notetaking – Learning Aloud

What does the role of revision in classroom note-taking research offer PKM advocates?

Most of what I write about PKM and Second Brain focuses on relating the vast body of high-quality research on academic note-taking to what many of us do outside the classroom as independent learners. The nonclassroom use of notes and related strategies for making and using notes has been termed Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) by those offering self-improvement advice. The PKM area is driven mainly by common sense. I cannot find focused research to inform this transition, but I have been investigating classroom note-taking and studying for decades and now focus on synthesizing findings from one area to support or evaluate strategies in the other.

The classroom research primarily focuses on the interrelated tasks of taking and reviewing notes, and, more recently, on handwritten versus keyboarded notes. With PKM, there is a greater emphasis on continually revisiting stored notes. This topic has not been emphasized in the research with classroom notes, but some studies do exist and it is this more minimal area I want to explore in this post. Again, the advantage is in the research evaluating efficacy and what cognitive processing is enabled or encouraged in modifying original notes in various ways.

I now primarily focus on note-taking on a digital device. While studies have focused on whether handwriting is superior for initial learning, approaches that encourage a deeper look at your notes reveal a powerful consensus that transcends the medium: there is unique value in notes that involve not just how notes are taken, but in how notes are revised.

This insight provides a critical link between academic research on learning and the practical strategies of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM). If your goal is to move beyond simply collecting information to actively building a knowledge base, you must embrace the often-overlooked middle stage of note-taking: revision and restructuring.

The Three-Stage Model: Beyond Capture and Review

Traditional study advice often reduces note-taking to two phases: recording during a lecture or reading and reviewing before an exam. However, classroom-oriented research by Luo et al. (2016) and Flanigan et al. (2023) suggests a more productive, three-stage process: recording, revision, and review. This intermediate revision stage is where the magic happens – where passive information capture transforms into active knowledge construction.

The research on this topic is compelling. A study by Cohen et al. (2013) demonstrated the causal role of a note-restructuring intervention in improving student learning. Students who were required to restructure and reorganize their notes, summarize the main point, and elaborate on a detail performed significantly better on exams. The researchers concluded that this process was essential for students to “make information one’s own, by processing it, restructuring it, and then presenting it in a form so that it can be understood by others (or by oneself at a later point).”

Sounds very similar to the pitch for PKM strategies. Revision isn’t just about neatness or completion; it’s about deepening understanding through elaboration, incorporating entirely missed ideas, and creating retrieval cues that activate deeper memory networks.

From Note-Taking to Note-Making

In the world of PKM, a distinction is often made between note-taking (the act of recording external information) and note-making (the act of processing that information into a new, personalized, and connected knowledge item). The revision stage is precisely where you transition from a passive note-taker to an active note-maker.

PKM methodologies, such as the Zettelkasten, emphasize that a permanent note should be able to stand alone, expressed in your own words, and contain enough context to be meaningful without referring back to the original source. This is a direct parallel to the restructuring intervention that required students to summarize the main point and elaborate on a detail.

When you revise a note in an academic setting, you are performing the cognitive work that drives learning: elaboration (connecting new ideas to what you already know), organization (clarifying underlying structure and identifying themes), and synthesis (cross-referencing the new idea with other sources). Without this deliberate revision, you risk falling into a common trap: mistaking familiarity for understanding. Most learners fail to organize their notes after class because they recognize the content and mistakenly assume they have mastered it. Active processing, often based on concepts such as generative processing, is the focus of much research.

The Longhand Advantage in Revision

The handwriting versus keyboard comparison recurs in studies of revision. Some, but not all, studies contradict my assumptions about the advantages of a digital approach. Flanigan et al. found that longhand note-takers added three times as many complete ideas to their notes during revision compared to computer note-takers, and twice as many partial ideas. These researchers argue that handwriting engages deeper cognitive processing during initial recording, making those notes more effective retrieval cues when revisited later.

However, the digital environment isn’t without its strengths. Research by Cojean and Grand (2024) found that students who take notes on a computer are more likely to reformat their notes during revision. The ease of manipulating text digitally encourages a strategy where transcription is prioritized during capture, and the deeper work of reformulation and organization is deferred until the revision stage.

In a modern PKM system, this deferred processing is not a weakness, but a feature. Digital tools make it effortless to refactor (break long notes into smaller, single-idea notes), link (create hypertext connections between related ideas), and organize (file processed notes into multiple collections). The digital environment transforms revision from a tedious manual task into a fluid, creative act of knowledge gardening.

