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Just over a week ago, I defended my dissertation proposal for my Ph.D. Though I intend to more fully describe the proposal, my plans for implementation, and how you can be involved, I wanted to here describe the writing tool that I relied on. To be as blunt as possible, Scrivener<\/a> is perhaps the best forty dollars I\u2019ve spent in my professional career.<\/p>\n Through breaking down a larger document into smaller files, folders, and subfolders, Scrivener fits the ad hoc nature of my writing style. Frequently, I would find myself jumping from amending the proposal\u2019s rationale to tweaking a few lines in the lit review to jotting out a section of the appendix. I started writing my proposal importing a handful of useful articles and a few paragraphs and papers I\u2019d previously written that helped guide my writing. Scrivener allowed me to morph these scraps as needed throughout the months I spent writing the 80+ page proposal I ended up with.\u00a0 For instance, I started the bulky literature review chapter with notes on the areas I intended to review. These were in a single text section. However, as these areas grew, I broke them into the five sections you can see in the image above. These too, in turn, were expanded to allow me to more closely focus on various nuances within the areas I was reviewing and collapsed later for fluidity.<\/p>\n Scrivener allowed me to expand and collapse text and folder as needed, move sections around, and keep many of my needed PDFs, images, and notes within an eye\u2019s view. Being able to edit with two text windows open within Scrivener meant compiling my bibliography while writing, or looking at various drafts simultaneously.<\/p>\n