Use case for linking notes to other notes: Zettelkasten A couple of days ago I posted here a question on how to link a note with a note. My behind-the-scenes goal was to see whether not one could implement Zettelkasten data structures in Logos. Now that I know how to link notes (see previous message) I'm going to post about Zettelkasten. I'm going to use the word "Zettelkasten" sloppily. I'm working from the understanding of Zettelkasten I got from _How to Take Smart Notes_, by Sonke Ahrens. There's a lot material out there about Zettelkasten. I'm not going to discuss definitions, etc., etc. It's quite possible I misunderstood Ahrens, so don't blame him, go read him. The primary point I took from Ahrens is that the core of Zettelkasten is the *workflow,* not the data structures that support the workflow. (It was originally implemented using boxes and boxes of (roughly) 4 x 6 cards (zettel is a slip of paper, kasten is some form of the word "box" -- hence, slip-boxes). People have developed or used many pieces of software to implement Zettelkasten.) The purpose of the system is *not* to remember what you've read better, but to build an engine for a sort of automatic correlation and discovery of insights. The workflow, very briefly, follows. Quotations are from Ahrens: 1. Collect brief "fleeting" notes as you read or do stuff. 2. Each day or so go through your brief notes and selectively write "literature notes." "Write down what you don’t want to forget or think you might use in your own thinking or writing. Keep it very short, be extremely selective, and use your own words." Include reference info. 3. Write permanent notes. "Write exactly one note for each idea and write as if you were writing for someone else: Use full sentences, disclose your sources, make references and try to be as precise, clear and brief as possible. Throw away the fleeting notes from step one and put the literature notes from step two into your reference system. You can forget about them now." 4. "Now add your new permanent notes to the slip-box." The "slip-box" is whatever data repository you are using. Adding the notes to the slip-box includes linking notes to each other, tagging notes, indexing notes, etc. The (to me) radical things are: - You write your permanent notes as if you are writing for someone else. Full sentences and references, the whole nine yards. This principle made my head hurt. - Each note contains one and only one idea. - You link notes to each other. The goal is for the collection of notes to organize itself from the bottom up. Putting your new notes into the Zettelkasten requires you to selectively sift through your relevant notes, thinking of relationships among them. The workflow says you are doing this every few days, as you continue to make and insert new notes. Kinda like chewing your intellectual cud. Ahrens mentions goals of three to six notes a day, not huge volumes of notes. The data structures to support this system are few and simple. The magic (if there is any) is in the continuing *practice*of the workflow. Anyhow, the repository (implemented on paper or electronically) requires these: 1. The slip-box itself, containing the permanent notes 2. The file of source references 3. Links from individual permanent notes to others 4. Links from individual permanent notes to their associated source references 5. Topical tags of individual notes 6. Index entries pointing at entry points into the network of linked notes It seems that Logos can implement all these, though the note-to-note linking looks to be labor intensive.

  2.  — Edited

    In my Word docs, I insert hyperlinks to the Logos resources that I'm quoting from: Jones 2012, p 25: "quote quote quote quote" [with a hyperlink behind "25"] In case you aren't familiar with hyperlinks in Word: select the page number "25", then on the Insert menu, choose "Link". That opens a dialog box for you to paste in the link for the destination (i.e., to the place in my Logos resource that is the source of the quote). To get that link from Logos, select the text in the Logos resource. Then on the panel menu (three vertical dots at upper right), choose "Copy Location as". Now the link text is on your clipboard, and you can go back to your Word doc and paste it in the dialog box. When you come back to your doc later and want to find that quote in Logos, click on the hyperlink you've created and it will open the resource in Logos, with the quote at the top of the "page" on the screen. If you don't have anything highlighted in the resource when you "Copy Location," it will still create a link. It will just open Logos to the top of the "page" as you see it on the screen. Because I'm creating docs for my personal use on my own computer, I use the "L4" format. This behaves the way I want my links to work. You can experiment to see which link format works best for you. I do this so much that my fingers know the keyboard shortcuts without thinking: Ctrl-K to open the Word hyperlink dialog box; Ctrl-Alt-C to "Copy Location" in Logos. Hope that helps!

  3. Clark, I'm Interested to hear whether you've continued to use logos for your note taking. I've been trying to implement something similar in logos but find it a little awkward. I find that my hyperlinks don't work on the mobile app which is very disappointing. Also, I worry about whether future updates might cause all my links to stop working.

  4. Greetings! No, I haven't even been doing non-trivial careful reading or study, much less Zettelkasten or careful, structured note taking. I wish you success.