Making Revision Your PKM Habit

Those offering practical advice for students seem to recommend a structured approach to the revision stage. Treat it as a non-negotiable part of your workflow, not an optional step before an exam. Here are three practical revision strategies:

The “Foot” and “Socks” Method: Immediately after capturing a new note, summarize the main point in a concise “foot” (like a title or summary field) and elaborate on a key detail in the “socks” (the body of the note). This forces immediate processing and mirrors the Cohen et al. intervention.

The Atomic Note Refactor: If your initial note is a long transcription, dedicate time to breaking it down into smaller, single-idea notes. Write each new note in your own words and link it to at least one other existing note in your system. This practice creates the interconnected knowledge web that makes PKM powerful.

The Cross-Reference Check: When revising, actively search your existing notes and collections for related concepts. Link your notes back to original sources to resolve ambiguities and provide context. Make an effort to relate lecture content to what appears in your textbook. This is the moment to create connections that integrate new information into your existing knowledge structure, moving beyond simple storage to true knowledge management.

Schedule dedicated revision sessions, ideally spaced throughout your learning timeline rather than clustered after completion. Consider handwriting your first draft or deeply processing material before digital capture to maximize the depth of your initial notes. Make note revision an ongoing habit, integrated into your learning cycles rather than a single end-of-lesson task.

Conclusion

By making revision a deliberate and structured part of your note-taking, you stop merely collecting information and start actively building a powerful, interconnected knowledge base that supports long-term learning and creative work. The research is clear: revision elevates note-taking from passive transcription to active knowledge building. It transforms fragmented jottings into complete, interconnected ideas ready for recall and application.

For anyone committed to lifelong learning and effective Personal Knowledge Management, understanding and embedding the practice of careful, thoughtful revision into your workflows will create richer, more useful knowledge bases – helping you learn smarter, not just harder. Classroom studies encourage a structured approach and often control such activities through assignments. Independent learners must take personal responsibility to produce similar results. The missing link in your note-taking isn’t the tool you use or the speed at which you capture—it’s the intentional work of revision that transforms information into true personal knowledge.

References

Cohen, D., Kim, E., Tan, J., Winkelmes, M. (2013). A note-restructuring intervention increases students’ exam scores. College Teaching 61(3), 95-99.

Cojean, S., & Grand, M. (2024). Note-taking by university students on paper or a computer: Strategies during initial note-taking and revision. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 94(2), 557-570.

Flanigan, A. E., Kiewra, K. A., Lu, J., & Dzhuraev, D. (2023). Computer versus longhand note taking: Influence of revision. Instructional Science, 51(2), 251-284

Luo, L., Kiewra, K. A., & Samuelson, L. (2016). Revising lecture notes: how revision, pauses, and partners affect note-taking and achievement. Instructional Science, 44(1), 45-67.

Building Better Note-Taking Skills in Elementary and Middle School Students: Research-Backed Strategies for Educators

Note-taking is a foundational skill that supports comprehension, retention, and critical thinking. However, many students below high school age struggle to develop effective note-taking habits on their own. There is comparatively little research on the development of note-taking skills in K12 compared to higher education, and within K12, the development of note-taking skills in elementary and middle schools receives extremely little attention. Still, from typically fourth grade on, it is commonly accepted that the goal in reading skills switches from learning to read to reading to learn.

While I have always been interested in note-taking research and practice, my wife and I worked with a second-grade teacher to explore our early ideas about the creation of multimedia projects as learning opportunities. Pam Carlson, our elementary teacher colleague, was preparing her students to participate in what we called the butterfly project, in which they were learning about the life stages of butterflies, migration, and other relevant topics related to butterflies. Students were creating a HyperCard stack to share what they had learned, and each student selected a specific butterfly to describe in the card they created for the stack. In reviewing various books Pam provided students as resources, she offered the following instructions to guide the information students wrote down. When you find something you want to include, she suggested, think about that information carefully and then turn your book over so you will write down what you learned without copying from the book. I could rephrase her instructions in the way researchers would describe the goals of her required strategy (summarization, personalization, generative processing, etc.) when I taught or wrote about note-taking, but these concrete instructions still pop into my memory when I address the topic.

This post summarizes the few studies I was able to locate that I thought would be relevant to educators who work with younger students and I will try to describe what seems to me to be the implications for classroom implementation. As always, more work is needed. One basic observation that probably seems obvious to most educators, the studies I reference here, Ilter (2017), Lee et al. (2013), and Chang & Ku (2014), highlight the importance of explicit instruction and scaffolded strategies to help young learners master note-taking skills. An interesting generality about note-taking seems to be that while nearly all learners take notes in some form or another, few of any age experience direct instruction and evaluation of this important skill.

