All notes are malleable: Strive for permanently useful notes, not permanently unchanging notes
All notes are malleable: Strive for permanently useful notes, not permanently unchanging notes
A Zettelkasten is a personal tool for thinking and writing that creates an interconnected web of thought. Its emphasis is on connection and not mere collection of ideas.
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I'm sorry, but I came looking for the answer for a very similar question and this response didn't answer it at all.
There's a reason why there are "literature notes" and "permanent notes." This tells me to forget that and just call them all "notes." So there's no difference? Why would this method even bother defining two types of notes?
"This" method is not a monolyth.
Those terms are introduced by Sönke Ahrens in his book "How to Take Smart Notes". We, Christian and I, don't use those terms.
I am a Zettler
That's an important point. We get wrapped up around specific terms introduced in a single text.
That said, there was a post on reddit earlier from someone who needs an easy and clear distinction between three "types" of notes due to their specific academic needs:
Given their specific academia-related problem I don't think a simple "ignore note types" approach suffices. They need that distinction so they can keep the material straight while they do their analytical work. Regardless of what the "types" of notes are called.
@davecan
Good example; clearly people will need to make distinctions on different kinds of notes depending on how they are using their Zettelkasten and what its purpose is.
It's also clear that there's no particular meaning to the terms people use for different kinds of notes - the term means whatever the person using it thinks it means. Another reason for not getting too semantically obsessive on the forum. It would help, when people ask questions about note types in the forum, to not assume everyone knows what they are talking about and perhaps define their own useage.
So, I guess this terminology - permanent note - comes from the paper based Zettelkasten used by Luhmann. In a software based environment it is very easy to modify your notes as much as you like. However, Luhmann would need to create new cards in order to add new insights over an existing stream of thoughts. I guess this is an important benefit of the software based slip-box over the paper based slip-box.
No. It comes from the interpretation of Ahrens on what is part of the Zettelkasten Method and what is idiosyncratic to him.
I am a Zettler
Interesting @Sascha - what, if anything, did Luhmann call 'permanent notes'? Just, well, notes?
It really seems to me that, when "Sascha and I (Christian...), do not distinguish between “literature note” and “permanent note” in the context of a Zettelkasten," Sascha and Christian refer "Zettelkasten" as a methodology, where linked notes must be original and of your thoughts and knowledge. However, when Will mentioned that notes are Bayesian, they take "Zettelkasten" as a tool, where you need information to support your notes. Thus, it is okay to incorporate some dry information in your Zettelkasten, like exported highlights from your readings, and those notes should be distinguished, either mentally or by tags.
The contrast of whether "information" should be included in your Zettelkasten is quite debatable. And, in fact, quote from Sönke Ahrens How to Take Smart Notes, "Luhmann had two slip-boxes: a bibliographical one, which contained the references and brief notes on the content of the literature, and the main one in which he collected and generated his ideas, mainly in response to what he read." If Luhmann also put bibliographical notes as references and put contents of the source, which is of information but not entirely of thoughts, it really seems like "informational notes" can/should also be included in the Zettelkasten.
I think in the digital age, it is important to know that tools can incorporate a lot of practices. You can use a software to practice the Zettelkasten method, but other non-Zettelkasten notes can also be incorporated in that software as well. Therefore, it's worth to ask the following question: should "literature note" (which is mostly about information but not knowledge) be the part of the Zettelkasten? If they should even not be in the part of the Zettelkasten, the discussion of whether notes should be categorized by "literature" or "permanent" seems to be in vain, and there are no pure software to practice Zettelkasten because sometimes you put information in your software.
I'm not a purist about these definitions. I've always thought that "a zettel is a zettel is a zettel", and not worried about whether it contained this or that content. I just attempt to limit each zettel to one idea (although I defined "one" in a fuzzy manner), tag it, link it (multiple times) and ensure all external references are well-defined.
In my own model, literature and permanent (I prefer other terms, but this doesn't matter too much...) are roles into two different stages of a process, rather than types of content.
A note that contains a quantity of supporting "informations" (or facts, or other things) but that is created with the purpose of represent a puzzle piece of my long term internalized knowledge is a zettel too.
Many of my literature notes contain many ideas (extracted by an article, or emergent from my mind when I read it), not necessarily only neutral information, but remain literature notes.
In a second moment I build zettels from literature notes, rather than partitioning contents betwen literatures and zettels.
It's my own model, of course. In these aspects there are are as many different visions as there are authors of a zettelkasten. I have very different views of literature and permanent notes.
I don't feel comfortable with close adhesion to the many proposals found around, so I've developed and tailored my own.
oh yes, and even "idea" can be defined in a fuzzy manner