/lit/ - Literature

I read all my books on my laptop with word open to take notes.

>>13318962
Oh! i like the box. Much better then my storage method.

>>13318962
Never heard of this note-taking method. Seems useful for things outside of look up words in the dictionary. Might use this when I want to read a book a second time to make sense of the little things. Thanks OP

>>13319068
It works really well and is actually fun to do. It's even distracting sometimes because I start making connections and writing more notes instead of reading. Only the horrible UI of the software I use makes it less enjoyable.

how do i Zettelkasten method

>>13318962
That's what I did for the lit GRE

>>13318962

post a description of the method

i use yellow notepads, usually a topic per pad. it's ok but there has to be better

i would stick to physical notes, but you can type them up during a review (i dont). maybe that would be the place to better organize them

>>13319146
>>13319278
This OP. I found several hits on google but I'm curious how you use it in particular for reading books

bumping for interest

>>13319068
MODS

PLEASE REMOVE THIS RACIST POST

I just write in the margins and bottom/top of the pages and use arrows/highlighter.

>>13318962
Post-it notes pressed between the pages like bookmarks. I write the note on the inside and a label on the outside so it sticks out where I can read it.

For digital stuff I just have a massive text file where I write my notes and paste in the context.

But by all means, use some German busywork system if it makes you feel productive.

>>13318962
I don't usually take notes as I read but I often like to make a quick journal entry when I finish a chapter or write a short essay when I finish a book.

>>13318962
Damn, I’d love to do something like this. I usually annotate in the margins. Typically there’s a notebook beside me where I can write down unfamiliar words, new topics, ideas I get when reading, etc. usually fill up one composition book per Shakespeare play

>>13319642
>>13319636
>>13319616
>>13319278
What exactly do you guys take notes about? should I be doing this? I just read the books

>>13319650
Nah m8, it's better not to think or reflect. Just b urself lol.

>>13319650
Just a short commentary on whatever I've just read. I try not to structure them too much, just articulate an understanding of what was being said and maybe try to relate it to other things I've read.

All these virgins not writing on the book’s margin

OP here.

Just read the first few chapters of this book.

In short, you write down your thoughts in the form of small slip-notes. The key to this method is how you connect your notes. The original autist had a chain system based on the ID of each note so as to keep a parent-child organization, as well as inter-note links that refer to the IDs and titles of related notes, kind of like Wikipedia hyperlinks. With modern software this is mostly done automatically, but you still have to make those hyperlinks. The action of linking your thoughts forces you to think and check your previous notes. Since your previous notes are also linked to other ideas, including those in parent-child relations, you often make connections that weren’t evident when you initially expressed your original idea.

Let’s say you are reading on the French Revolution. After reading a chapter on the Terror, you make a note about it summarizing the events. In the ‘hyperlinks’ you may link to a previous note you had made on political violence in general which you remembered. Taking a look at that note, you see it also referred to a note on the Russian Civil war which came about from reading another book 3 years ago. As a result, you re-read your old note and come to realize the events share some similarities about the breakdown of societal order. Consequently, you make a new note on that very subject, linking it to these two notes. And so on...

It can be very tedious at times, but the method excels at connecting ideas. The ID system and the size constraint of notes prevents you from getting lost in your notes, as the ID system is not chronological.

The parent-child ID system works like this: on a given subject, distinct ideas will follow a sequential system. A, B, C, D, etc. But if you get a sequence of thoughts on a specific idea, you create children for that idea in the form of B1, B2, B3, etc. Since this never ends, some users of this method end up with IDs like C33b4F8D. The power of this approach is that you can easily revisit your sequences of thought if you decided to re-read all your notes starting with, for instance, C33b4F.

using various tags/notebooks I have developed a very nice system using ev*rn*te. seems better and easier than anything else mentioned in this thread

>>13318962
I highlight important passages on my Kindle and then type them into my emacs org file. I'm working on software that would combine mendeley-like functionality with a markdown-based "personal wiki", but I probably won't ever finish it.

>>13320219
Isnt there a lot of software like that already? Have you heard of connectedtext?

I dont because Im a pseud who should really give up.

Y-You're meant to take notes when you read? does this include for novels and fictions?

>>13318962
Do you guys take notes for fiction as well? I understand the importance of reflecting and meditating but I feel like taking notes would be distracting

>>13320323
very rearely. usually i will snap a pic of parts I like and archive them without comment

>>13318962
seems like a cheap way to glean data from a book for a bullshit test.people who do this are not intimate with the book and only have a shallow understanding.

>>13318962

I just copy paste or manually type out the relevant passage into google docs if I feel like I might want to use, recall, or quote the precise passage later.

Usually I just write a summary of what the chapter / section had to say in order to consolidate it in my mind. If there's a particular insight that's new to me I'll write down my thoughts on it.

>>13320311
>>13320323

I normally just do it for nonfiction.

Short essays for fiction, notes for nonfiction is the way to go I think.

>>13320249
I want one that works natively on Linux, uses markdeep instead of some wiki syntax, launches external text editor instead of having one built-in, stores copies of what you read and your notes as simple text file, doesn't have ugly bloated UI, etc. ConnectedText is not what I'm looking for. Does it even like a library functionality like in pic rel? Seems like it doesn't.

>>13320332

This as well. I've recently started taking pics with my phone of useful paragraphs since I can't be bothered to write it out.

>>13320386
Couldn't you just do this using grep?

>>13320874
no

>>13320005
Why don't you give us a tour of your system?