Below, you will find key recommendations from these studies to help educators guide their young students toward becoming capable note-takers.

1. Explicit and Scaffolded Instruction of Note-Taking Strategies

One of the most important takeaways from the research is that note-taking skills should not be left to chance. Ilter (2017) emphasizes the need for early and explicit instruction in note-taking, starting in elementary school. Students often lack the intuitive ability to identify key information or organize their notes effectively, so educators must provide clear guidance.

Scaffolding is a critical component of this instruction. As the word implies, scaffolds are supports offering structure. A partial outline makes a reasonable example. Teachers should begin by modeling note-taking strategies and gradually shift responsibility to students as they gain confidence. For example, early lessons might involve guided practice with teacher feedback, while later lessons encourage students to take notes independently. This gradual release of responsibility ensures that students build the skills they need to succeed on their own.

2. Writing in Their Own Words

One of the biggest challenges for young students is avoiding verbatim copying. As I previously mentioned, Pam Carlson’s strategy for her second-grade students is noteworthy. Ilter (2017) and Lee et al. (2013) stress the importance of teaching students to paraphrase information in their own words. This practice not only improves comprehension but also helps students engage more deeply with the material. A related skill was brevity. One researcher liked the label “terse”. So, the goal was not just to paraphrase, but to focus on key or interesting ideas.

To support this skill, educators can:

Model how to paraphrase by thinking aloud during lessons. A think-aloud is simply an effort to externalize your thinking. It is a common strategy suggested to help learners get a grasp on mental behaviors they cannot see.
Provide practice exercises where students rewrite sentences or paragraphs in their own words.
Emphasize the value of organizing information logically, rather than simply copying it.

By focusing on paraphrasing and organization, students can develop a more meaningful understanding of the material they are studying.

3. Guided and Partial Graphic Organizers

Lee et al. (2013) highlight the benefits of using guided notes and partial graphic organizers to support young learners. Researchers often use the label “scaffolding” to describe this strategy. The goal is to offer guidance and reduce the “cognitive load” beginners face with a new skill. These tools reduce cognitive load by helping students focus on the most important information, rather than trying to capture everything at once.

For example:

Provide students with partially completed notes that include blanks for them to fill in during a lesson.
Use written prompts to guide students in identifying main points, summarizing content, and organizing their notes.

These strategies are particularly effective for elementary students, who may struggle to process and record information simultaneously. By reducing the mental effort required, guided notes and graphic organizers allow students to concentrate on understanding the material.

4. Focusing on Key Ideas, Keywords, and Text Structures

Chang & Ku (2014) emphasize the importance of teaching students to identify and use key ideas, keywords, and text structures in their notes. Their research with 4th graders provides several practical strategies for educators:

Highlighting Main Ideas: Teach students to use titles, headings, and guiding questions to identify the most important information in a text.
Recognizing Keywords: Help students identify function words like “however,” “because,” and “therefore,” which signal relationships between ideas.
Using Visual Aids: Introduce charts, diagrams, and other visual tools to represent similarities, differences, and other relationships. For example, how are moths and butterflies the same and different?
Analyzing Text Structures: Teach students to recognize organizational patterns, such as sequences or classifications. Is the author describing the steps in a process or the characteristics of a phenomenon or concept you should list in your notes.

These strategies not only improve the quality of students’ notes but also enhance their ability to understand and retain information.

5. Practice and Feedback

Finally, practice and feedback are essential for developing strong note-taking skills. Ilter (2017) recommends providing students with ample opportunities to practice taking notes independently. This practice should be paired with regular feedback from teachers and peers to help students refine their techniques.

For example:

After a lesson, ask students to share their notes with a partner and discuss what they found most important.
Provide specific feedback on how students can improve their notes, such as by adding more keywords or organizing information more clearly.
Encourage students to revise their notes based on feedback and reflect on what they learned.

By creating a supportive environment where students can practice and receive constructive feedback, educators can help them build confidence and competence in their note-taking abilities.

The Integrated Process

Itar suggests a sequence educators can follow in working with students to develop these skills.

The Five-Step Instructional Model for Note-Taking

Ilter (2017) introduces a structured five-step approach to teaching note-taking, which can be applied to both reading and listening tasks. This model provides a clear framework for students to follow, making the process of taking notes more manageable and effective.

