How do you organize your commentaries?

Hi all. I would like to know if any of you have a suggestion as to the best way to organize your commentaries. When I use the Passage Guide to prepare a sermon, I get a very long list of results in my commentaries section. I do have several commentary series prioritized, and I think that helps some, but it is my understanding that prioritizing is really meant for your top 5 or so resources. I would need to have a much longer list for commentaries in a large library! Plus, my top 5 may change depending on the book of the Bible I am working in.

I have thought about setting up multiple collections, but I would like to know if there are other ways to do this.

Thanks for any suggestions!

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James C.

I create multiple collections. One for language. One for expository, one for application/devotional. One for whole bible commenteries. One for just OT. One for just NT. One for background commentaries. finally one for non-versified commentaries.

Josh

Hi all. I would like to know if any of you have a suggestion as to the best way to organize your commentaries. When I use the Passage Guide to prepare a sermon, I get a very long list of results in my commentaries section. I do have several commentary series prioritized, and I think that helps some, but it is my understanding that prioritizing is really meant for your top 5 or so resources. I would need to have a much longer list for commentaries in a large library! Plus, my top 5 may change depending on the book of the Bible I am working in.

I have thought about setting up multiple collections, but I would like to know if there are other ways to do this.

Thanks for any suggestions!

I prioritize ALL the commentaries I use - don't stop at 5!

Cynthia in Florida

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853490#Comment_853490

I prioritize them however Mark tells me to!

http://www.logosbiblesoftwaretraining.com/documents/suggested-commentary-tags/

Mark has a page on this very question as well as collection sets that you can copy into your logos software. I'm pretty sure there's a current one floating around the board as well. Oh, and check out this video where Mark shows you how.

http://www.logosbiblesoftwaretraining.com/videos/the-library/

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853534#Comment_853534

I prioritize them however Mark tells me to!

http://www.logosbiblesoftwaretraining.com/documents/suggested-commentary-tags/

I've tagged them using Mark's suggested tags as well. I have found this to be excellent.

Cynthia in Florida

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853536#Comment_853536

It just struck me that I'm part of some Faith Life groups that make commentary set files.

https://faithlife.com/collections-commentaries-and-theologies/documents

https://faithlife.com/commentary-types/documents

https://faithlife.com/logos-collections/documents

Honestly, I don't mess with Faith Life groups that much, but I know I got a lot of really great commentary set files from there. Hundreds to choose from! All you have to do is log in, join the group, go to documents, click the one(s) that look interesting to you, hit save file and it will automatically go into Logos. Then, it will show up under your collections, and if you don't like it, it's easy enough to just delete.

Hope that helps. That's about all I know, but I'm sure that if you have further questions, someone can help further.

For me...Mark's commentary set is what I've used for years, and he has it all done for you on that first link I put in my previous post.

Matt Hamrick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853538#Comment_853538

The good news Cynthia is as you use John's training you will be able to create collections by yourself that is better than what you find online.

Tim Farley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853538#Comment_853538

Cynthia and Bruce,

After you have tagged your commentaries, do you then create collections using the tags? It seems like this would be necessary to be useful.

Thanks again!

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853544#Comment_853544

After you have tagged your commentaries, do you then create collections using the tags?

If I would like to search Logos creates collections using "mytag" if you want to search that way. See below.

But also note that I rate each of my resources so I can easily identify the ones I have rated the highest. The search below is for the Genesis commentaries that I have tagged a rating of 4 or 5 stars, that are also "technical". This makes it easy to choose which ones I'd like to explore more.

Tim Farley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853547#Comment_853547

Thanks, Bruce. It looks like I may need to spend some time tagging my library to add more functionality to it. Very helpful!

Erwin Stull, Sr.

Collections and prioritization.

Richard Villanueva

When I use the Passage Guide to prepare a sermon, I get a very long list of results in my commentaries section.

Regarding the creation of a custom passage guide, I too used Mark's collection and organized my personal passage guide into those collections, so it's much easier to navigate the commentaries I want to find for the type of study information I'm looking for. I haven't seen a pic snapped of that, so here's mine:

And I just open each collection to see what my choices are! I did this without custom tags - I'm not that committed to it yet... It sounds very time-intensive, and time is something I'm currently short on.

Mark Barnes

My classifications have been mentioned a few times. If you more info about that, this post is probably the most useful: Collection rules for sorting commentaries

With that you can create a custom passage guide like the one below. That will reduce the clutter and allow you to chose the most important commentaries for the task at hand.

That said, don't feel you should limit your commentary prioritisation to just 5 commentaries. Prioritise as much as is useful.

If you rate your commentaries, you could also limit your passage guide to just commentaries rated 4 or 5 stars, which is a really helpful way of cutting down the fluff. You can combine that with the classification above by creating a new collection of commentaries with 0-3 stars, and then creating new collections for each classification. For example, you could have Favourite Commentaries (Expository), and in that collection you'd put "Commentaries (Expository)" in the "Plus these resources", and "Commentaries (0-3 stars)" in the "Minus these resources".

Cynthia in Florida

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853543#Comment_853543

The good news Cynthia is as you use John's training you will be able to create collections by yourself that is better than what you find online.

Matt! Are you the one who sent me over there???? If so, THANK YOU X 100000000000! I had never heard of him or his site before. OH MY GOODNESS I HAVE LEARNED SO MUCH! I've watched all his 28 videos thus far for Logos 7 as he's in beta and expects them all released by December. He apparently has new ones that come out every Monday. I'm actually LOOKING FORWARD to them!

Matt Hamrick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853608#Comment_853608

Just stay plugged into Learn Logos.com and one day you will wake up and realize you are a master of the software. Watching his live webinars will help also. Have fun, I know I do.

