An academic writing project can be divided into two main parts: researching and writing. At this stage, you have finished researching the topic, gathering source material, and reading and annotating your source material. You may also have built an outline for your writing. Now, it is time for you to fill details into your outline, make arguments and provide evidence for your arguments.
Write inside the preview panel
In the previous section, we explained how to add an outline item with Quick Add. You can add content to an outline item directly inside the preview pane without leaving the composition module. You can re-arrange the order of an outline item by using drag and drop. You can change the ordering of your note by clicking the up and down buttons or by pressing the Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down keys.
Display two notes side by side
When working on a big project, you may want to display two notes side by side. You can do this by clicking the "One Pane / Two Panes" button. You can change the width of each pane by dragging the divider.
Mark a note
You may have already noticed that there are are mark columns in the composition module. One is the note mark which doesn't change when a note is put into a different composition project. The other one is the mark for a note in the current composition project. This mark is project dependent. For example, note A is included in two composition projects. In project one, it is marked red in the composition mark column. In project two, the same note could be marked green.
Inspector tab
The inspector pane in the composition module lists several fields of a note like Abstract, Title, Type, etc. It also lists some properties of a note that are only relevant to the current composition project like Composition Mark, Exclude Export, etc. All these fields can be edited. When you browse to another note, the changes will be changed.
| • | Abstract: You can write a brief summary of your note. When you browse your outline, you can quickly know what the note is about. |
| • | Keywords: If you need to build an index for your book or thesis, you should add an index term for each note in the Keywords field. Each keyword should be separated by "; ". When you compile the composition project, there is an option to build an end of the book index. |
| • | Title: Title of the currently selected note. |
| • | Note Type: Note type of the currently selected note. |
| • | Categories: You can tag the currently selected note by entering categories separated by "; ". If the entered category does not already exist in your database, it will be entered automatically in the "New Categories" folder. |
| • | Date Target: Enter the target date to finish writing the current note. |
| • | Status: Select a pre-defined status for the current note. If the pre-defined list doesn't include the one you want, you can select the "Edit..." item to add new ones. |
| • | Label: You can enter a label directly. A label could be anything about the note. You can also select the "Edit..." item to build a list. |
| • | Priority: Select a priority item for the current note. |
| • | Note Mark: Mark the current note. This mark is assigned to the note. You will see the same mark when you go to the notes module. |
| • | Word Count: The number of words the current note contains. |
| • | Target Count: The number of words that you want the current note to contain. You can use it to monitor the progress of you writing for each note. |
| • | Comp Mark: A mark that is assigned to a note for the current composition project. This mark is not assigned to the note itself. You only see this mark under this composition project. The same note could be marked differently in another composition project. |
| • | Exclude Export: If you don't want to include the note in the compiled output, check this box. |
| • | Page Break Bf: If you want to include a page break before the note when it is compiled to produce an output, check this box. You will get a page break before the note in the compiled document. |
| • | Keep Format: When Biblioscape compiles all your notes under the current composition project to produce an output, it will use assigned font properties for notes at different levels of the outline hierarchy. If you don't want Biblioscape to use the assigned font for this note, check this box. |
| • | Misc: If you want to include anything else about this note, enter it here. You can also paste graphics into this field. |
Write inside the Draft tab
Sometimes you may want to combine several notes in your outline and see how the text flows from note to note. You can do this in the Draft tab. First, select the notes you want to include. Then, go to the "Draft" tab and click the button "Generate Draft". The selected notes will be combined and displayed in the draft panel. The title of each note is highlighted in light yellow and cannot be edited. You can only edit the text. If you want to save the changes you make in the draft panel back to the notes, click the "Save Draft to Database" button.
Cite references
While working on your first draft, you can insert a citation easily without leaving the composition module. Go to the "References" tab on the right. Select the reference you want to cite and drag and drop it to the live preview panel. The selected reference will be inserted as a temporary citation. You can go to a different references folder or run a Fast Search at the top of the "References" tab.
