- May 2022
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The biggest mistake—and one I’ve made myself—is linking with categories. In other words, it’s adding links like we would with tags. When we link this way we’re more focused on grouping rather than connecting. As a result, we have notes that contain many connections with little to no relevance. Additionally, we add clutter to our links which makes it difficult to find useful links when adding links. That being said, there are times when we might want to group some things. In these cases, use tags or folders.
Most people born since the advent of the filing cabinet and the computer have spent a lifetime using a hierarchical folder-based mental model for their knowledge. For greater value and efficiency one needs to get away from this model and move toward linking individual ideas together in ways that they can more easily be re-used.
To accomplish this many people use an index-based method that uses topical or subject headings which can be useful. However after even a few years of utilizing a generic tag (science for example) it may become overwhelmed and generally useless in a broad search. Even switching to narrower sub-headings (physics, biology, chemistry) may show the same effect. As a result one will increasingly need to spend time and effort to maintain and work at this sort of taxonomical system.
The better option is to directly link related ideas to each other. Each atomic idea will have a much more limited set of links to other ideas which will create a much more valuable set of interlinks for later use. Limiting your links at this level will be incredibly more useful over time.
One of the biggest benefits of the physical system used by Niklas Luhmann was that each card was required to be placed next to at least one card in a branching tree of knowledge (or a whole new branch had to be created.) Though he often noted links to other atomic ideas there was at least a minimum link of one on every idea in the system.
For those who have difficulty deciding where to place a new idea within their system, it can certainly be helpful to add a few broad keywords of the type one might put into an index. This may help you in linking your individual ideas as you can do a search of one or more of your keywords to narrow down the existing ones within your collection. This may help you link your new idea to one or more of those already in your system. This method may be even more useful and helpful for those who are starting out and have fewer than 500-1000 notes in their system and have even less to link their new atomic ideas to.
For those who have graphical systems, it may be helpful to look for one or two individual "tags" in a graph structure to visually see the number of first degree notes that link to them as a means of creating links between atomic ideas.
To have a better idea of a hierarchy of value within these ideas, it may help to have some names and delineate this hierarchy of potential links. Perhaps we might borrow some well ideas from library and information science to guide us? There's a system in library science that uses a hierarchical set up using the phrases: "broader terms", "narrower terms", "related terms", and "used for" (think alias or also known as) for cataloging books and related materials.
We might try using tags or index-like links in each of these levels to become more specific, but let's append "connected atomic ideas" to the bottom of the list.
Here's an example:
- broader terms (BT): [[physics]]
- narrower terms (NT): [[mechanics]], [[dynamics]]
- related terms (RT): [[acceleration]], [[velocity]]
- used for (UF) or aliases:
- connected atomic ideas: [[force = mass * acceleration]], [[$$v^2=v_0^2+2aΔx$$]]
Chances are that within a particular text, one's notes may connect and interrelate to each other quite easily, but it's important to also link those ideas to other ideas that are already in your pre-existing body of knowledge.
See also: Thesaurus for Graphic Materials I: Subject Terms (TGM I) https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/tgm1/ic.html
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- Apr 2022
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Amie Fairs, who studies language at Aix-Marseille University in France, is a self-proclaimed Open Knowledge Maps enthusiast. “One particularly nice thing about Open Knowledge Maps is that you can search very broad topics, like ‘language production’, and it can group papers into themes you may not have considered,” Fairs says. For example, when she searched for ‘phonological brain regions’ — the areas of the brain that process sound and meaning — Open Knowledge Maps suggested a subfield of research about age-related differences in processing. “I hadn’t considered looking in the ageing literature for information about this before, but now I will,” she says.
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Another visual-mapping tool is Open Knowledge Maps, a service offered by a Vienna-based not-for-profit organization of the same name. It was founded in 2015 by Peter Kraker, a former scholarly-communication researcher at Graz University of Technology in Austria.
https://openknowledgemaps.org/
Open Knowledge maps is a visual literature search tool that is based on keywords rather than on a paper's title, author, or DOI. The service was founded in 2015 by Peter Kraker, a former scholarly communication researcher at Graz University of Technology.
