When I was working on my master’s degree, I also had to learn how to use Chicago/Turabian citations. Before that, I’d had classes that required MLA and APA, but Chicago/Turabian turned out to be a whole different beast. No matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to lose a point or two because I’d gotten something wrong.
When it came time to write my thesis, I decided I wasn’t dealing with that anymore. Every time I accessed a source, I wrote down everything about it: title, author(s), publication date, publisher, and anything else I might need. Then I wrote down the correct format for the first footnote, subsequent footnotes, and the bibliography.
That meant that when I was actually writing, I could just write. I didn’t have to stop every few minutes to figure out how I was supposed to cite something and potentially lose my train of thought. And when the paper itself was finished, dealing with the citations was a whole lot easier.
A few months ago, I found myself thinking, “I wish I’d had something like this way back when…” And then the lightbulb went off. Why not make it? If it made my life easier, maybe I could save someone else from suffering through the same thing.
As it turns out, making the templates took more time than learning Chicago/Turabian in the first place.
I had to jump straight into the deep end with Scribus, the open-source design tool I’d found. I have to admit, I said some fairly offensive words to Scribus during the process, but luckily it’s not a person I’d have to apologize to later.
I can’t say that I’ve beaten Scribus, mastered it, or even reached anything resembling ease of use, but I at least remembered to save my completed pages as templates so I don’t continue to tear out my hair.
Cèilidh Nam Freumhan 