How do you manage bibliography and other citations?

[IvanPsy]

Hi all,

I started with TiddlyWiki as my second brain, and I love it!

Now...I read lots of papers and other research, articles and blog posts.

When I extract the information and put them in my TiddlyWiki I lose all the references, as all is mixed inside my second brain: in a single tiddler there may be information extracted from several articles, and a single article may be split into several tiddlers.

But I need to get back to the reference when I write my articles for the public, so that I can cite who said what.

How do you manage it?

Any example?

Thank you!

[Mark S.]

You might find refnotes useful (https://kookma.github.io/Refnotes/)

[Keelan Cook]

I concur with Mark. I'm currently using Refnotes as well, in addition to Saq's Streams plugin.

Here's my workflow with it:

1. I've created a text expander flow that auto-populates the syntax for a footnote, so that I can just use a / command to call it up.
2. I create a source tiddler for the book, and using the Streams plugin, you can very quickly take notes on a book. Each new node is actually a tiddler, so it creates atomic notes that are all just connected to the source tiddler for the book. Each one can then be linked to other topics of notes, of course, and they can be transcluded or copied into another tiddler for composition later.
3. With each note created this way, I use my text expander to quickly call up the macro for a footnote and simply add bib info at the end of each note. That means every, single note now has the bib reference in it.
   
4. Added bonus: The Refnotes plugin also allows you to easily create a bibliography at the bottom of a tiddler based off all the footnotes in the tiddler. And if I pull in notes from multiple books to a new article tiddler by transclusion, it dynamically updates the numbering in the new tiddler and adds them to that bottom bibliography section for that note. This is especially nice if I'm writing an article inside TiddlyWiki. 
   

Happy to explain more if it would help. 

[History Buff]

Hi Keenan

Could you give more details about your text expander? I’m very intrigued.

Damon

[Keelan Cook]

Certainly, I'm currently using Text Blaze. It's a free chrome extension. It allows you to set any character string to be called up by certain keystrokes. 

In my research workflow, I'm creating footnotes with it by inputting the syntax for a footnote into Text Blaze. For instance, adding a footnote with Refnotes looks like this: <<fnote "Handy, //[[Undermined Establishment|Undermined Establishment (Handy, 2014)]]//, 28.">>. Each time I start a new source, I will input a string specific to that book into Text Blaze that places the cursor automatically at the page location in the footnote syntax. I will then assign it to a slash command. This one is assigned to "/handy2014". 

As I'm taking notes from the source, at the end of every literature note, I simply type the slash command, and it fills in the syntax for the footnote and I simply add the page number. Saves a great deal of time. I have a few others for coloring things with CSS and other macros as well. You can conceivably use them for anything you type over and over again. I've known people to use them for whole email templates.

[History Buff]

Thanks so much. I will definitely have to check out Text Blaze. Your workflow souinds quite useful to. I'm going to have to examine mine for improvements.

Damon

[Jon]

Hi,

This is how I use Refnotes:

I have a list of references in a data tiddler called 'Footnotes':

myref1: Title, Author

myfef2 etc

In the tiddler I want to include the reference, I use the 'Insert preconfigured snippet of text' button in the editor to insert:

<<fnote "{{Footnotes##myref}} p.">>

then I just insert the 'myref number' and the page number.

Also, in another tiddler {{{[!is[system]regexp:text[{{Footnotes##myref1}}]]}}} will show the list of references for that book (this bit works but there's probably a better syntax for it - please let me know)

Regards

Jon

[IvanPsy]

Hi Keenan thank you for the great reply.

As for the Stream plugin, do you mean this:  https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/bullets.html ?

I think I’ll test it on a second TiddlyWiki: is there any chance adding this plugin would break the wiki?

It says it’s a prototype.

And: what if I wanted to delete the plugin in the future? Will I lose the structure and break the wiki?

I see each tiddler has a string of text as title: I think I shouldn’t change it, is it?

My concern is I will have a wiki with hundreds of tiddlers with such strange name, so that I’ll not be able to refer to them in the future (as the title won’t be a human sentence).

How do I add the plugin?

Is dragging and dropping the $:/plugins/sq/bullets text on my TiddlyWiki enough?

[Keelan Cook]

There is an updated version to Streams here: https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html

The one you linked above, I believe, was his first prototype. Of course, even this one is still a beta of sorts, and I would recommend playing with it in a second wiki or at least backing up your data prior to working with it. I've been using it for a couple of months now, though, with no issues.

I do believe you will lose the structure if you deleted the plugin, but that is perhaps a question for Saq. I'm a rather non-technical user who has only begun my journey with TiddlyWiki, and I'm still learning those things myself! I believe there are options within Streams (check out the newest version) that allow you to change naming conventions. In other words, it could automatically name them off the first line of text, or you could change to some other form of Zettlekasten naming convention.

And yes, merely dragging the plugin onto an existing TiddlyWiki will do the trick.

I have found that it works best if you also install the Stories plugin by Saq as well. They're not dependent upon one another, but the Stories plugin allows for a two column story river. It makes working with references and Streams into a very fun, drag and drop experience.

You can find stories here: https://giffmex.org/stroll/stroll.html#%24%3A%2Fplugins%2Fsq%2FStories

What results are two, side-by-side story rivers that allow you create outlines in both. I will open my "source" tiddlers on one side with all of their literature notes I've made. And I will open the article outline I'm working on in the other side. This allows me to simply drag and drop my notes into the appropriate place in the outline. And, since I have already tagged them all with a footnote using the Refnotes plugin, that information goes with it. 
 
The results are like this: