I aspire to better equip myself as a researcher and writer. As part of this, for me at least, I think that developing a note-taking (or marginalia) system would be useful. I read a ton of nonfiction and have especially been into history, economics, and geopolitics lately…but my “system” tends to just “highlight” insightful stuff in my Kindle and then…everything kinda falls off the map for me. I should probably start going back, reviewing the highlights, and making notes in a separate notebook/app/document for later research and writing purposes.
I thought it might be interesting to learn more about everyone’s reading/studying routine and specifically note-taking processes. I’m especially curious about those who blog/publish writings, and how they work to gather their thoughts and information as they are reading.
If you don’t mind sharing a bit about your note taking process or systems, here are some questions for discussion:
What is your process, generally? (Do you read print/digital/audio? Does your note taking change depending on different formats? Do you highlight with specific colors for certain reasons? What do you find yourself notating most frequently?)
Do you use pen/paper or is there a specific app you like to use for note-taking/research purposes?
If you use an app, what is your process for book notes? Do you take notes on paper and then transfer it to the digital app later when you’re reviewing? Do you take notes directly into the app?
Any other advice for someone looking to improve their learning/knowledge through more focused and intentional reading and note taking?
For general reading I don’t really take notes. I read a lot of non-fiction (and fiction) and if something sends me down a rabbit hole I might go off on a few tangents on the internet, but if it’s not for a work project or some other specific project I don’t usually take notes on any of it.
I don’t like damaging books in any way, so I will never highlight anything or scribble anything in the margins. If I am studying something, rather than highlight it I will put a small yellow sticky on the page. Many of my technical books have a bunch of yellow stickies marking important pages.
Otherwise I will keep notes in a notebook. I will also sometimes keep notes in Notepad with technical specs, notes, etc. all placed in a folder specifically for that project.
I also cannot write in books. It offends me somehow. I realize that’s a me problem, especially when we’re talking about mass produced paperbacks, but there it is. If I have to make a note I’ll use an index card and put it in the book.
I’ve never been able to write notes in books either, but, with the advance of the e-book, I find I have no trouble highlighting the text if I want to remember it later, or check out source materials.
Even if you didn’t care about scribbling all over the books, I don’t see how it would be that convenient or useful.
3M post-It flags are useful, and just use a regular notebook (or digital tablet, if you want to be high-tech) because then you can take notes from different books and articles simultaneously.
All those notes/sketches/first drafts are less useful if you never look at them again, so put them away long enough for your brain to process them but also don’t forget to pick them up later and check whether they still make sense. Personally personally I do not bother to type anything into the computer before I have at least a first draft to work from.
ETA
Yes, that is quite useful, because it’s hard to place a Post-It into an e-book.
My preference is writing in an actual notebook and I’ll do it for work especially when trying to brainstorm or “map” data across references (often technical drawings, reports, qualification data that needs to be mapped to align to a conclusion).
I also take notes in OneNote for work, particularly when I’m trying to sort out my thoughts about something. I’ll just start writing and telling myself the “story” of the question I’m trying to answer, and see where I end up. I used to do this in physical notebooks, but I like being able to extract the best phrases into email or reports, and I’m getting used to OneNote for that.
I’m pretty good at typing most of what I hear, so unless I’m talking in a meeting if there’s something I want to retain I’ll just semi-transcribe it.
My actual memory and retention of data isn’t great; I’m not someone who can just cite anything, or even remember the phrase or legal reference for something, but I know where it’s written down and where I wrote my notes. I rely heavily on having my references handy when needing to discuss stuff. Otherwise it just comes out all muddled when I speak!
I’ve relied on a highlighter since college. I had to buy the textbooks and I made them as useful to me as possible.
It also important to read the material thoroughly before the lecture. I took careful notes for new material that’s not in the book. I often put a check mark next to paragraphs covered in the lecture. Remind myself that it’s important.
Sometimes I’ll create a outline for a difficult chapter that I’m studying. Organizing an outline helps me retain the information.
When I was in college, I took notes in notebooks, but I also wrote in my textbooks, especially those that would be used for open book tests. You could write as much as you wanted in the margins, empty space, etc., but couldn’t have any extra paper.
Now I use OneNote for work. I have different sections for different topics, and it also means that I have my notes from seminars, my notes from reading, and also my random thoughts all in one place. Which I can search. And I can add links to sites that I find when I start going down the rabbit hole.
For work, I normally use digital copies on an E Ink writing tablet (like a reMarkable, but I use the Onyx Boox Note Air 2, mostly because it uses android). So I can write directly on the paper/book I’m reading, but I can also take separate notes in another window, and I can export those directly into OneNote and sync between my devices. Its OCR is also quite good, most of the time even able to make sense of my crappy handwriting, so I can transform my handwritten notes to searchable text. But I find I don’t use this as much as I thought I would.
For leisure reading, even non-fiction (which is, somewhat to my chagrin, most of my reading these days), I don’t generally take notes. If something catches my attention, I fire up OneNote on my phone, or use an optical scanner app to copy text from the page.