Step 1: Identify the Main Idea

Students should learn to highlight or underline important information and paraphrase it in their own words. Teaching them to use textual clues, such as headings or topic sentences, can help them pinpoint the main idea without resorting to verbatim copying.

Step 2: Information Reduction

Encourage students to condense paragraphs into essential points. This step helps them avoid excessive copying and focus on the most critical information.

Step 3: Keyword Identification

Teach students to recognize keywords that signal relationships between ideas, such as “because,” “however,” or “finally.” These words can help students understand the structure of the information and create meaningful connections in their notes.

Step 4: Use of Representations

Introduce visual tools like symbols, charts, diagrams, or graphic organizers to help students organize their notes. These representations make it easier to see relationships between ideas and improve recall.

Step 5: Analysis of Text Structures

Help students recognize text structures, such as headings, subheadings, sequences, and classifications. Understanding these structures allows students to organize their notes more effectively and see how different pieces of information fit together.

Summary

This post is intended as an extension of my previous posts on note-taking focused on academic settings and younger learners. Beginning in approximately fourth grade, learners both read to learn and listen to brief teacher presentations. The skills of taking notes is an important life skill seldom directly taught to learners of any age. Researchers are proposing and describing how elementary and middle school teachers can help students begin to develop these skills.

References

Chang, W., & Ku, Y. (2014). The effects of note-taking skills instruction on elementary students’ reading. The Journal of Educational Research, 108(4), 278–291.

Ilter, I. (2017). Notetaking skills instruction for development of middle school students’ notetaking performance. Psychology in the Schools, 54(6), 596-611

Lee, P., Lan, W., Hamman, D. & Hendricks, B. (2008). The effects of teaching notetaking strategies on elementary students’ science learning. Instructional Science, 36(3), 191–201.

Smart Connections finds note connections

Smart Connections discovers and reveals related notes in Obsidian. I started using the Obsidian plugin Smart Connections because I wanted a way to apply AI interrogation of my own notes. I wanted to request cross-note summarizations and generate a variety of sample written products (e.g., blog posts) based on my personal notes and highlights. I ignored an important capability that is claimed based on the product’s name — the identification of note connections.

Without an AI-based method for identifying possible connections among notes, Obsidian relies on the user to establish connections via links and tags. I was aware that other services (e.g., Mem.ai) suggested that a note retention system could do better and offered tags and links, but also made the claim that AI would help surface connections. Some would argue that exploring your Obsidian content repeatedly and finding connections are important parts of the process of personal knowledge management. Constantly working with your notes is an active cognitive activity that encourages connections between what is internally retrievable at a point in time and what you are accessing in Obsidian. New connections first brain to second brain and within Obsidian may emerge. This constant interactive process is suggested by what I would describe as the Zettelkasten practitioners. I don’t think this advice must be rejected for users who want to use AI to surface new connections.

Smart Connections makes use of AI, and the AI creates a numerical representation of the content of each note and stores these as what are called embeddings. You must subscribe to an AI provider via an API, which is far less expensive than a subscription to such a service. You have the option of basing such representations on blocks within notes rather than entire notes. I make use of this option because I store lengthy notes containing book and pdf highlights, such that a representation of an entire note does not represent a level of detail that is very useful for finding something useful in such lengthy notes. In the content that follows, I will show where to turn on block embedding.

Smart Connections works by requesting connections for a note that you have selected. The following image shows Obsidian with Smart Connections active. The green rectangle in the menu bar is used to activate the Connections as opposed to the Chat capability of Smart Connections. The up/down symbol allows you to scroll through the associated notes/blocks from most related to less related. The gear symbol is used to access settings for Smart Connections. The middle panel is the active note, and the right-hand column represents a hierarchy of related notes/blocks.

Getting back to how I think AI may supplement the more hands-on use of Obsidian, I would recommend that in examining connections to a given note that you then use tags or links if you want to create permanent connections.

The extension of Smart Connects from note to note to note to block is worth doing if you do not keep atomic notes. Start with the Gear icon (see image above). This will reveal multiple setting options. What you are searching for are the environment settings. Open these settings with the button shown below.

Once more settings have been revealed, you are looking for Smart Blocks (see below). You turn this option on and specify a minimal length. I did not keep a careful record of the source for advice I followed and I apologize to the author, but I entered 300 characters, and that seems to work well. There are many other settings and I have mostly stayed with the defaults.