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Although humanists like Guarino da Verona(1370–1460), Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536), and Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540)explained the principles of the commonplace book that collected phrases worthyof imitation under topical headings, they did not offer detailed practical advice
in print.33
- Moss (1996), 54–55. For Guarino’s methods, see the treatise by his son Battista in Guarino (2002); Erasmus discusses commonplacing in De copia and De ratione studii (Basel, 1512), in Erasmus (1978), 605–6, 636–38, 672; Vives does so in De tradendis disciplinis (1531), in Vives (1971), 108, 133
Double check what Erasmus has to say as it would seem that Earle Havens contradicts this in Commonplace Books (Yale University Press, 2001). Perhaps its a difference of degree? I seem to recall that he indicated that Erasmus helped to popularize commonplacing practice.
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But modern note-taking is more idiosyncratic to each note-taker and no longer follows a set of subject headings that pedagogical practicesand printed reference works helped to standardize.
Early modern reference works, handbooks, and pedagogical practices created a sort of standardized set of subject headings amongst note takers.
A similar sort of effort could have been seen in the blogosphere of the early 2000s in which Technorati and their search functionality may have helped to standardize some of these same sorts of taxonomic issues within their product which was widely used at the time.
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In the 1740s, Thomas Harrison invented a wooden filing cabinet in which the file cards could be hooked on little tin plates. On each of these plates was written the name of the entry (i.e., the re-spective subject heading), and the plates were arranged in strictly alphabeti-cal order.22
Thomas Harrison, a TK, invented a wooden filing cabinet in the 1740's for storing slips of paper. Each slip could be hooked onto tin plates which contained the topical or subject headings that were arranged in alphabetical order.
Harrison's description was anonymously published with corrections and improvements by Vincent Placcius in De arte excerpendi. Vom gelehrten Buchhalten liber singularis (Stockholm/Hamburg, 1689), 124–59, in his hand-book on excerpting systems.
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- Mar 2022
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Local file Local file
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Topic A topic was once a spot not a subjecttopic. to ̆p’ı ̆k. n. 1. The subject of a speech, essay, thesis, or discourse. 2. A subject of discussion or con-versation. 3. A subdivision of a theme, thesis, or outline.*With no teleprompter, index cards, or even sheets of paper at their disposal, ancient Greek and Roman orators often had to rely on their memories for holding a great deal of information. Given the limi-tations of memory, the points they chose to make had to be clustered in some meaningful way. A popular and quite reliable method for remembering information was known as loci (see Chapter 9), where loci was Latin for “place.” It involved picking a house you knew well, imagining it in your mind’s eye, and then associating the facts you wanted to recall with specifi c places inside of that house. Using this method, a skillful orator could mentally fi ll up numerous houses with the ideas he needed to recall and then simply “visit” them whenever he spoke about a particular subject. The clusters of informa-tion that speakers used routinely came to be known as commonplaces, loci communes in Latin and koinos topos in Greek. The great Greek philosopher Aristotle referred to them simply as topos, meaning “places.” And that’s how we came to use topic to refer to subject or grouping of information.**
Even in the western tradition, the earliest methods of mnemonics tied ideas to locations, from whence we get the ideas of loci communes (in Latin) and thence commonplaces and commonplace books. The idea of loci communes was koinos topos in Greek from whence we have derived the word 'topic'.
Was this a carryover from other local oral traditions or a new innovation? Given the prevalence of very similar Indigenous methods around the world, it was assuredly not an innovation. Perhaps it was a rediscovery after the loss of some of these traditions locally in societies that were less reliant on orality and moving towards more reliance on literacy for their memories.
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- Feb 2022
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reallifemag.com reallifemag.com
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A zettelkasten is an accumulation of notes in which each successive note is given a number, rather than being placed in a category or topic.
An example here of a misconception. The zettle may be given a number, but it is also given a topic tied into an index. Because it isn't put into a "folder" or "hierarchy" isn't the same thing as not giving it a topic.
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Local file Local file
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Make permanent notes.
The important part of permanent notes are generating your own ideas and connecting (linking them densely) into your note system. The linking part is important and can be the part that most using digital systems forget to do. In paper zettelkasten, one was forced to create the first link by placing the note into the system for the first time. This can specifically be seen in Niklas Luhmann's example where a note became a new area of its own or, far more likely, it was linked to prior ideas.
By linking the idea to others within the system, it becomes more likely that the idea can have additional multiple contexts where it might be used and improve the fact that context shifts will prove more insight in the future.
