Notes vs. PBB Commentary

I know "best practices" concerning the accumulation of study materials has been kicked around at different times in the forums; however, now with PBB available and the potential for creating one's own searchable commentary, I'm torn between doing just that and continuing to use notes.

Clearly a used-generated PBB commentary would be fully searchable, cleaner in terms of format, etc. I'm sure there are other advantages. On the other hand, it seems much more time consuming than simply taking notes which can be tied directly to whatever biblical text one is studying. When studying a given passage, is the goal to create a sharp looking tagged book within Logos or to gain an understanding in order to preach/teach?

Bottom line: what do you all think?

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Mike S.

I've been mulling this one over myself. The advantage of notes is the visual cue within the source and quick access, but on the mac platform notes are so horrible that I actually use a different application for core scripture study and notes.

Here's the "negative" I see for notes as PBB: I would have 3-5 word documents open at a time. One I use for my ongoing personal observations, analysis and conclusions, another to summarize resource findings (e.g. commentaries, background from monographs, etc.), and finally, at least one another for subject/topic level study. I haven't really put this together yet, and Word for Mac's macros cannot be added to a ribbon/toolbar (ugh), so PBBs cannot be made as easily as they can windoze.

I'm also very interested to hear what people may have done so far.

DMB

Obviously this is a personal issue in terms of how notes are used, styles, and so forth.

For me, the question is a no-brainer. Personal Books is the only way to go:

- I have quite a number of notes over the years from different software packages (30-40K); I keep them in one place. PPB is an easy way to bring them into Logos.

- My notes arrive from different places (sermons, studying, text analysis, etc). Each is date stamped so that over the years, I can see how my views are changing. Typically I have 4-5 notes per verse; some 15-20 where there's issues. PPB is the only real solution.

- I like to bring in other peoples notes that I value. This is especially true for historical people like Darby, etc.

- Lastly, as much as the folks at Logos are just the greatest, resources can be re-purchased but 'notes' can't. I can't imagine leaving my notes to one specific software package. Logos offering Personal Books for free is just a great way to protect my notes AND use Logos integration too.

JT (alabama24)

My 2¢ -

I just finished making a PB of a sermon series by a popular preacher. He freely gives out both transcripts and handouts of his notes. If I decide to preach on those topics at some point, I will be able to read his sermons to see how he dealt with it.

Similarly, I can envision speaking on a passage, and returning to it several years later. It would be really convenient for me to have those notes available to me while I am studying. I don't want to have to go dig through old files to find it.

EDIT: I got my first "Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE"! [this was from using MSFT Word to find the "cent" symbol.] Way to go me! [:)]

steve clark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/279364#Comment_279364

One problem that i run into is that in Notes i can link it directly to my Bible verses, but in a PB i have to cross-link it to a note to get a link in my Bibles.

Danny Baskin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/279362#Comment_279362

Obviously this is a personal issue in terms of how notes are used, styles, and so forth.

For me, the question is a no-brainer. Personal Books is the only way to go:

- I have quite a number of notes over the years from different software packages (30-40K); I keep them in one place. PPB is an easy way to bring them into Logos.

- My notes arrive from different places (sermons, studying, text analysis, etc). Each is date stamped so that over the years, I can see how my views are changing. Typically I have 4-5 notes per verse; some 15-20 where there's issues. PPB is the only real solution.

- I like to bring in other peoples notes that I value. This is especially true for historical people like Darby, etc.

- Lastly, as much as the folks at Logos are just the greatest, resources can be re-purchased but 'notes' can't. I can't imagine leaving my notes to one specific software package. Logos offering Personal Books for free is just a great way to protect my notes AND use Logos integration too.

Denise,

I'd like to hear a bit more about how you've set up your PBB's for notes. I've been using Logos for years, and it seems that I'm NEVER going to be satisfied with my own study/note-taking system.

Danny

Danny Baskin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/279366#Comment_279366

One problem that i run into is that in Notes i can link it directly to my Bible verses, but in a PB i have to cross-link it to a note to get a link in my Bibles.

Good point, Steve. Directly relates to what I was saying about more work with PBBs.

Mike S.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/279369#Comment_279369

I'd like to hear a bit more about how you've set up your PBB's for notes. I've been using Logos for years, and it seems that I'm NEVER going to be satisfied with my own study/note-taking system.

I too would love to know how you distribute your notes across documents.

Do you keep your " 4-5 notes per verse; some 15-20" in a single Word doc? Would you mind sharing an excerpt from a single verse that has 15-20 notes?

Do you keep "other people's notes" in a separate document?

Do you keep a number of docs open when in Logos? Do you use those same docs totally independent of Logos today?

Thank you very much for sharing what you already have!

Danny Baskin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/279372#Comment_279372

I think I continue to desire more from Logos notes. Stronger formatting capabilities, etc. Is that a possibility or is further development of notes in Logos a "no go"?

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/279383#Comment_279383

Danny / Mike

My comments above are specific to where the notes end up (PPB vs hand keyed into Logos4). So my approach may or may not work for you on the input side.

* I use an Access database for all my notes, no matter their 'reason'. All are keyed to a standard verse ID including apocrypha and any non-canon texts, if they have standard IDs (e.g. Didache, Enoch, etc). I also have internal classing just for convenience as to their source (e.g. 'mine', Darby, apostolic fathers, etc) and type.

