I have spent considerable time in the past year reviewing the literature on personal note-taking and trying to identify what is substance and what is hype. My interest is based on personal experience as a 40-year academic attempting to track my reading of many books and journal articles recognizing that in my discipline anchoring arguments and methods to previous reports is essential in research and teaching, present initiatives that seem to be triggered by a couple of influential books (Ahrens and Forte), involvement with a reading group interested in knowledge management (Making History), and my largely unsuccessful search for research associated with PKM systems and applications.
I have a reasonable background for analyzing and commenting in this area. I can argue that I have deep knowledge of student note-taking which is certainly a reasonable background for expanding into related areas. I have read the literature on student note-taking for decades and have been actively involved in research and writing projects on related topics. While this background offers an understanding of the cognitive processes involved in successful note generation and note study processes, using this background to write about personal knowledge management (PKM) and the successful use of digital tools designed to implement PKM strategies has revealed limitations in generalizing from classroom note-taking to what I have come to describe as adult note-taking. All I mean by this distinction is that taking notes when not in the role of a student is different in some important ways.
My general summary of differences might be captured in the following statement based on the classic distinction used to identify and study the benefits of taking notes. Note-taking is typically described as having two stages – a recording stage and a study stage. Benefits are typically argued to result from generative activities and retrieval effectiveness. With lecture and content-related notes taken by students, the recording stage is mostly about getting as much down as possible (storage) in order to have an accurate and complete record available (retrieval) for processes to improve retention and understanding. Thinking is more of a generative process than is retention. Outside of formal educational settings, adults engage in note-taking with somewhat different goals. Within the model I have described, the generative component increases in value and is more involved in both the encoding and the review stages of note activity. I am not suggesting this suggestion is ideal, but I think it is accurate. Educators likely prefer that their students place greater emphasis on personal understanding which is what comes with greater generative processing, but only part of such underperformance can be blamed on students. I believe there is a maxim suggesting that “what is tested is what is learned”. Some additional thoughts may offer additional insights
I have identified unique distinctions between the knowledge base associated with student note use and some hypothetical knowledge base that would be ideal for my more present interests. What I mean by this is that properties associated with nonclassroom note-taking and note use lack a research base. There are certainly books and many YouTube or Substack proposals for strategies to improve knowledge-based productivity, but there is very little that evaluates these strategies – lots of hype, many products, and little data.
Understanding the basics of notetaking and note use is of some value, but distinctions that can be identified with present externalized personal knowledge management systems and some of the related goals for use point to some obvious voids in the research concerning the effectiveness of strategies of application. Here are some differences I believe are important. First, student notetaking must deal with the reality that what is to be known (or at least tested) is defined by someone else. Goals of the processes involved in taking notes must be subservient to this reality and this prioritizes certain unique goals. What are the priorities of the information presenter? What are my tasks as a learner following from my understanding of such goals?
One reality of student note-taking is that generating a useful record for later review depends on an imperfect understanding of what must be retained. In recognition of this challenge and understanding the limits of cognition especially in a real-time lecture setting, getting as much down on paper or screen as possible is a reasonable response. More thoughtful and time-demanding prioritization and even the determination of the accuracy of what was recorded may have to be put off until the study/review stage. Some students may recognize the need to take the subsequent step of comparing notes with others to fill in gaps or correct misunderstandings. Some may not realize that this remediation would be helpful or not bother with the extra effort required.
A second distinction concerns the time frame involved and the implications this time frame may have for initial processing. A student’s perceived time frame for priority payoffs (test scores, superior paper construction) tends to be relatively short. A student might vaguely understand that knowledge acquired from his or her high school or college classes is useful throughout life, but he or she is likely to be focused on the next graded activity. The artifacts created to facilitate study or project activities are typically discarded once a course has been completed. As an adult, my time perspective is more undefined and part of my motivation is to create a system of external storage intended to be valuable over a much longer time frame and that recognizes I will likely face limited recall of the context within which the stored information was acquired. As a consequence, the record I choose to create must include more of the context making delayed understanding requires.
There are likely many other significant differences, but my point here is simply to argue that the vast literature associated with student note-taking leaves significant gaps that would guide “adult” self-guided note-taking and note use. We seem to be at a stage in which the statement that phrase “more or at least some research is required” should be included in more commentary on PKM. I use this phrase as commonly included in research to indicate that researchers/authors understand what they have studied has important limitations when it comes to established validity.
Here is an example of a research question I would like answered. It relates to the strategy of taking Smart Notes a strategy proposed by Ahrens. I think of a smart note in my own way as writing earlier in the process of content creation. So, instead of reading, highlighting, and copying key ideas into a notebook and then waiting months or years before trying to make sense of the notebook entries, smart notes are written based on personal understanding to generate a note that contains enough context that it would stand alone as a representation of a useful idea after an extended period of time. It should be useful to self or to someone else with a reasonable background. Ahrens describes several types of notes including fleeting notes and smart notes. The difference in these two representations is the personalization of completeness of the idea represented as a smart note. A fleeting note might meet the demands of quick immediate storage and the smart note is more carefully constructed to be meaningful.
I think of fleeting notes as serving a similar purpose as highlighting – selection without personalization.
So, this idea seems reasonable and I can create such notes, store them within a knowledge management system such as Obsidian, tag and cross-link them, and review them periodically waiting for the day I might use the idea in something I write. Obsidian also automatically stores the highlights I have taken reading Kindle books or journal article pdfs (transferred to Obsidian using Readwise). Here is a question related to these two options – smart notes or highlights. Using search in Obsidian, I can locate either Smart Notes or highlights related to search terms I provide. The highlights are typically not interconnected, but I can use the links automatically stored with each highlight back to the place in the original document where I highlighted the original content. While smart notes sound useful are they really worth the extra time? Should I just spend my time searching for highlights that are related to what I want to write about and then quickly review the original documents should I need to refresh my understanding when a highlight seems to identify a useful idea I needed to refresh in my mind.
There are many similar questions I can generate related to the storage and thinking systems that have been proposed by PKM advocates. Do these strategies actually deliver improved content production?
Important research questions about any type of long-term benefits come with several challenges. Again, I cannot presently provide extensive analysis, but here are a couple of examples. The classic experimental/control group methodology is very difficult to implement. The development of second brain methods (external collections of notes implementing the various methods for tagging, linking, secondary reworking and other strategies) are developed and applied over years rather than weeks or months. Holding a research project together over such a period of time is difficult and costly. I have been unable to find such examples.
The time frame issue is compounded by the reality of technology. The pace of questions raised by ever-changing methods seems nearly incompatible with straightforward experimental/control methods. The tools and questions of interest change faster than the methods of answering these questions can provide results.
I keep looking for research I can use to shape my thinking and writing. My frustration was one of the motives for this post. I had hopes when I encountered a notice announcing a new book – Digital writing technologies in higher education. This was one of those resources including multiple authors who proposed individual chapters. In the editors’ forward, the expectations for each chapter are provided and each chapter is to include a section on the related research. There was not much there in the chapters I have read to this point, but the “more research is needed” statement appeared repeatedly. By the way, the book I mentioned allows the free download of chapters as pdfs and anyone interested in this general field should take a look.
More research is needed. I will summarize relevant studies when they appear.
Citations mentioned:
Ahrens, S. (2017). How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking–for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. Sönke Ahrens.
Forte, T. (2022). Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential. Simon and Schuster.
Kruse, O., Rapp, C., Anson, C. M., Benetos, K., Cotos, E., Devitt, A., & Shibani, A. (Eds.). (2023). Digital Writing Technologies in Higher Education: Theory, Research, and Practice. Springer Nature.
