I have tried many methods for taking notes over the years. I probably started like many academics by reading scholarly journal articles in the journals I received through subscriptions, highlighting the articles as I read, and then maybe taking a few notes on a 3×5 card that I kept in a “recipe box” under one topic heading or another. With the arrival of technology, my approach shifted to storing a version of the note cards in one system or another and shifting from reading journal articles in journals to reading journal articles I could download from my library site as pdfs. When the Internet offered more content directly I added some bookmarking application to my approach to save the links to websites I wanted to remember.
The big idea I gleaned from reading Ahren’s (2017) book (see previous post) was that it is important to record notes in my own words as I read. Too often, I highlight while I read and then lost the context that is important in capturing big ideas. Any writing task required that I recapture the ideas by starting from the original source before integrating ideas in what was to become the final product. What Ahrens recommends might be described as starting a writing process earlier in the transition from primary sources to the final product. He described first generating fleeting or literature notes while reading and then permanent notes once the reading of a source was completed. As I rethink my “note-taking” over the years, I have decided I typically failed to make the transition from literature notes to permanent notes. Worse yet, too often my reading of a source only resulted in highlighting of the ideas that were not my own.
What Ahrens describes as a permanent note is clearly a form of writing. The idea is to create a personal summary or interpretation of a key idea that can stand alone and store such summaries in a certain way. What I mean by stand alone is that the permanent notes are not necessarily intended to end up becoming part of a final product that one already has in mind. The concept of smart notes (the title of his book) was that the ideas would be formulated and captured immediately and stored in such a way that they could be easily found and then organized with other such ideas to more efficiently create final products. I would describe this as moving part of the writing process earlier in the reading to written product workflow.
Knowledge transforming and knowledge telling
Ahrens argues that creating permanent notes as you encounter ideas you think are interesting is more than a precursor to writing. He suggests that this notion of generating a written note that reflects personal understanding and relating this note to other notes is a way to facilitate the learning process. You end up with both external and internal storage. I would suggest that cognitive psychologists call this form of writing a generative process. The permanent note versus the “literature” note reminds me of the distinction some scholars studying writing make between knowledge telling and knowledge transforming. The distinction may be relevant to what makes a good smart note. Knowledge telling is the output of part of what was the input. Your write a close approximation to what was heard or read. Highlighting would be a crude form of knowledge telling. Knowledge transforming involves interpretation on the part of the content producer. I liked to explain the difference to educators by asking them to reflect on student answers to essay questions they have asked. Some students write everything they remember about a topic whether or not it specifically answers the question. It is like they want to argue that the answer must be in there somewhere. Knowledge transforming starts with what the question asks and crafts a response that shapes what the respondent knows to address the challenge posed by the question. Knowledge transforming is a far better indication of understanding.
Luhman’s Zettelkasten
Ahren’s book and ideas are not his original creation, but based on the method of Niklas Luhman referred to as the Zettelkasten. I see various references to Luhman’s ideas lately and predict this will become “a thing” in education. As I understand the translation, a Zettelkasten is a box in which notes are stored and organized. Lehman called this a slip box. It is the form these notes take and how they are related to other notes in the box that is the key to what is described as a more productive workflow. I have included a video of Lehman working in his office using his slip box and a reference to a source describing the Zettelkasten for Beginners at the end of this post.
Where is this all going?
If you read my original post, you can anticipate that I will originally explain efforts to translate this method and the physical slip box into a workflow and applications that run on a computer. I will identify some of the tools/services I have used and some I have recently discovered that are suggested as ways to implement the Smart Note and Zettelkasten approach to writing and learning.
Sources
Ahrens, S. (2017). _How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking–for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers.
Niklas Luhman and the Zettelkasten – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRSCKSPMuDc&t=2246s
Zettelkasten for beginners – https://norberthires.blog/zettelkasten-method/
Knowledge telling and knowledge transforming – Bereiter.C. & Scardaamalia, M. (1987). Two models of composing processes (pp. 1-30). In C. Bereiter & M. Scardamalia (Eds) The psychology of written Composition. Erbalaum.
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