If you’re like me, this week is crunch time on at least one massive paper. But I want to tell you about my secret weapon, it has saved me many hours of work and frustration at seminary.
The Master Bibliography (aka Resource List)
Basically, it’s a single Word document that contains every footnote or bibliography item I’ve ever used (or plan to use) on a research paper. I actually have two separate versions because LEAD school classes have a slightly modified format.
This works really well for for books you reference often, like reference works or major theological texts.
I’ve heard rumors of software that can do this, but a bibliography swipe file is just as effective.
Create Your Own & Share It
- Find all your old research papers
- Copy all the bibliography and footnotes
- Paste them into a new Word document
- Save the new file on your computer as “Master Bibliography”
- Exchange copies with all your friends.
Nota Bene will do this with greater ease than a Word file. Nota Bene even has the SBTS style and format as one of the options for term papers. It is a bit pricey, but well worth every $ that is spent in time savings in doing a paper. I have separate bibliography files for each paper as well as a Master Bibliography for every paper that I have done.
Terry Lange’s last blog post..On the radio this week