How do you handle interesting citations in sources you want to read?

Annabella

As part of the second step of the Barbell Method of reading, I read the citations I denoted as useful to me.

This poses a problem: Reminding myself to read those citations.

I've attempted the following:

• Add to my next actions list to add the citations to Zotero, then read them
• Tag the items in Zotero that contain interesting citations

I'm kind of unsatisfied with these approaches. Not sure why. Could be a problem with my workflow or that the approaches themselves are inappropriate.

What do you think?

emps

I mark citations as I read. When I finish the text as a whole, I remake them into more organized notes. While I do it, I reread them. I don't simply reread "notes alone" for the sake of it.
Text processing sometimes turns out to be kinda boring, since I often have to reread or reformat stuff several times before it turns out to be structured enough for me. But what can you do.

Annabella

@emps

@emps said:
I mark citations as I read.

Same. But my problem was remembering to look at the citations.

The good thing is that I eventually figured out a satisfying solution. I just do this:

@Dilan_Zelsky said:
Tag the items in Zotero that contain interesting citations.

Since I use Zotero to keep all my read and unread material, this approach works pretty damn well.

@emps said:
Text processing sometimes turns out to be kinda boring, since I often have to reread or reformat stuff several times before it turns out to be structured enough for me. But what can you do.

This sounds like a workflow problem to me. I felt the same way for a long time, but my workflow has improved a lot ever since. I'm starting to understand what they say about the Zettelkasten Method being fun. I'd look into that if I were you.

Sascha

If an article is cited I read it during the second reading. If it is a book or something longer or not useful to the project I am working on I copy the reference into my "research.org" which is basically a huge list of topics and research objects.

Annabella

@Sascha

Ooh I like that. Thank you for sharing your approach.

You got me interested in that "research.org." Is it like Christian Tietze's reading list as described in Note-taking when reading the web and rss but more broadly?

Sascha

To long to re-read.

It is just a single .org-File:

Annabella

@Sascha

@Sascha said:

To long to re-read.

Maybe I should've made a description of what I was referring to. Sorry!

Based on your image and description, it seems very different from the reading list.

Christian's list is a list of interesting online sources. E.g.: Stuff from RSS feeds, blog posts, and forum posts. The idea is to stay up to date.

Yours, on the other hand, is broader indeed. A list of topics. Under each topic, you list either things you want to do research about or relevant reading material. But, the texts or "research objects" aren't relevant to your current projects.

Please correct me if I got your list wrong!

Either way, I find it very useful. I too have topics that I want to learn more about. However, most aren't relevant to my current projects. They usually sit on my someday maybe list cluttering it.

Thank you for talking about the list!

Sascha

Yours, on the other hand, is broader indeed. A list of topics. Under each topic, you list either things you want to do research about or relevant reading material. But, the texts or "research objects" aren't relevant to your current projects.

Yes, but there is always a section for my current project.

Annabella

@Sascha said:

Yours, on the other hand, is broader indeed. A list of topics. Under each topic, you list either things you want to do research about or relevant reading material. But, the texts or "research objects" aren't relevant to your current projects.

Yes, but there is always a section for my current project.

Good to know. Thanks!