Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!gatech!rutgers!ucsd!sdics!norman
From: norman@sdics.ucsd.EDU (Donald A Norman-UCSD Cog Sci Dept)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Academic Wordprocessing
Message-ID: <653@sdics.ucsd.EDU>
Date: 27 Nov 88 02:02:03 GMT
References: <71@ucl-cs.UUCP> <685@stech.UUCP>
Reply-To: norman@sdics.UUCP (Donald A Norman-UCSD Cog Sci Dept)
Organization: UC San Diego Department of Cognitive Science
Lines: 53

Pardon my ignorance, but why the fuss over which word processor best
supports academic writing?  In my experience, the hardest part about
writing is the writing itself -- generating the ideas in coherent
fashion.  No word processor helps with that.  As for the problems of
formatting, well yes, you need something that formats, and especially
that does footnotes properly, but almost everything else can be done
by anything on the market.

There are religous arguments about word processors: vi versus emacs,
TeX (and its derivative packages) versus troff or scribe, FullWrite
versus Microsoft Word versus what-have-you.  Like all religions, they
all offer much the same eventual power, even if the means to the
endpoints differ.  Follow your own preferences.

Seriously: I have done an informal study comparing emacs and vi and
found that equivalent in power, but quite different in style.  I have
written books (including one in camera-ready form) and professional
articles (yes, with citations and footnotes and figures) with vi,
emacs, troff, Microsoft Word (versions 1 and 3), and my students have
tried FullWrite as well -- my students have done dissertations with
vi-troff and with Microsoft Word (dissertations probably offer the
most stringent formatting requirements). My colleagues use scribe and
TeX.  So stop worrying and just get one.

As for refrence formats: I have tried various automatic schemes, and I
have found it just as easy to have one big file in which I keep all my
references, in alphabetical form, in proper format (APA style for my
usage).  Then when I need a reference, I open up the file, and copy
and paste it into the current document at the right spot.  I even do
the equivalent with emacs-troff, even though automatic refencing
programs exist.

So, I conclude you should just make a list of the minimum features you
need (I gave my list in the first paragraph), and go out and get
something -- almost anything.  Whichever you start off with you will
eventually learn well enough that you will come to like it, even as
you always wonder if another one might be better. But don't waste your
time switching: As I said, the hard part is the writing.
     I personally use Microsoft Word, and I am a heavy user of its styles,
     spelling corection, hyphenator, its batch previewer (ugh), footnoting
     capabilities, and even its outlining capability (for which I have made
     the styles match my heading requirments).  But I also dislike many of
     its properties.   I am not recommending this over others: I am simply
     saying it does the job.

don norman

Donald A. Norman	[ danorman@ucsd.edu   BITNET: danorman@ucsd ]
Department of Cognitive Science C-015
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California 92093 USA
UNIX:  {gatech,rutgers,ucbvax,uunet}!ucsd!danorman
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