Creating a "Graduated" Reader in Logos3

I'm pleased to have Tim Bahula, a missionary in Trinidad & Tobago, as a guest blogger. He figured out a clever way to create a 'graduated' reader in Logos3. Thanks, Tim!

Following BibleTech:2008, I read (and watched) with some interest James Tauber's work on creating a "new kind of graded reader". It caught my attention because I'm teaching first-year Greek for the first time at the Baptist Seminary of the West Indies where I'm Principal. I decided to use the popular Mounce BBG method. But most of the students are struggling, mainly because they haven't applied themselves, but also because they haven't seen much of a pay off yet. I'm looking for ways to increase that pay off.

When I saw Mark's post about "Creating a 'Graded' Reader in BibleWorks7 (and Logos?)",

I have been searching, but I can't figure out to create a similar sort of highlighted text in Logos. Perhaps one of the Logos experts can show the way...

I knew I needed to try my hand at it. I have heard of the wonders of BW7 from some of my friends and watched as Mark whipped that 'Graded' Reader together. But I am a Logos user, have been for nearly 10 years, and don't own BW7. So I need a made-in-Logos3 solution. I don't consider myself an expert, but have learned some things over the 10 years through experimentation and reading the Logos newsgroups.

I ran into some problems along the way. The process isn't for the easily deterred. It involves a lot of processor time and editing HTML. But the result is similar to what Mark achieved.

These are the basic steps:

1. Create and export a Vocabulary List.
2. Edit the HTML file to remove word frequency and gloss data.
3. Paste the edited Vocabulary List into a Word List.
4. Create and execute a Graphical Query on the GNT using the Word list as search criteria.

Here is a set of videos illustrating the process using 1 John for demonstration purposes:

1. Vocab list creation (2:33, 2.7MB)
2. Vocab list conversion (1:39, 2.3MB)
3. Word list creation (1:46, 1.6MB)
4. Graphical query (2:38, 2.3MB)
   

Unfortunately in Logos3 there is no way to save the search results or the markup. The search needs to be run again each time.

The process really is kludgy, but it achieves the desired result. If you decide to do this with the entire NT, you will encounter an IE "script warning". Be sure to click "No", as in "don't stop the script!" Clicking "Yes" will lead to undesired results. Clicking nothing will leave the script doing nothing.

Once created the word lists can be used for other interesting purposes. If Mark invites me back, I may explore these in future posts. In the mean time, I've posted the Vocabulary List, Word List and Graphical Query files to my site. If you use them to do something interesting, please let me know. To use them, download and save in the respective "My Documents\Libronix DLS" folders (creating them where necessary... using no spaces).

Using Firefox, right-click and select "Save Link As..."; using IE, right-click and select "Save Target As...":

• \VocabularyLists\NA27VocabLessThan50.lbxvl (876KB)
  
• \WordLists\NA27VocabLessThan50.lbxwdl (163KB)
  
• \GraphicalQueries\NA27VocabLessThan50.lbxqyg (275KB) (link fixed)
  

Thanks, Mark, for the opportunity to share this on your blog. I've been lurking for a long time. It's nice to be able to contribute.