LiquidText

I am a sucker for tools that support the reading/writing processes. This is pretty much what I do as a retired academic. I no longer collect data so I rely on the research of others and combine this work in promoting various learning experiences. Some have taken to describing the careful and reflective reading that is the initial phase of this process as “deep reading”. I have always thought of it as “studying”, but one must keep up with the terminology presently in vogue.

My present exploration makes use of an iPad app called LiquidText. I have the paid version ($10), but the free version would work equally well for how I have used the app so far. Liquid text allows the highlighting and annotation of content. It allows this “processed” content to be explored, stored and exported in various ways. Such processes are critical for scholars and advanced students, but if one thinks of what is implied by deep reading, anyone learning from digital content should have tools suited to applying active processes to the content. I cannot say that LiquidText is the ideal way to approach the personal processing of content, but the company working with this product has combined tools capable of a useful workflow in this product.

Screen view when reading a pdf and highlighting/annotating the contents.

One option for exporting content – in this case, the highlighted material from the pdf.

BTW – the paid version allows the integrating of content from multiple documents. When I review a single source intending to generate a blog post, this capability would not be necessary. If I intended to take on a larger project, working from multiple sources, the added capabilities of the paid version would be used.