Explicit forms?
In Saschas blog post How to Write a Note That You Will Actually Understand he argues for some general rules for writing zettels. One of the key things he argues for is the use of explicit forms. Explicit forms are a form of templates that's used for different zettels.
I searched on Google with the search terms explicit form site:forum.zettelkasten.de and form site:forum.zettelkasten.de. I went through the first page of results for the former, and the first and second page for the later. But I couldn't find any discussions about explicit forms. There isn't even any comment on the original blog post!
Why aren't people discussing and asking questions about explicit forms? They feel like a very fundamental part of zettels. Is this because templates are a very simple concept to grock, and nobody need to ask questions about them. Or is it because people simply haven't read the article, and therefore explicit forms isn't used by zettlers (or whatever we call ourselves)?
If one should use explicit forms, here is some question that I've tried to find some answers to.
- Should I explicitly say in a zettel what explicit form I use? I'm thinking of maybe including what explicit form(s) I'm using in the YAML metadata, or linking to the zettel specifying the template.
- The explicit form for debates described in the blog post seem very similar to a structure note that links to all the arguments for and against a claim. Is there a difference, or is it simply because structure notes where invented after the article was posted back in 2014?
- Finally I'm wondering how does the explicit forms fit in with the tree levels discussed in the blog post Three Layers of Evidence? Explicit forms could easily be adopted for the phenomena level. But the interpretation and synthesis levels could be hard to fit into a standard template, because they are by definition unconstrained reflections on the phenomena.
Hope I've made my thoughts clear!
Howdy, Stranger!