A tagging system for multiple items within the same document.

January 26, 2011 8:10 AM

I'm looking for a simple program that will allow me to tag multiple discrete text items -- specifically, citations of items that appear in the news -- that exist in the same document.

I monitor news clips for my organization. Have a gander at the (ugly, sub-optimal) format right here: http://www.ncjustice.org/?q=node/53

We monitor media coverage and I like to keep track of what type of coverage we get by geography, by subject area, by author, by person quoted, etc.

It seems to me a tagging system would be idea for this, since I don't want to get into powerful database software -- although I guess I would, if that's the best option.

My ideal would be a note-taking or word-processing software where I could select discrete elements of text and tag only that element, not the file. For example, one newspaper article could be tagged with different tags than a different article existing in the same file.

I had hoped Evernote could do this, since that's the kind of simple and elegant software I'm thinking of. But it seems like I can only tag "notes," not the information within the note.

Anyone have a suggestion for how to do this?

posted by jeffmshaw to computers & internet (3 answers total)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E_zMLCRNg
posted by jeffmshaw at 2:24 PM on January 26, 2011

Ok, I'll try... I want something like this, too.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/web-annotation-tools-research-annotate-collaborate/

Check out some of the stuff here. You can make notes and then tag and search the notes. These all seem to be for the web, but maybe you can jury-rig something for locally stored webpages.

Also, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiqqa

I feel like there are reference managers that have got to do this. Also see:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/how-do-you-organizeannotate-pdfs/23839

I feel like I have a sense of exactly what you want, and I don't see it. But maybe something in there will get you to where you want to be.
posted by zeek321 at 5:46 PM on January 26, 2011

http://ask.metafilter.com/176787/Help-me-organize-my-chunks#2544292
posted by zeek321 at 6:55 PM on January 26, 2011