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App$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.Literature & Latte

Scrivener

Long-form writing software that keeps research and draft side by side

Writing software built for long documents. Text splits into sections you can reorder, and a second pane holds the source you are citing next to the draft you are writing. Writers reach for it on books, magazine articles and academic work, where the structure keeps changing as the material grows.

Who backs it

Sorted by strength of stance

  • Computer science professor · author of Deep Work

    Switched to Scrivener when he became a New Yorker contributor, and every article he writes there goes through it. He picks out the double pane view, which lets him keep the piece he is citing open beside the draft. At the time he had not yet tried it on a book.

    Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #568 transcript

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App entry · notes paraphrased from cited sources, quoted excerpts copied from the transcript they link to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.