Additional links to subject headings, tags, categories, or other forms of taxonomy will also help to make sure the note isn't lost completely into the system. Links to the bibliographical references within the system are helpful as well, especially for later citation. Keep in mind that these categories and reference links aren't nearly as valuable as the other primary idea links.
One can surely collect ideas and facts into their system, but these aren't as important or as interesting as one's own ideas and the things that are sparked and generated by them.
Asking questions in permanent notes can be valuable as they can become the context for new research, projects, and writing. Open questions can be incredibly valuable for one's thinking and explorations.
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- Jan 2022
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Drexel recommended pondering the choices of the correct subject-term (caput rei), because it is hard to foresee in the ‘present’ which ‘past’ one might search for in the ‘future’.
Drexel, Aurifodina, 135
The question of the correct taxonomies isn't an easy one and certainly isn't new.
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Placcius recommended considering the first, the second, and the third letters in the words listed in the subject index in order to avoid spending too much time in searching for an entry;
Placcius, De arte excerpendi, 84–5;
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takingnotenow.blogspot.com takingnotenow.blogspot.com
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But this is not the main reason. The other three programs try to achieve the connection or linking between different topics or cards (mainly) by assigning keywords. But this is not what Luhmann's approach recommended. While he did have a register of keywords, this was certainly not the most important way of interconnecting his slips. He linked them by direct references (Verweisungen). Any slip could refer directly to the physical and unchanging location of any other slip.
Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten had three different forms of links.
- The traditional keyword index/link from the commonplace book tradition
- A parent/child link upon first placing the idea into the system (except when starting a new top level parent)
- A direct link (Verweisungen) to one or more ideas already in the index card catalog.
Many note taking systems are relying on the older commonplace book taxonomies and neglect or forego both of the other two sorts of links. While the second can be safely subsumed as a custom, one-time version of the third, the third version is the sort of link which helps to create a lot of direct value within a note taking system as the generic links between broader topic heading names can be washed out over time as the system grows.
Was this last link type included in Konrad Gessner's version? If not, at what point in time did this more specific direct link evolve?
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- Dec 2021
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luhmann.surge.sh luhmann.surge.sh
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Usually it is more fruitful to look for formulations of problems that relate heterogeneous things with each other.
A great quote, but this is likely a nebulous statement to those with out the experience of practice. Definitely worth expanding on this idea to give it more detail.
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Considering the absence of a systematic order, we must regulate the process of rediscovery of notes, for we cannot rely on our memory of numbers. (The alternation of numbers and alphabetic characters in numbering the slips helps memory and is an optical aid when we search for them, but it is insufficient. Therefore we need a register of keywords that we constantly update.
Luhmann indicated that one must keep a register of keywords to assist in the rediscovery of notes. This had been the standard within the commonplacing tradition for centuries before him. The potential subtle difference is that he seems to place more value on the placement links between cards as well as other specific links between cards over these subject headings.
Is it possible to tell from his system which sets of links were more valuable to him? Were there more of these topical heading links than other non-topical heading links between individual cards?
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Through an inner structure of recursive links and semantic pointers, a card index achieves a proper autonomy; it behaves as a ‘communication partner’ who can recommend unexpected associations among different ideas. I suggest that in this respect pre-adaptive advances took root in early modern Europe, and that this basic requisite for information pro-cessing machines was formulated largely by the keyword ‘order’.
aliases for "topical headings": headwords keywords tags categories
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- Nov 2021
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docdrop.org docdrop.org
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trancis pacon outlined the two principal methods ofnote taking in a letter of advice to tulke urevilleW who was seeking to hireone or more research assistants in qambridge around ]cggh “ve that shallout of his own ”eading gather [notes] for the use of anotherW must Sas wthinkT do it by spitomeW or obridgmentW or under veads and qommonfllacesY spitomes may also be of ‘ sortsh of any one ortW or part of ynowledgeout of many pooksi or of one pook by itselfY”
Quoted in Vernon F Snow “Ftrancis Bacon's Advice to Fulke Greville on Research Techniques," Huntington Library Quarterly 23, no.4 (1960): 370.
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- Oct 2021
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yishunlai.medium.com yishunlai.medium.com
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Holiday’s is project-based, or bucket-based.
Ryan Holiday's system is a more traditional commonplace book approach with broad headings which can feel project-based or bucket-based and thus not as flexible or useful to some users.