Summary:

Smart Connections is an Obsidian plugin (free) that allows AI capabilities to be applied to the notes stored in Obsidian. Chats allows a user to generate AI prompts that are applied to the contents of Obsidian. Connections generates a list of notes (note blocks in the setup I have described) associated with a selected note and is helpful in the identification of such relationships in a large collections of notes.

Disciplinary Perspectives on Taking and Using Notes

I have found myself exploring and writing about the interrelated topics of personal knowledge management, second brains, and note-taking for the past several years. As I have spent time on these interests, it became obvious that there were multiple disciplinary perspectives on these topics. In addition, the different disciplines seem mostly oblivious to each other as indicated by the lack of cross-referencing evident in their written materials. There are sometimes references to historical connections which I will identify, but for anyone interested in these topics I would suggest there are benefits for exploring more than a single point of view.

The Perspectives

Here are the descriptive labels I have decided to use for what I claim to be different perspectives. Hopefully, the labels offer some insights into the categories I have in mind.

Academic studying – this perspective provided my personal background for this general topic. The focus of this perspective is learning in formal academic environments with the goals of the acquisition, understanding, and application of information to examinations and projects. While the general goal of education is focused on the long term and preparation for life, note-taking has a more immediate focus. I am of the opinion that the great majority of what I would describe as research is focused on topics within this category. Most of this research is based on a cognitive perspective on learning and application.
Organizational Knowledge Management – Organizations have a need to develop, preserve, and apply knowledge. For multiple practical reasons (e.g., changeover in personnel), this knowledge should be externalized for the benefit of the organization. The generation and use of this shared knowledge originate with individuals. Personal knowledge management (PKM) can be individualized or integrated with the more general needs of a given organization. Procedures for accomplishing these goals are the subject of scholarship and training in the formal programs preparing individuals for careers in organizations (e.g., business schools), but it is my impression that scholarship is less empirical than that applied by those with an academic studying perspective and more anecdotal and based in logical argumentation.
Knowledge Management Entrepreneurs – I struggled with a way to describe this perspective. It seems to me that there has been a recent and identifiable group of individuals offering self-help books and consulting expertise to those interested in Personal Knowledge Management. This category resembles the organizational knowledge management perspective but does not share the same group focus. The perspective emphasizes the collection, organization, exploration, and application of information over an extended period of time to accomplish personal goals. Of the three groups I have identified, those individuals promoting techniques and processes are the least likely engaged in what I would describe as formal scholarship.

Historical Antecedents

While not absolutely consistent, there are frequent references to similar individuals, practices, and models that can often be identified among these perspectives. Here is my own list of such sources.

Vannevar Bush’s article “As we may think” describing the manner in which individuals and organizations might use a yet-to-be-developed technology (the Memex) to take on information overload and how a knowledge worker might explore, retain, organize, and apply information.
Commonplace books are journals, diaries, or notebooks maintained by individuals. A famous historical example would be the Leonardo Di Vinci notebooks still available in different formats (Amazon source).
Luhmann’s Zettelkasten. A zettelkasten is a card-based note-taking and note-linking system now often adapted to digitization and computer applications. It did not originate with Nikolas Luhmann, but I have connected the approach with his name because his prodigious use of the system as a scholar seems the example so many use.
The encoding and external model of note-taking (e.g., Rickards & Friedman, 1978) is the basis for much of the empirical research from the academic studying perspective. It proposes that learners could possibly benefit from both the thinking required in taking notes (the encoding process) and/or by having an external record available for review (external storage). This basic differentiation has been applied to such topics as whether taking notes by hand is more or less effective than taking notes using a keyboard (encoding), the best ways to work with the external notes (e.g., retrieval practice), and individual differences in both what is stored and how what is stored is used. For example, the Cornell note-taking method is an example of a system for both taking and using notes.

Examples from the different perspectives

I have written extensively about a couple of these perspectives in previous posts so rather than repeat myself and increase the length of this post I will link to some of these earlier posts.

Academic Studying – History of Note-Taking Research, Note-taking as a Generative Activity, Cornell Notes and Beyond
Organizational Knowledge Management – this perspective is a little more challenging as I have not written about it before. Here is a source you can explore without having journal access – Towards a Co-evolution of Organizational and Personal Knowledge Management Systems. Also see Pauleen (2009) – this is the introduction to a special issue on personal knowledge management.
Knowledge Management Entrepreneurs – Creating, Storing, and Using Smart Notes, Evaluating Tech Tools for Adults

Why consideration of the different perspectives might be useful?

