Book Research and Citation Tracker
Two documents and three sheets that flag every extract's clearance category the moment you log it, not the week you submit.
Free download · No account needed
Permission Register
[Working title], by [Author]
What every logged extract carries
| Material type and placement | — |
| Word count and share of its source | — |
| Clearance category | — |
| Rights holder and request status | — |
The five categories
| Fair use candidate | — |
| Permission required | — |
| Release required | — |
| Public domain | — |
| Undetermined | — |
The number this register exists to produce
Not a note that says where a quote came from. The share of everything logged that still needs a request or a signed release before the manuscript can go to typesetting, counted the moment each item is captured.
What routes around the math
An epigraph, a photograph, a song lyric quoted as a block, and a named interview subject's own words, each routed on what they are rather than checked against a word count.
A citation manager answers where a quote came from. It does not answer whether you may reprint it, and that second question runs on its own clock. The University of Chicago Press tells its authors plainly that no editing or production work begins on a manuscript until every required license has been supplied. Even one image still waiting on permission, out of three hundred, delays the whole book. This pack flags the clearance category the moment an extract is logged, not the week the manuscript ships.
On the worked manuscript, The Last Bell, Teodora Vance-Achterberg's history of one-room schools, the Permission Register logs 40 borrowed items across six chapters. 19 prose quotes, 6 chapter epigraphs, 8 named interview subjects, 5 archival photographs, and 2 song-lyric passages. Running each one against the test its own material type actually faces, rather than a single flat rule, clears 16 with no action needed. The other 24, 60% of everything logged, need an active clearance step, a request or a signed release, before the book can go to typesetting.
A word count alone only ever tests a prose passage against its own source. A permissions guide jointly published by Rowman & Littlefield and Lexington Books gives the three-part version. No more than 5% of a source over 5,000 words, no single passage over 300 consecutive words, and no more than 5% of your own manuscript. The same guide is just as specific that an epigraph, a photograph you did not take, and most song-lyric excerpts never reach that test at all. The material itself, not its length, rules each one out first.
What's in the pack
Source Bibliography
Generated from the Source Register in Chicago style, so the bibliography and the register can never quietly disagree.
Note-taking Standard
Marks verbatim capture from paraphrase at the moment you write the note, before memory blurs the difference.
Source Register
Every book, interview, and photograph with the total length a fair-use share actually gets measured against.
Quote and Extract Bank
Every borrowed passage with its exact word count and location, captured while the source is still open.
Permission Register
One row per logged extract with its clearance category, rights holder, and request status, not just a citation.
How it works
- 1
Open or download
Edit with AI installs the pack as a private Space and asks what kind of book this is and what you have gathered so far. Download gives you the blank files, no account.
- 2
Build the register
Every book, interview, and image logged with its own total length and rights holder, the same discipline a chapter outline applies to research assigned by chapter.
- 3
Flag each extract
Every quote, epigraph, image, and interview passage gets a clearance category the moment it is captured, routed by what it is before anyone checks how long it is.
- 4
Cross-check before typesetting
The Permission Register against what the finished manuscript actually quotes, so nothing reaches a submission pack still waiting on a request nobody sent.
Frequently asked questions
Is this free?
The download is free and needs no account: the real Source Register, Quote and Extract Bank, Permission Register, Note-taking Standard, and Source Bibliography, blank, as Word and CSV. Edit with AI creates a free account and starts logging your sources and extracts as you send them.
What format are the downloaded files?
Two Word documents and three CSV sheets, zipped. The documents open in Word, Pages, and Google Docs; the sheets open in Excel, Numbers, and Sheets. Nothing needs converting, and a PDF query string on the download swaps the documents to PDF if you want to circulate rather than fill in.
What does Edit with AI actually do?
It installs this pack as a private Space, then builds the Source Register and Quote and Extract Bank from what you send. Every extract gets a clearance category the moment it is logged, and the Permission Register tracks who holds the rights and what they said once you start asking.
Is fair use guaranteed if an extract clears the register?
No. The U.S. Copyright Office's own Fair Use Index is explicit that fair use is a fact-specific judgment under four statutory factors, not a formula. The Office itself cannot give legal advice on a specific case. This register applies the standard rule of thumb publishers describe, and flags plainly which items never had a fair-use question to begin with.
Does this structure my chapters or write my bibliography for a class paper?
No, and both are a different job. Assigning your research to chapters, and finding the ones with nothing behind them yet, is a structural outline. Rating sources against a set of research questions for a class paper is the job of an annotated bibliography template. This pack starts once you are gathering the sources a manuscript will actually quote.
My interview subject asked to stay anonymous. Does that change anything?
Yes. A named, living subject's own words need a signed release. A pseudonym removes that requirement entirely, though it does not change the copyright in anything you quote from elsewhere. Decide it in the interview itself and record it immediately, the same discipline a source register for journalists applies to attribution terms.
Do I need a book proposal or an outline before I start this?
Either order works, though most nonfiction authors have at least a rough chapter list before research gets this granular. A book proposal argues the market position; this pack tracks what you may actually quote once you are writing from that research. Neither replaces the other, and running both together is common once a book is under contract.
Find out how much of your research still needs clearance
Download the blank Source Register, Quote and Extract Bank, and Permission Register as Word and CSV, or have River flag every extract as you send it.
Edit with AI