I have written posts for Medium for a few months now. It is clear that some of my most popular posts concern note-taking and personal knowledge management. I have a history with the topic of note-taking having conducted research with college students based in my more general background in the cognitive processing of learning. When I most it is often about evaluating specific digital note-taking practices or knowledge management concepts based on basic cognitive principles. What about how learning works justifies a specific practice the self-help authors advocating for smart/atomic notes or second brain recommends.
I asked Dall-E to help come up with an image depicting the type of learning I had in mind. My prompt asked for an image showing an adult using a computer and note-taking to learn a skill that was something they had not studied in school. I decided I needed something specific so I requested an image focused on learning to bake bread.
As I have explained in some of these posts, I think some claims made for digital note-taking lack empirical support in the context to which the self-help writers propose their tactics apply.
A couple of observations about the framework within which nearly all (maybe all) existing research was conceptualized. The research I am familiar with focuses on learning within a formal educational setting. Whether it be middle school or graduate students, note-taking is largely a practice to deal with information inputs that are determined by others with the goals for the learner being storing, understanding, and applying this information to examinations, projects, and papers assigned by others. The time frame with perhaps the exception of licensing exams or graduate preliminary examinations are weeks and at most a few weeks in length. Proposals such as Ahren’s Smart Notes or Forte’s Second Brain propose unique tactics and imagine the use of notes over an extended period. Implications of these differences do not seem to be tested or at least are not examined directly by existing research.
The vocabulary of multiple authors proposing new systems and tactics can be an issue by itself. I am trying to understand the difference between smart notes, atomic notes, and permanent notes. For example, Ahrens titles his book Smart Notes, but then describes fleeting notes, literature notes, and permanent notes. There is a process here – fleeting notes can become permanent notes through a personalization process similar to what Forte in this book about the second brain called progressive summarization. I threw in personalization because that is what I call the process of rephrasing and emphasizing based on what the learner knows (again similar to certain properties of progressive summarization). I think I should be able to apply labels if I think my label communicates meaning more clearly.
What am I looking for? I am searching for research literature that examines tactics used with these digital services as applied to learner-determined goals. Starting from a long-standing and nuanced literature defining cognitive benefits associated with note-taking, note-reviewing, highlighting, basic memory, and application what can be understood about self-directed learning? What basic descriptive data are available on the common use of the various features of the affordances of digital services? What types of notes do users actually create? Do users make use of tags and links when they attempt to use the notes they have created or do they simply search? Are notes reviewed periodically and new connections found as recommended by the self-help gurus?
I have tried the various tools scholars use to explore the literature (Research Rabbit, Elicit, Google Scholar, Litmaps, etc.) with no luck. All I need is one or two quality studies of the type I have in mind and finding related work should be easy. Before I give up completely and decide advances in this area will proceed by logic and salespersonship, I decided maybe I should just ask for help. Maybe the wisdom of the crowd really exists. If you think you can provide a lead please do so. I am not putting down those who just imagine strategies for learning they think are unique and creative, but at some point I want to see the data. Am I missing something or is there just nothing there? If there is nothing there, why is this the case?
References
Ahrens, S. (2022). _How to take smart notes: One simple technique to boost writing, learning and thinking_. Sönke Ahrens.
Forte, T. (2022). Building a second brain: A proven method to organize your digital life and unlock your creative potential. Atria Books.
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