Having asked you to recognize the multiple perspectives that I have identified, I owe you some explanation for why I think anyone interested in taking notes should expand their awareness of the background content available on this topic. I have found a couple of personal opportunities. First, the work from the perspective of academic studying has been far more carefully evaluated and useful in answering questions of why and if specific activities work. The knowledge management entrepreneurs offer specific “how to do it” suggestions and have strongly promoted the use of technology tools in PKM. The organizational knowledge management perspective extends the note-taking and PKM for life-long learning expanding core ideas beyond the academic classroom setting.

The links I provide here should open to many other resources on the perspectives I have identified.

References not linked

Pauleen, David (2009), “Personal knowledge management: putting the ‘person’ back into the knowledge equation”, Online Information Review, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 221–224, doi:10.1108/14684520910951177.

Rickards, J. P., & Friedman, F. (1978). The encoding versus the external storage hypothesis in note taking. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 3(2), 136-143.

Could AI Replace Many of the Recommended PKM Processes?

How much of the “building” part of building a second brain is necessary? With the opportunity to direct AI at accumulated resources, how much of the linking, tagging, reviewing, and re-expressing notes is productive? Some version of this question has long bothered me. I studied classroom note-taking as an academic and became familiar with the massive research base associated with different ways to take and use notes, the cognitive and metacognitive processes associated with activities in different note-taking approaches, and individual differences in the capacity and motivation to execute specific processes effectively. While there is a great deal of speculation, multiple books, and the sharing of numerous personal processes in online posts, where is the research on PKM and Second Brains? The research on learners taking and using notes in academic settings may offer a general structure, however there would seem important differences in the use of self-directed note-taking outside of an environment that involves processes that must accomplish goals set by others to produce products or perform tasks after short time intervals (the time between exams or writing assignments).

The terminology is different. You do not find classroom-oriented research considering fleeting versus permanent notes or the ideal types of tags and links to organize notes and prepare the user for future goals and tasks that often do not exist when the notes are taken. I try to translate the proposed strategies outlined in popular books for the audience that takes notes to benefit them under these circumstances (Ahrens, Doto, and Forte). Can the research on generative cognitive processes, metacognitive comprehension monitoring, and retrieval practice serve to determine if the recommendations made by these writers are reasonable? Perhaps the strategies for creating different types of notes (fleeting vs. permanent), strategies for linking and tagging, and reviewing to find new associations are just busy work.

Does AI provide an alternative?

MEM.AI was the first note-taking and storage tool I used that came with an embedded AI tool. The promotional material I read before investing time and money into MEM proposed that the availability of the embedded AI offered an alternative to the tags and links in a tool such as Obsidian. MEM.AI allows the manual assignment of something similar to tags and bi-directional links. The embedded AI did a couple of interesting things. As you built up a collection of notes, the AI offered suggestions based on the material you have accumulated. Similar notes were identified based on common elements of a new note and existing notes (see red box in the following image). You could link to suggested notes if you found the suggestions of value. Tags for a new note were proposed beyond any rags that were manually added (see red box in the following image) and any of these suggestions can be accepted. I have recently written about multiple ways note-taking systems can be augmented with AI, but MEM.AI is built with some of these processes assumed rather than potentially available through the creation of clever prompts. MEM.AI proposes that it creates a self-organizing workspace which seems a reasonable description.

MEM.AI has one more unique feature that seems a powerful use of the self-organizing workspace concept. There is a built-in word-processing capability called Smart Write. When you enter a forward slash / within any existing note or within an empty note, you can then enter a chat prompt. You can ask a question or make a request. With an existing note, the AI extends what already exists in what are often interesting and creative ways relying on what appears in the note you are working on and the corpus of notes you have saved. The output appears within that note and can be copied and pasted elsewhere or left as part of that note. It can be argued that this is a way to discover connections to other material more directly than what might have been manually indicated by creating a link to another specific note.

Here is an example.

The following (Permanentnotes) is a note I created with two tags. What you can no longer see is the / and prompt that was originally inserted after the second tag. The prompt entered after the / was “Does my idea that permanent notes move more of the thinking involved in transforming notes into a final written product earlier in that writing process make sense?” Smart Write added three paragraphs based on other stored notes.These paragraphs now appear in the original note (shown below). Not all of this content seems relevant, but connections were discovered and much of what was said could be used in writing about this concept. These additions were all based on previous content I added, but I did not have to manually find these connections.

