rhedreen

Possible title/topic: Advanced note-taking for writing: personal knowledge management – for (advanced undergrads, grads, faculty); writing for theses, dissertations, publication

Note-taking serves 2 purposes for writing: 1. Writing for retrieval – writing down things you want to be able to find again. 2. Writing for thinking – writing as a way of digesting, conceptualizing and putting info in context (especially your own context.)

Writing for retrieval Proper identification of sources – citation info (formatted or just complete); source (links, files, etc.); include info on finding (search engines/databases, search terms, search or access problems, etc.) Description – tagging or other searchable text that includes context; why is this important to you; quotations (with complete citation and page numbers!) or annotations; think how you might be looking for this later on. Storage – digital storage means that you can make these notes searchable; there are many tools specifically designed for note-taking (OneNote, Evernote, Joplin, etc.) and ones designed for knowledge management (Obsidian, Logseq, Roam, Tana, etc.), but you can use any searchable file – including Word or Google docs. However, I recently had a conversation with someone who wanted hardcopy only, and we thought about writing notes (with source info) on post-its, kept originally on the printed docs, then moving the post-its as needed to a notebook or whiteboard for organizing and as writing prompts. Look up “Zettlekasten” for high-end hardcopy note-taking!

Writing for thinking Context & Connection – how would you use this; what does it remind you of; what other things do you have notes on that might be related (search and link!) Summarization – rephrase and summarize (you can't do this if you don't understand it.) Combine with other info; be explicit about connections. Don't just paraphrase by swapping out words – write your own understanding. Many people recommend individual notes for specific references (or specific ideas from specific references) and then separate notes for concepts that link/reference to the individual source notes. Update the concept notes as you collect new sources, and split off new concept notes when you have a new concept or aspect to explore. But link back to the old concept notes and to any relevant source notes.

Using notes in writing Avoid the blank page – copy useful notes (usually source notes for lit review or analysis; concept notes for more topical paragraphs) into a new document and/or into an outline to start. Save extraneous ideas for later – if something needs to be cut, you don't have to throw it away (aka “Killing your darlings”), just make a new note. This sort of note-taking should be iterative. Write some notes; this gets the ideas into your brain. Your brain can process and digest the ideas and produce new insights. Write down those insights, connecting to new and old info. Repeat.