I’ve recently created some functions in emacs to make exporting notes, slides, and handouts somewhat easier. I do all this using org-mode. I figure there are at least a few other people who might find this workflow of interest so I though I would document it here (it will also serve as a document of how all this works in case I forget in the future). I want to be able to turn something like the following: ...
I find it generally preferable to keep information I use for teaching in a format that allows for different styles of presentation. I’ve written before about how one might keep a CV in a yaml document that outputs to a variety of different possible formats using pandoc. I also use a similar system for syllabi. The basic idea is to keep your syllabus in a yaml file and export it to html, pdf, or rtf using a makefile. The nice thing about this is that you can, e.g., hand out a nicely formatted PDF (or printout) of your syllabus at the beginning of the semester, and then keep a continually updated version on your course website as HTML, all without having to have multiple documents that you’re editing. You can find the basic template on Github and an example from my PHIL 101 class, also on Github. ...
Academic writing typically requires writing something in drafts. Many drafts. Until recently there have been few ways of elegantly handling this. Often, one would need to title the current draft with the day’s date, then save this draft in a folder (named, e.g., “drafts” or “versions”), and do this every time one sits down to write. This works, in some ways. The data is there. The problem is that you quickly end up with a folder (or desktop’s) worth of files. These filenames have typically ridiculous and increasingly obscure titles (e.g. final-draft-final-revision\final-draft-04-2018.docx). And it is seldom clear, using this method, exactly what one did when, without actually opening a particular file and looking, or trying to remember when (and where) it was that one made the relevant change. ...