myself, was crap. My documentation was an attempt to show that that particular recipe could have been period.
It doesn't matter if you are planning of cooking food, brewing beer, sewing a gown, making armor, writing a song, creating an article for a newsletter, or any other thing done in the SCA: if you are making an attempt to do arts and/or science in the SCA, you should take the time to document what you do and where you got your information.
To this end, I have some helpful words from someone who is taking a brief break from a research paper about how to do documentation.
1) Figure out what you want to work on. This sounds like a "Duh!" thing to say but if really isn't. You need a clear goal to do a project. Figure out what that goal is first.
2) Create a folder for your project and keep everything in that folder, notes, pictures, PDF files. If everything is in one place, you will be less likely to loose something important. Name the folder something descriptive and add the date: "Carved Leather Scabbard 1-23-2008". This will help you keep track of your projects and when you worked on them. It also helps if you do similar projects over a period of time. If you make wine every other year, but make changes, adding the date will help you distinguish between the projects, even if 90% of the information is identical. I have a folder for each category of project: brewing, research, scrolls, etc, and sub-folders for each project.
3) Make backups as you work. You will save yourself a lot of heartache if you backup your data every time you make changes. Feel free to use multiple backup devices. I save my data on my main thumb drive: the one that I use on a regular basis. I also save it to a 2nd thumb drive that I use just for A&S projects. Thumb drives are dirt cheap, I bought a two-pack of 8GB drives for $3.99. I also backup to my Google Drive. I also have a backup up on my work computer, if I did some work at work. I also backup my computer with a tape drive and with a NAS and a USB hard drive. I am paranoid about saving my data. You don't have to have 9 different backup devices, but I do recommend that you use a thumb drive and trusted cloud storage site and that you backup your work everyday as soon as you are done writing or researching for the day. If you have a catastrophic computer failure, you will only loose that day's work.
4) Create a text file just for all of the web links you come across. You can use Notepad, TextPad, Boxer; whatever text editor you wish to use. There is a plethora of books on Google and Archive.org and other locations. When you find one that pertains to your project, save the link to your link file with a description of what the link is for. You can also list page numbers to help you later. Use the same file for physical books or magazines as well. Any sources that you might need to re-visit.
5) Create a text file for your bibliography and update it as you find resources. Every book, web site, blog, documentary, newsletter, museum entry that you think might help you, immediately create a bibliography entry and keep it in alphabetical order. It will save you time later. Here is a link to a nice site that can help you with citations: http://www.easybib.com/guides/students/ and they offer a wizard to make the citations for you: www.easybib.com
6) Create a text file for your notes. Start writing your train of thought and make use of quotes and information that you uncovered during your research. Take the time to build your foot/end notes while you work. Again, it will save you time, later. "but Norwegian and Icelandic trading vessels could not carry that much cargo (estimated at 7 pounds per Greenlander per year) [Diamiond, p.240]" Don't worry about formatting or continuity; just organize your thoughts. Keep your thoughts and quotes grouped together. You can refer to these notes as you write your masterpiece.
7) Create another text file for your actual work. I don't do my main writing in my publishing software (Adobe InDesign, for the most part). I start writing in a text editor so that I can concentrate on what I am writing on not on what font or format to use. Start writing. Begin at the beginning and go on 'till you come to the end: then stop. You can open multiple instances of your text editor so that you refer to your notes as you write. You can check out my documentation on this blog and many other SCAdians have their documentation posted on web pages and blogs of their own. The TI and CA are also good sources as well as what is presented at A&S displays and competitions at events. Use these to guide you to create your own documentation.
8) Make sure that you cite all of your quotes and sources as you write them.
9) Once you are done writing and have completed your first proof reading, copy the text into your publishing software. Take the time to set up the formatting and layout. Add in any pictures and set up your foot or end notes. Then proof read it again. And again.
10) Take a break from your documentation. Reset your brain on something completely different. Then go back and proof read your work again; see if your arguments make sense. Ask someone else to read it and see if it makes sense to them.
11) Once you are done, save your paper in a PDF format. This will allow you to print it from any PC regardless of the publishing software you used. It will also let you E-mail the file to anyone you wish. There are plenty of freeware PDF creators you can download. Another advantage is longevity: I have a number of papers in older formats: AmiPro, WordPro, PageMaker, older versions of MS Word and Publisher. Some of these programs I can't run on my current PC. If I had converted them into PDF files, I could at least view and print them in their original format.
I feel that the advantage to my method is that I can have separate folders for each project, with everything I need to reproduce that project at a later date. Or, if I want to do something similar, I can copy the entire folder and not have to worry about overwriting data from the previous project. Let us say that last year I made a cordial from a particular source, and this year I want to make a different one from the same source. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, I can use everything I worked on before, make the changes to the recipe and if I find more sources to improve my paper, I can add those to the files in the new folder.
7) Create another text file for your actual work. I don't do my main writing in my publishing software (Adobe InDesign, for the most part). I start writing in a text editor so that I can concentrate on what I am writing on not on what font or format to use. Start writing. Begin at the beginning and go on 'till you come to the end: then stop. You can open multiple instances of your text editor so that you refer to your notes as you write. You can check out my documentation on this blog and many other SCAdians have their documentation posted on web pages and blogs of their own. The TI and CA are also good sources as well as what is presented at A&S displays and competitions at events. Use these to guide you to create your own documentation.
8) Make sure that you cite all of your quotes and sources as you write them.
9) Once you are done writing and have completed your first proof reading, copy the text into your publishing software. Take the time to set up the formatting and layout. Add in any pictures and set up your foot or end notes. Then proof read it again. And again.
10) Take a break from your documentation. Reset your brain on something completely different. Then go back and proof read your work again; see if your arguments make sense. Ask someone else to read it and see if it makes sense to them.
11) Once you are done, save your paper in a PDF format. This will allow you to print it from any PC regardless of the publishing software you used. It will also let you E-mail the file to anyone you wish. There are plenty of freeware PDF creators you can download. Another advantage is longevity: I have a number of papers in older formats: AmiPro, WordPro, PageMaker, older versions of MS Word and Publisher. Some of these programs I can't run on my current PC. If I had converted them into PDF files, I could at least view and print them in their original format.
I feel that the advantage to my method is that I can have separate folders for each project, with everything I need to reproduce that project at a later date. Or, if I want to do something similar, I can copy the entire folder and not have to worry about overwriting data from the previous project. Let us say that last year I made a cordial from a particular source, and this year I want to make a different one from the same source. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, I can use everything I worked on before, make the changes to the recipe and if I find more sources to improve my paper, I can add those to the files in the new folder.
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