TIP - Focus Find Follow Pt 5 - The Cited By Tool - Gateway for exploration

John Fidel
John Fidel MVP Posts: 3,387
edited November 20 in English Forum

This is a continuation of Pt 4 of this series.

Another tool that I like to incorporate into many of my layouts is the Cited By Tool. It is found from the menu under tools and then in the lookup section.

The Cited By tool is used to find any place a particular bible verse or pericope is used in the books in your library. Now you could always run a search for a bible verse, say Mat 6.24 and you may get this. Lots of hits to go through...

The Cited By tool can be used to help target this type of search by collection, tagging or series. It is very useful to go exploring without drowning in information. Here are the basics on set up and use:

The Cited By tool opens in a fixed window on the right side. You can leave it there or move it and size it as large as you like.

TIP- Sometimes having the fixed space on the right works well if I am opening and closing the tool, or if I already am using the right fixed window for my Information Window in the layout.

Open the tool and then click on the add button on the right. You can see what sections are available for you to add based on your library management. If you have collections setup (and you should) then you can really target your exploration. Below you can see I can add additional collections, tagged resources and finally series:

Next click on the resource panel so you can see the many viewing options. I have shown each of them below, and you can determine which works best for you. Personally I prefer the Expanded View, Sort Results by Resource (the fourth example). This lets me see the resources and I can click on the verse link and get to the place in the article the verse is used.

If I am studying Mat 6.24, here is what my Piper and Puritan authors collections provides me to go explore:

If there are lots of references, selecting search will open a search on Mat 6.24 on that collection. 

TIP: The resource panel allows you to select "send searches here" so you do not open a new search window each time you run a search.

Of course the key to using this gateway efficiently is to have collections and/or tagging set up. My favorite use for this tool is to quickly see what various authors have to say about the pericope I am studying. To set up a collection by author is really easy. Go to Tools/Collections, Name the collection and use the rule: Author:Name

So a Piper collection would be Author:Piper. Note, no space after the :

I hope this gives you some ideas as to how you can incorporate this tool into your layouts to help you explore (Follow) in a targeted way.

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