|
Scholar's Aid was first created in 1996 by a seminarian
who wanted to organize his bibliography and found that existing bibliographical
software was expensive and did not meet his needs. He was a computer programmer
with twenty years experience, and he therefore decided to develop superior
(and cheaper) software to meet both his own needs and the needs of the
hundreds of thousands of other students and scholars who had similar needs.
Scholar's Aid keeps bibliographical data and notes
together, for the very good reason that scholars always need to keep
their notes linked to the sources from which those notes were made. Indeed,
in academic writing, scholars constantly support their argument by reference
to the sources on which they have worked. Thus, in directly quoting from
one of these sources, or in making reference to another’s ideas, rigorous
academic scholarship demands accurate and detailed citation of those original
sources.
Scholar's Aid automates this process in a manner
that is entirely without precedent. Provided the original notes were written
in the Notes module of Scholar's Aid, by selecting text and clicking the
transfer button, the program transfers the selected text into the word-processed
document and, at exactly the same time, inserts an appropriate citation
into the document in a form (footnote, short footnote, endnote, short endnote
and parenthetical reference) determined by the user. The program even includes
the correct page number in the citation that it creates within the word-processed
document. Scholar's Aid surely is the Reference Processor™.
|
|
Design and Development Philosophy |
Scholar's Aid must be easy to use
To achieve this goal we had to make the user interface
as simple as possible, not least by eliminating unnecessary clicks and
steps. But a simple interface is not the sign of a simple program. On the
contrary, underneath this simple exterior several hundred thousands of
lines of code are running to generate the complex and accurate routines
which are at the heart of the way in which Scholar's Aid operates.
Scholar's Aid must be flexible
Everyone is different and everyone’s field of study is
different and therefore Scholar's Aid has to be enormously flexible if
it is to be able to meet these very diverse needs. To achieve this goal,
very many aspects of the program can be customized to meet individual needs.
Scholar's Aid must keep data safely
Data is extremely valuable and it is therefore imperative
that it must not be lost. Scholar's Aid provides a backup function that
is both quick and easy to use. In fact, all you have to do is select the
appropriate menu, give the backup file a name and Scholar's Aid then backs
up all the critical data in a file that is compressed to save space.
Scholar's Aid must be convenient
To meet this requirement, Scholar's Aid provides many
convenient features including
QueryDepository(You never have to re-enter the same query
in the "Search" box), InputAid, and FileTab(Click a tab opens the file).
Scholar's Aid must be powerful
See the technical information. |