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- Aug 2021
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Local file Local file
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Although it is difficult at present to know the precise impact of such filing systems, it is clear thatLinnaeus’s design mirrored the ways in which he arranged heads in his notes and books. The inte-rior space of his cabinet was divided into two open-faced columns, which meant that it was a phys-ical instantiation of a bilateral table.
The design of Carl Linnaeus' specimen cabinets mirrored that of the bilateral tables and the ways he arranged his heads in his notes and books.
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Like the spatial hierarchies presented in the Philosophia botanica, he wanted asimple form of linear order that allowed him to access his sheets quickly. Such a desire led himto reject the spatial divisions featured in many contemporary curiosity and medical cabinets, thatis, closed drawers that were stacked in multiple columns. This rejection was probably linked tothe fact that he had already seen a better way forward in the form of filing systems that werephysical instantiations of commonplace divisions used so often in books.
Linnaeus used the logic of topical headings in commonplace books as an intellectual framework for designing a better filing system for his physical plant specimens. This was in marked contrast to the sorts of contemporary curiosity and medical cabinets that others were using at the time.
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In contrast to the sheets used by other contemporary natural-ists, he refrained from binding his into a proper book and this allowed him to stack them in abespoke cabinet (arca) in a manner that allowed him to insert, remove and reorder them as he sawfit (Figure 9).64 It was for this reason that the Philosophia botanica gave explicit instructions onhow to build the cabinet and how to organize the specimen sheets within it. He recommended thatthe internal space be split into two columns with shelves that were collectively divided intotwenty-four sections, each of which was assigned a numerical head that represented a class withinhis system.65Each class section was filled with select specimen sheets divided by bands intogenera. In his words: If the folding doors are marked with the numbers and names of the genera, with the space on the shelvescorresponding exactly, and linden bands are kept between the spaces, enclosing the same genera andthemselves marked with the number of the genera, then any plant can be pulled out and produced with-out delay.66
Note here the idea of being able to file things away, reorder them, and find them quickly. Search was a likely motivator.
He's essentially created an early form of zettelkasten, but for plants.
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Ong maintains that this type of spatialization of aphorisms into heads started in the Renaissance. See Ong, Ramus, 315
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Since he was writing in Latin, he could arrange the narra-tive of each aphorism so that it began with a head that cued the reader to the content of the subse-quent narrative.
Oh the times I wish this were easier to do in English without the gymnastics.
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In other words, the chapter titles of the Fundamenta botanicawere effectively titularheads which were transferable from one book to another and which served as labels for textualunits that could be moved through the space of the page in a manner that split books into chap-ters and chapters into books.
In much the way one might move around portions of ideas under heads in a commonplace book, Carl Linnaeus was moving around bigger ideas/chapters within books and moving from one book to another.
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when he laid out the early form of his classification method in a pamphletentitled Methodus(1736), he used heads to order the text.16
Carl Linnaeus' classification method in Systema Naturae, his famous nomenclature system, was informed by the traditional topical headings of commonplace books.
[16] The content of Methodus and the nature of the heads is addressed in S. Müller-Wille, ‘Introduction’, in C.Linnaeus, Musa Cliffortiana: Clifford’s Banana Plant, translated by S. Freer (Liechtenstein: A.R.G. Gantner VerlagK.G., 2007), 33
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- Sep 2020
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www.reddit.com www.reddit.com
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r/BehSciResearch—Inertia in academic priorities. (n.d.). Reddit. Retrieved June 16, 2020, from https://www.reddit.com/r/BehSciResearch/comments/h9cilq/inertia_in_academic_priorities/
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- May 2020
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Hope, T., Borchardt, J., Portenoy, J., Vasan, K., & West, J. (2020, May 6). Exploring the COVID-19 network of scientific research with SciSight. Medium. https://medium.com/ai2-blog/exploring-the-covid-19-network-of-scientific-research-with-scisight-f75373320a8c
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- Feb 2019
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static1.squarespace.com static1.squarespace.com
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If one's content is logical, it will be easy to remember.
In this sense, can "logic" be at all subjective? By subjective I mean can the definition of logical different between individuals when organizing information? For example, I think it would be logical to organize my information chronologically, while someone else may think it is most logical to utilize a topical organizational pattern.
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