Permanentnotes

This is a key insight. Permanent notes should be able to stand alone without reference to the original content for context. Perhaps it could be described as moving part of the writing process earlier in the transition from note-taking to a final written product.

#notetaking

#slipbox

Your thought about moving part of the writing process earlier in the transition from note-taking to a final writing product indeed makes sense and aligns with the ideas presented in the writing process model by Flower and Hayes (1981). The model emphasizes the importance of planning as a foundational step in effective writing, which involves setting goals, gathering information, and organizing ideas. By integrating permanent notes into this early stage, you essentially create a structured framework that facilitates the translation and reviewing phases of writing.

The approach of using permanent notes, akin to the slip-box system described by Ahrens, enhances this framework by allowing writers to develop a rich, interconnected repository of ideas and insights. This repository acts as an external structure that compensates for the cognitive limitations of the human brain, making it easier to retrieve and connect ideas when composing a draft. The slip-box method encourages a shift from merely capturing fleeting thoughts to actively engaging with and refining those ideas into coherent, stand-alone pieces of information.

Furthermore, this method aligns with the iterative nature of the writing process. As notes are continually reviewed and expanded, they can reveal gaps in understanding or suggest new lines of inquiry, prompting further research and reflection. This iterative engagement not only aids in the development of writing skills but also fosters deeper learning and insight generation, as noted by Ahrens. Thus, your suggestion to reposition part of the writing process earlier, in the context of note-taking and idea organization, is a strategic move that can significantly enhance both the efficiency and quality of writing.

Summary

I would argue that AI capabilities can substitute for or at least augment manual processes advocated by those arguing tags and links are an essential part of the Personal Knowledge Management process. To some extent, I have found the capabilities of the MEM self-organizing workspace to be more thorough in proposing connections than I would typically be on my own.

This brings me to an issue I consider in many applications of AI. This issue is whether the AI approach allows the user to avoid important activities that are important in and of themselves. Perhaps both the manual and AI approaches here allow a note-taker to produce comparable final written products if that was the goal. Whether the activities of exploring notes to make appropriate links and adding tags that identify key ideas encourage deeper thinking about the content seems a different issue. Again, this is difficult to know. One might make the opposite argument claiming that reviewing the text generated by the AI offers a different way to explore and find relationships within existing content and the process of considering what within this new material is relevant to the intended purpose of the prompt is a unique evaluative activity performed by the user. As I have already suggested, MEM.AI does not require that you take one approach or the other. So, explore. AI capabilities are being added to many note-taking tools and the potential is worth a look.

Desirable Difficulty

Despite a heavy focus on cognitive psychology in the way I researched and explained classroom study tactics, I had not encountered the phrase desirable difficulty until I became interested in the handwritten vs. keyboard notetaking research. I discovered the idea when reviewing studies by Luo and colleagues and Mueller and Oppenheimer. Several studies have claimed students are better off taking notes by hand in comparison to on a laptop despite being able to record information significantly faster when using a keyboard.

Since having a more complete set of notes would seem an advantage. The combination of more notes associated with poorer performance is counterintuitive. Researchers speculated that learners who understood they had to make decisions about what they had time to record selected information more carefully and possibly summarized rather than recorded verbatim what they heard. This focus on what could be described as deeper processing seemed like an example of desirable difficulty. The researchers also proposed that the faster keyboard recording involved shallow cognitive processing.

Note: I am still a fan of more complete notes and the methodology used when demonstrating better performance from recording notes by hand needs to be carefully considered. I will comment on my argument more at the end of this post.

Desirable difficulty an idea attributed to Robert Bjork has been used to explain a wider variety of retention phenomena. Bjork suggested that retrieval strength and storage strength are distinct phenomena and learners can be misled when an approach to learning is evaluated based on retrieval strength. I find these phrases to a bit confusing as applied, but I understand the logic. Students cramming for an exam make a reasonable example. Cramming results in what may seem to be successful learning (retrieval strength), but results in poorer retention over an extended period of time (storage storage strength). Students may understand and accept the disadvantages of cramming so it is not necessary that the distinction be unrecognized by learners. In a more recent book on learning for the general public, Daniel Willingham suggests that the brain is really designed to avoid rather than embrace thinking because thinking is effortful. The human tendency is to rely on memory rather than thinking. Desirable difficulty may be a way to explain why some situations that require thinking prevent something more rote.

