Cure for the Right Brain - the Z-Word

So, if you're a regular reader here (an admittedly valiant few), you have intuited by now that I am the victim of a two-pronged conundrum. The right-side prong is that I cannot yet get away again to the sanity of far border places. The left-hand prong is my vow of disciplined contribution here. One result is I see borders to 'walk' almost everywhere. The other result is that 'walk' has those single quote marks around it.

My latest 'walk' has to do with the border between the hemispheres of my brain. The model of distinct left brain and right brain attributes works in my stimulus reaction. As a wee lad people around me noticed I had two distinct gears: one very linear, the other very abstract. They also mostly said I was in neutral anyway so any progress made was invisible in the short term. Many would also argue that 60 years hasn't shortened the gap either. I say different, but then only to people with a good gap of their own.

The actual working of math problems for me is a very linear, teeth-gritted process. The understanding of math dancing however, is a gap-mouthed, slobbering enlightenment somewhere behind my eyeballs. The writing process brings the two sides much closer together. Some kinds of writing can be absentee -- you can sit in your chair and watch your fingers going on the keyboard. Not always, but sometimes. It's a guilty pleasure that feels like cheating. Where the hell is this coming from, you wonder. You may have run across something you wrote years ago and said to yourself, wow, did I write that? And sometimes you say it because you're surprised it's so good. Other times because the stink is rolling off it in waves so large you wonder that people in the same room aren't knocked over and suffocated.

The actual working of research and writing it is horribly linear and hard on tooth enamel, like math problems. Neither does it bring the analytic left closer to the abstract right of my brain processes, as do other types of writing. I was tutored in research by such greats as Mrs. Wheeler and Mr. Waterson, scourges of the upper elementary grades whose students left their classes with 3 x 5 index cards protruding from every possible bodily orifice. Summaries only. Lifting material directly onto index cards was punishable by being killed twice. Use of encyclopedia articles was controlled by a requirement that half of those used must refer both to the article's author and background authority to write such an article. A sensible and short topic paragraph. Logical progression of the argument. Citations clothed with explanations of your own making. A badly done research paper was a suicide bomb. Hard days. Hard days.

Now, having been reincarnated as a grad student, the days are much better. Oh wait. Grad students do research papers. Crap! For a while there I was saved by software. First Reference Manager, then ProCite cataloged my reading and allowed me to tie electronic strings between sources and notes. But Vista and Word 2007 killed that. My research world was once again being blown apart and my right brain permanently fenced out by my left - anal retentive, plodding, tentative side that it is. Software no worky. Krikey!

ProCite was never too good, maybe even as good, as 3 x 5 cards in note-taking and connecting notes to sources. But at least the "CWYW" feature (which I always accurately misunderstood to mean see what you write, rather than cite what you write) worked through Windows XP and Word 2003. But since Vista? Poof!

The cure - the hedline teaser - for this mental urban rubble comes courtesy of a bunch of do-gooders at George Mason University in the Center for History and New Media. It is a Mozilla Firefox FREE plug-in, Zotero. It is ohmygod stuff. That link you just passed takes you to a video explaining Zotero's capabilities. As I write this there is a friendly little link down in the right-hand corner of this screen, zotero. And it will free the right side of my brain.

Will it make my research papers better? Hmmm... I'd settle for harder to detonate.