Organizing notes on paper books?

[shevirsy]

I grew up somehow venerating books. The books were something to be cared for. No pen would touch them. You put a nice cover and pay attention not to mess the corners.

But I have realised that is plain silly. Mass production is about personalising a book. It's about making it a workbook. So I started doing highlights. Now how do I organise all that? How do you organize all the notes and highlights over time?

Do you have a method? Do you know somebody who made such methods?

[Jessica Lares]

I would say that keeping a piece of paper to act as an index would help. Write the subject, and then the page number next to it, and then stick it at the back and add to it as needed. I like the idea of using tabs too, like the really cheapo ones that come in the packs of the same color with just a square of it in color and the rest of it is tape. As long as its acid free it won't do any harm to the book and you can freely move them around. Use them in the margin area, and don't stick more than two millimeters of them outside of the book, and they won't become an issue.

But like I said in your other post, you don't take notes and then organize them later on, the organization happens as you take them. If you're writing in a book, there's not much you can do except point out where all your markings are. You're basically going to end up rewriting them otherwise.

[Nabeel]

I do a lot of research, so the point about organizing notes is important to me. The simple truth is that everyone has their own way of doing it, and you have to find your own way.

What I do is to take notes: once on a separate sheet of paper, now - of course - as a Word document. Sometimes these are very detailed: I note the page number, I copy out some passages directly, I summarise others. I'll sometimes write one or two thousand words of notes on an interesting book. The advantage of doing this on a PC is that you can then do a word search. It also means that my current PC has detailed notes on 1,500 texts.

When I'm writing, I spend about 80% of my time just referring to my notes. If I want to include a direct quotation, I can just cut and paste. For really tricky points I need to go back to the original texts. This is one of the few times where paper books still beat e-books: it's easier to have a paper book next to me, open at the right page, than to open up the programme for reading ebooks. Also, I can have 3, 4 or 5 paper books open at the same time, while with ebooks I can only really have one at a time.

Anyway, those are my work secrets. As the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World) used to say: organise, organise, organise.

[Catlady]

I think Post-it notes would be even better than index tabs. I would write the page number on the Post-it (in case it becomes dislodged), and then my notes.

How to organize depends on exactly what you're wanting to do with your notes. But you could easily indicate a topic on each Post-it.

[shevirsy]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

I would say that keeping a piece of paper to act as an index would help.

I like that. Only that my room is filled with sheets of paper that once have meant something. I guess a notetaking software would be easier on my brain. But I like the idea.

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

But like I said in your other post, you don't take notes and then organize them later on, the organization happens as you take them. If you're writing in a book, there's not much you can do except point out where all your markings are. You're basically going to end up rewriting them otherwise.

Nope. In the other note you wrote:

The first step is learning HOW to highlight and take good notes. If you do this right to begin with, it's not a problem later on.

I. V. Lenin was famos for this kind of answers. Sorry. I know you meant something. But it ends up as nothing to one who asks "what can I do"

Originally Posted by Nabeel

I do a lot of research, so the point about organizing notes is important to me. The simple truth is that everyone has their own way of doing it, and you have to find your own way.

I like your method. I have tried something like that a couple of years ago. I have renounced as it was on paper and quoting the whole highlight proved to be a pain in the behind. I'm going to try it again. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Catlady

I think Post-it notes would be even better than index tabs. I would write the page number on the Post-it (in case it becomes dislodged), and then my notes.

How to organize depends on exactly what you're wanting to do with your notes. But you could easily indicate a topic on each Post-it.

Never thought of putting a topic too. Thanks.

[Ninjalawyer]

I do a lot of notes on paper for work. I ended up investing in a Livescribe Echo pen. Essentially, it records all of your pen strokes as you write, which allows you to generate a searchable PDF later. It also records audio and pairs it to your pen strokes (it's pretty neat, you can touch anywhere on a note to start playing back the audio from when you took that particular note), which may not be that helpful for what you need.

For me, the real benefit is being able to combine different PDF pages later into a single file to save electronically, something you could do with a scanner if you're not interested in buying a "smart" pen. Of course, there's something very satisfying about being able to play Zork on your pen; way more satisfying than useful to be sure.

Just something to consider.