Increasing difficulty to improve retention

There are multiple tactics for productively increasing difficulty that I tend to group under the heading of generative learning. I describe generative activities as external tasks intended to increase the probability of productive cognitive (mental) behaviors. I suppose desirable difficulty is even more specific differentiating external tasks along a difficulty dimension. So in the following list of tasks, it is useful to imagine more and less difficult tasks. Often the less difficult task is the option learners choose to apply. In connecting these tactics with personal experience, I would recommend you consider the use of flashcards to conceptualize what would be the easier and the more challenging application. Then, move beyond flashcards to other study tactics and consider if you can identify similar contrasts.

Retrieval Practice: Testing oneself on the material rather than passively reviewing notes is considered retrieval practice. The classic empirical demonstration of the retrieval practice or the testing effect compared reviewing content versus responding to questions. Even when controlling for study time, spending some time on questions was superior. With the flashcard applications I recommended you consider, answering multiple-choice questions would be less challenging than answering short-answer questions (recognition vs recall).

Spacing (Distributed Practice): Instead of cramming, spreading out study sessions over time is more productive. This method helps improve long-term retention and understanding. Spacing allows some retrieval challenges to develop and the learner must work harder to locate the desired information in memory. See my earlier description of Bjork’s distinction between retrieval strength and storage strength.

Interleaving: Mixing different types of problems or subjects in one study session. For example, alternating between math problems and reading passages rather than focusing on one at a time. A simple flashcard version of this recommendation might be shuffling the deck between cycles through the deck. Breaking up the pattern of the review task increases the difficulty and requires greater cognitive effort.

Other thoughts

First, the concept of committing to more challenging tasks is broader than the well researched examples I provide here. Writing and teaching could be considered examples in that both tasks require an externalization of knowledge that is both generative and evaluative. It is too easy to fake it and make assumptions when the actual creation of a product is not required.

Second, desirable difficulty seems to me to be a guiding principle that does not explain all of the actual cognitive mechanisms that are involved. The specific mechanisms may vary with activity – some might be motivational, some evaluative (metacomprehension), and some at the level of basic cognitive activities. For example, creating retrieval challenges probably creates an attempt to find alternate or new connections among stored elements of information. For example, in trying to put a name with a face one might attempt to remember the circumstances in which you may have met or worked with this person and this may activate a connection you do not typically use and is not automatic. For example, after being retired for 10 years and trying to remember the names of coworkers, I sometimes remember the arrangement of our offices working my way down the appropriate hallway and this sometimes helps me recall names.

I did say I was going to return to the use of desirable difficulty as a justification for the advantage of taking notes by hand. If keyboarding allows faster data entry than handwriting, in theory keyboarding would allow more time for thinking, paraphrasing, and whatever advantage one would have when the recording method requires more time. Awareness and commitment would seem to be the issues here. However, I would think complete notes would have greater long-term value than sparse notes. One always has the opportunity to think while studying and a more complete set of notes would seem to provide the opportunity to have more external content to work with.

References:

Bjork, R.A. (1994). Memory and metamemory considerations in the training of human beings. In J. Metcalfe & A. Shimamura (Eds.), Metacognition: Knowing about knowing (pp. 185-205). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Luo, L., Kiewra, K. A., Flanigan, A. E., & Peteranetz, M. S. (2018). Laptop versus longhand note taking: effects on lecture notes and achievement. Instructional Science, 46(6), 947-971.

Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological science, 25(6), 1159-1168.

Willingham, D. T. (2021). Why don’t students like school?: A cognitive scientist answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for the classroom. John Wiley & Sons.

YouTube Annotation with Glasp

I take a lot of notes and have done so for years. I have tried many different tools over this time period. Social Annotation is a subcategory of these tools that allows users to share their highlights and notes. The idea is that the sharing of notes allows individuals to find resources they have not personally explored and offer their own discoveries to others. Glasp serves these purposes.

I have written about Glasp on several previous occasions. A unique capability allows built-in AI capabilities to “chat” not only with your own notes, but also the annotations stored by others.

Glasp is a combination of a Profile page that is the online location allowing access to the content you have collected (see above) and a browser extension that provides the means to highlight and annotate the content viewed within your browser. Kindle content is imported automatically. Glasp could provide the storage location for all of your notes, but I export notes to Obsidian to take advantage of more advanced features.

I don’t spend a lot of time collecting information from Youtube because most of writing is based on books and journal articles. There are exceptions when I review tutorials for software tools and want to keep track of specific tactics. I understand that others use YouTube extensively and I wanted to explore the capabilities of Glasp with this information source. The following video is my effort to describe how notes and highlights are generated from YouTube content.