How to write literature notes

#thought #seedling

When I write literature notes, specifically when I write succinct descriptions of the main ideas of a material and retrieval prompts that help me remember them, I understand what I read better. Here's the process I use to write literature notes:

  1. I create one note per reference.
  2. I title the note with the title of the reference and the last name of the author.
  3. I indicate the bibliographic information of the reference at the bottom of the note.
  4. I add all highlights (and annotations if I made any) I took during my reading process under a section of the note.
  5. I read my highlights and cluster them around single big concepts. This process is similar to creating an index for a book.
  6. I write a succinct title for each cluster that captures the main idea that unites it. To separate clusters, I format the title as a subheading.
  7. Sometimes, I will notice that there are individual concepts within a cluster. This is specially true if the big concept is a conclusion with many premises. I'll separate an individual concept into a different line and attempt to capture it in one or a few sentences. My goal is always to be as concise as possible when writing these notes.
  8. If there are specific concepts or information I want to remember and add in my daily spaced repetition practice, I write a prompt under that information.

This process can take a lot of time depending on the extent of the reference, so multiple sessions might be needed to complete one literature note.

Although I try to avoid writing any more 04 notes/evergreens, sometimes, I do need to write them and literature notes could be helpful. When this happens, here's how to convert literature notes to evergreen notes.

References

Ahrens, S. (2017). How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Matuschak, A. (n.d.). How to collect observations while reading. Andyʼs Working Notes. Retrieved September 3, 2021, from https://notes.andymatuschak.org/How_to_collect_observations_while_reading

Tietze, C. (200 C.E., 32:57). Making Proper Marks in Books. Zettelkasten. https://www.zettelkasten.de/posts/making-proper-marks-in-books/