* When I find a source on the internet and it's reasonably public domain (i.e. either literally or the source allows personal use), I bring it down, format it (often using Excel) and then bring it into Access. For strange files, I have quite a number of parsers.

* I wrote software that sits over-top the Access db. Originally it was for data visualization on syntactical patterns but it grew to include note keeping, verse categorizing, verse re-translating, harmony cross-ref'ing, etc. So, notes not only include traditional notes, but also syntactical pattern information etc (i.e. a section in Isaiah that most closely matches a section in Deu, and the competing sections).

* Buttons are used to export out to my various other software packages (to now include Logos PPB). All use various forms of HTML, making it easy to create a new exporter. So every month or so, I update from the central database. I like this because quite often I find myself 're-studying' what I already studied (and forgot!). Also on Sunday morning, it's nice to have all the notes grouped by verse for quick reference.

I admit all the above isn't usable for most people; I'm just explaining how I manage so many notes, and why.

If I were to do this without the software overlay, I'd simply type into Word, everything, with headers being organized by a standard verse ID that Logos4 can treat as a commentary cross-reference. More significant notes I keep in external files with the reference in each note (i.e. a good sermon, someone discussion, etc).

Bottom line, though, is that no matter how one does it, the external basing of notes, in my opinion, is 'wise' over the long term; especially date-stamping.

Mike S.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/279394#Comment_279394

Thanks for your quick reply. Being on a Mac, that's not exactly going to work for me, but it does get me thinking I could do it with APEX and Oracle Express and make it accessible from any machine in my network [:)]

Might anyone else actually be using Word Docs with PBBs to replace (or at least mostly replace) Logos Note files? If so, would you mind sharing how you've gone about it?

Danny Baskin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/279394#Comment_279394

Danny / Mike

My comments above are specific to where the notes end up (PPB vs hand keyed into Logos4). So my approach may or may not work for you on the input side.

* I use an Access database for all my notes, no matter their 'reason'. All are keyed to a standard verse ID including apocrypha and any non-canon texts, if they have standard IDs (e.g. Didache, Enoch, etc). I also have internal classing just for convenience as to their source (e.g. 'mine', Darby, apostolic fathers, etc) and type.

* When I find a source on the internet and it's reasonably public domain (i.e. either literally or the source allows personal use), I bring it down, format it (often using Excel) and then bring it into Access. For strange files, I have quite a number of parsers.

* I wrote software that sits over-top the Access db. Originally it was for data visualization on syntactical patterns but it grew to include note keeping, verse categorizing, verse re-translating, harmony cross-ref'ing, etc. So, notes not only include traditional notes, but also syntactical pattern information etc (i.e. a section in Isaiah that most closely matches a section in Deu, and the competing sections).

* Buttons are used to export out to my various other software packages (to now include Logos PPB). All use various forms of HTML, making it easy to create a new exporter. So every month or so, I update from the central database. I like this because quite often I find myself 're-studying' what I already studied (and forgot!). Also on Sunday morning, it's nice to have all the notes grouped by verse for quick reference.

I admit all the above isn't usable for most people; I'm just explaining how I manage so many notes, and why.

If I were to do this without the software overlay, I'd simply type into Word, everything, with headers being organized by a standard verse ID that Logos4 can treat as a commentary cross-reference. More significant notes I keep in external files with the reference in each note (i.e. a good sermon, someone discussion, etc).

Bottom line, though, is that no matter how one does it, the external basing of notes, in my opinion, is 'wise' over the long term; especially date-stamping.

Denise,

All is can say is . . . . Wow! Amazing! Impressive! You've obviously put much thought AND work into your system. And clearly your end-product is worth all the effort. Thanks so much for the inisight and inspiration.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/279364#Comment_279364

EDIT: I got my first "Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE"! [this was from using MSFT Word to find the "cent" symbol.] Way to go me!

Why don't you simply use Charmap to find it? If you type in "cent" in the "Search for" box it will give a limited variety of symbols including ¢.

George Somsel

I know "best practices" concerning the accumulation of study materials has been kicked around at different times in the forums; however, now with PBB available and the potential for creating one's own searchable commentary, I'm torn between doing just that and continuing to use notes.

Clearly a used-generated PBB commentary would be fully searchable, cleaner in terms of format, etc. I'm sure there are other advantages. On the other hand, it seems much more time consuming than simply taking notes which can be tied directly to whatever biblical text one is studying. When studying a given passage, is the goal to create a sharp looking tagged book within Logos or to gain an understanding in order to preach/teach?

Bottom line: what do you all think?

That's a good question, but the notes function doesn't require rebuilding to view and use the results. This is something of an advantage if you are going to be making a number of changes. After things have settled down you can then create the PB and have fewer rebuilds.

Danny Baskin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/279403#Comment_279403

Makes sense, George.

Thanks!

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/279402#Comment_279402

Why don't you simply use Charmap to find it?

Never heard of it until today. Often there is more than one way to "kill a bird." Actually, I have a character viewer in my status bar, but the icon for it changed with Mac OS 10.7 (Lion) and I forgot about it.