John Duffy

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853606#Comment_853606

If you rate your commentaries, you could also limit your passage guide to just commentaries rated 4 or 5 stars, which is a really helpful way of cutting down the fluff. You can combine that with the classification above by creating a new collection of commentaries with 0-3 stars, and then creating new collections for each classification. For example, you could have Favourite Commentaries (Expository), and in that collection you'd put "Commentaries (Expository)" in the "Plus these resources", and "Commentaries (0-3 stars)" in the "Minus these resources".

Mark, that's a great idea. I currently have two custom passage guides, one based on your collections (technical, etc), and another based on mytags with subjective categorisation of best, good, favourite series, and so on (based on Carson's and Glynn's commentary review books, and bestcommentaries.com and other reviews too for more recent publications). The problem I had was seeing which were my favourite commentaries within the tecnhical, etc. listings. Using the stars allows me to rate the best with 5 stars, good with 4 stars, and separate them out that way into different collections. It'll result in a longer custom passage guide with more sections, but that's just what I need. Thanks for the tip.

Tim Farley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853622#Comment_853622

This has been very helpful to me. I have not spent much time tagging resources because of the amount of time involved, but it seems that may be the best option in the long run.

My original thought was to do something similar to what Erwin has above: create collections on books of the Bible (or other groupings) and use prioritization to help get the better commentaries to the top of the list.

I do like Mark's classifications and I have joined the Commentary Collections Faithlife group. I'll download some of those files and play around and see how I like the results.

John Fidel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853634#Comment_853634

If you want to tag quickly, use the definition for a particular commentary collection and copy it into the library. This will not list all the commentaries within that definition. You can Shift click and select all and then tag them all at once.

I use a similar system to Mark's. I have a specialized commentary section for Background, Expositions and other commentaries that just do not fit my other categories. I did go through best commentaries.com and tag the top 5 commentaries for each book as "best" for that category as a general reference.

I do use ratings to limit favorites in sections, but I need to remember that I have limited the collection because often I wonder why a particular resources is not showing up, only to find I have limited the collection based on ratings.

Jan Pollok

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853608#Comment_853608

Hi Cynthia in Florida,

Where can I find this 28 videos you referring to? Thank you,

Jan

Matt Hamrick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/854910#Comment_854910

Hello Jan, we are referring to John Fallahee's Logos 7 training at learnlogos.com.

Jan Pollok

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/854916#Comment_854916

Hi Matt,

Thank you so much for your quick reply. Jan

Paul Erickson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853634#Comment_853634

I have personally found a simple collections and prioritization based approach to be pretty workable. I began tagging a bunch of books once upon a time; but for commentaries I ended up finding that it was easier to write a rule for a collection that selected the books I wanted. Plus you can add or remove one-off books as you like from the collections.

My personal collection sets are:

Text and Translation (UBS, Metzger, NET notes, etc...)
Exegetical (NIGTC, NICOT/NICNT, AYBC, etc...)
Expository (Bible Speaks Today, Focus on the Bible, For Everyone, etc...)
Classic (K&D, Calvin, ACCS, etc...)

I'm sure the specific organization will vary by individual interest, but this has worked well for me. I also then use the prioritization to help sort within collections. Maybe you'll find tagging worth your time; but at least as far as passage guides go, I personally have been happy with the results I've gotten simply using collections and prioritization.

Mark Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853544#Comment_853544

After you have tagged your commentaries, do you then create collections using the tags? It seems like this would be necessary to be useful.

That is what I have done. I have another collection of my top-rated commentaries. Then I've created a few custom Passage Guides with different types of commentary collections (only commentaries in these guides to keep them focused) as well as one with all my commentary collections.

Jonathan Bradley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/853543#Comment_853543

The good news Cynthia is as you use John's training you will be able to create collections by yourself that is better than what you find online.

Where is this training of John's? I would like to see this.

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/855218#Comment_855218

Where is this training of John's? I would like to see this.

https://www.learnlogos.com/

Matt Hamrick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/855224#Comment_855224

Thanks Bruce for helping Jon.

Richard J. Ward

Since commentaries sync with the Bible, how does tagging them and making a collection of them enhance their functionality?

Jonathan Bradley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/855336#Comment_855336

Thank you!

Since commentaries sync with the Bible, how does tagging them and making a collection of them enhance their functionality?

As for tagging, I'm still new to that. Collections, on the other hand, group styles/types of commentaries (Academic, historical, etc.) together to help you determine what type of information you may needing to get.

Tim Farley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/855336#Comment_855336

Since commentaries sync with the Bible, how does tagging them and making a collection of them enhance their functionality?

It is primarily about organization and being able to get to the best information more easily. For instance, I can make a collection of "Top Commentaries on Genesis". I can then put that collection into my passage guide, so when I run the guide on Genesis 3, I can quickly look at what my favorite commentaries have to say, rather than having a long list of commentaries to comb through.

Tagging just makes it easier to create collections. For example, I could go through my commentaries and tag Calvin's and Luther's commentaries as "ReformationEra". I could then create a collection that pulls all of those resources together.

Richard J. Ward

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/855413#Comment_855413

It is primarily about organization and being able to get to the best information more easily. For instance, I can make a collection of "Top Commentaries on Genesis". I can then put that collection into my passage guide, so when I run the guide on Genesis 3, I can quickly look at what my favorite commentaries have to say, rather than having a long list of commentaries to comb through.

Tagging just makes it easier to create collections. For example, I could go through my commentaries and tag Calvin's and Luther's commentaries as "ReformationEra". I could then create a collection that pulls all of those resources together.

I see. Makes sense.