IdeaMason is a truly remarkable, but little-known program for writers.
Why is it so little known? Frankly, the program at first sight is very intimidating: it looks different, and it performs differently. It is not easy to understand right off, even though the homepage offers lots of instructional videos. The power of the program makes it appear very difficult to learn and manage. Most writers who take a look, I suspect, flee in confusion. I did after my first couple of visits to the program’s homepage.
I’ve now been using it for awhile, and I’m beginning to understand its inner-workings. The underlying logic is actually not that difficult to grasp. I’ll post my own Introduction To IdeaMason when I get a chance. [That may be a while. I'm still experiencing major computer problems, simultaneously on both desktop and laptop. That, together with two major writing deadlines and a 5-week lecture and research trip to Europe, may delay major posts until late summer, sad to say.]
Why is IdeaMason so remarkable? It does some special tasks exceedingly well.
Writing bit by bit: Have you ever had a writing project that emerged random sentence by random sentence, before the project’s overall structure is clear to you? IdeaMason copes with this better than any other program I’ve tried. As the thoughts emerge, perhaps over weeks or months even, IdeaMason helps one capture the thoughts and mold them eventually into coherence. In fact it is this capability that gives the program its unusual name. This feature alone makes the program immensely valuable.
Handling research notes and what you eventually write from each note: I’ve tried quite a number of programs that promise to help keep notes and writing together. IdeaMason excels with the task. For example, multiple separate notes can be written based on a single reference book, each noting the particular page related to the material noted. And IdeaMason allows the writer to keep research note and your own written use of it side by side, a very helpful feature, I’ve discovered.
Maintaining a bibliography and managing reference citations: IdeaMason features a Sources module that has some features I’ve not found anywhere else. It easy tracks just where you can find each reference, and builds a list of references you still need to track down. Most importantly for my major current project — it’s based on lots of archival documents that do not fit comfortably into the leading, very expensive bibliographic programs — I can write up each reference in a free-form citation that is available for footnoting if I need to.
THE DISCOUNT: IdeaMason will be available at a 43 percent discount [$39.34, rather than $69.00] this Wednesday only at Bits du Jour. In fact, it was a previous discounted offering there that led me to finally give IdeaMason a try — and am I ever glad that I took advantage of that discount. By the way, you can download it immediately, which allows you to play around with it for a couple of days before “discount day.”
I do have one major complaint about the program: it offers a strict one person on one computer license. Writers cannot install the doadloaded file on both desktop and laptop. My current computer problems have illustrated just how problematic that is. I’ve been unable to have working copies of my current project on both of my computers, a situation which is seriously jeopardizing my June 10 deadlines. The obvious solution: download and pay for two discounted copies. I’ll be downloading a second copy this Wednesday for installation on my desktop, essential insurance in my current circumstances.
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Comment by
Dustin
19 May 2008
I downloaded the demo of IdeaMason for a project I was working on earlier this year, an academic paper to be rpesented at a conference. Since I had only 30 days to complete the paper, I figured it would fit perfectly into IdeaMason’s 30-day trial period, and starting from scratch would help me work through IdeaMason’s steep learning curve.
I have to admit, I didn’t get it. I could create references and attach notes to them, but I never figured out how to make that available to me as I was writing. I’m looking forward to seeing how you make the program work for you, because it strikes me as an incredibly powerful tool for academic writing (and other non-fiction, a field which most writing software doesn’t adapt to well). I’m not going to be buying it today, even with the discount, but I’ll consider buying it at full price if I can see how to get at the value in it!
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Welcome to the IdeaMason Weblog! » Review on “Becoming-a-Writer-Seriously.com”
27 May 2008
[...] recently got wind of a review posted about IdeaMason on “Becoming a Writer Seriously.com”. Tom Colvin, the author of this blog, states “IdeaMason is truly remarkable”. He gives a [...]
Comment by
Sue
3 Jul 2009
As someone who is a Doctorate student Idea Mason is very focused on academic writing and quite helpful for the scholar who needs to build their dissertation or manual. For example, I have been using this application for the past six months and it has given me a better appreciation of what post-graduate students experience when building these sort of documents. I was intimidated with it at first but once I started getting a better feel for how it worked I learned there were things I was able to do that I could not do with freeware or some of the commercial brands and that to me was priceless.
My time is very limited however this is an issue that I would like to keep open as I feel more persons need to be aware of it. I just discovered that Idea Mason is closing their doors due to economy which I think is sad to hear. No one wants to close a business they have worked so hard to build and maintain. I do have to wonder if there is a way the company can be kept open as they are bringing a great thing to education and the academic world. That's just my thought. Thanks so much for discussing this issue as I feel it is important for everyone to know how great this application does work.