Using Zettelkasten for quickly revising a master's thesis
[[20220218133056]] Using Zettelkasten for quickly revising a master's thesis
CONTEXT
I have to re-submit a master's thesis which has been rejected with major revisions required and the longer I take to complete this, my degree extends further.
#Zettelkasten-method #cognitive-overload #quick-revision
I am relatively new to Zettelkasten (but have come across it earlier) and have just begun using Zettlr. I was trying to figure out whether for my use case, the method of Zettelkasten (which fascinates me) would be a good idea.
Previous experience suggests it is risky. I got hooked on Org-mode and Spacemacs spending time on setting it up when I had a deadline approaching. When I finally realised I was out of time, I quickly turned to drafting my work in Textedit (Mac) and polishing it up in Word for the final PDF submission. This was efficient given time crunch, familiarity with tools etc. and worked well for a shorter piece.
For (this) larger piece of writing (thesis) where arguments must be reworked and linkages made clear, Textedit workflows seem inferior, a bit non-existent/clunky and perhaps Zettelkasten+Zettlr can be a great aid given the nature of revisions required.
I am finding though that there is a high cognitive overload expended towards things like - is the file/folder tree structure logical and organised, is this the right way to write a Zettel, should I stick very stringently to a Zettel template offered by @ZettelDistraction, am I doing the linking right, tagging right, am I doing markdown aspects right (new to MD) so many doubts over I guess perfecting this system. Probably what led to this being my first attempt at a Zettel after much browsing through this forum, other forums/blogs like Zettlrs and so on, lots of delay. This is despite reading advice like this on not overthinking a first ZK note.
Two posts from this forum helped me so far - this first one on writing with deadlines but it was a bit for a more advanced application (journal manuscripts) and the author was already quite invested in using ZK. The second post on 6 months of thesis writing using ZK was more eye-opening and directly relatable. I realised I might have been somewhat mislead in hoping that the Zettelkasten method or Zettels themselves will kind of result in a quick final draft by mashing them together if I do the atomicised notes with enough clarity and proper process; no one else is directly responsible for this, it could be more of a case of wishful thinking and the second post may have helped correct some of that distortion.
In the long run, I'm quite sold on the idea of seeing emergence of ideas and building a ZK base and even on the idea that ideas from my thesis could contribute to that. In the short run, I can't afford to do what @Sociopoetic did and figure out to what extent it works through experience (@Sociopoetic also had the advantage of being already well-versed and had reasonably accurate tried and tested expectations to some degree of what the process could deliver). Finally, I can't afford to experiment because this would be the only chance to deliver the thesis with appropriate revisions - I need my system to work quickly and currently, it seems as if rather than getting me to revise and write ZK/Zettlr may be adding an extra layer making it even harder and lengthier than what can be afforded.
I also intend to ask perhaps more about Zettlr and its specific application in my use-case separately on their fora given my need for longform quick revision being used to more word processing UI's than Markdown.
Howdy, Stranger!
Comments
I'm not at all familiar with most of the situation, so I can't offer much help. For the things I have familiarity with, I'd like to give some nuggets.
You talk about struggling with choosing software. If you haven't already, I'd recommend reading this post: How to Program Yourself for Productivity and Stop Searching for the Ideal Software.
Also, consider writing short pieces of texts using what you have in your Zettelkasten. With your limited time, writing longer pieces or doing additional research may not be a good idea. But if you get some practice producing texts with the Zettelkasten, you'll be faster and have an easier time with the thesis. Besides, to have produced that first draft, you must have had Zettels in your Zettelkasten. And, you can't say you don't have time for other projects because you made time to make this post.
I'd like to say something about the cognitive load thing, but I know nothing about that. Perhaps @Will has something to say about the matter?
@Annabella thanks for your thoughts.
I would say I am not currently struggling on picking a tool/software per se as there was a very small list of tools that satisfied my criteria (I started the hunt with Logseq) - I felt I needed something where I could work with notes like I draft ideas in Textedit (Mac) but it also needed to be suitable to (re)write entire chapters in like a Word Processor.
This was important because in a previous experience, I climbed a bit of a steep learning curve semi-learning LaTeX for writing a grant proposal, finally got the thing done but it was too close to the deadline and couldn't use that draft because there was no time left for feedback and revision. There was some good in that little bit of LaTeX knowledge allowed me to do things like design posters in Overleaf much further down the line in a job profile but in terms of the grant at that moment it was more of a hinderance outcome-wise that had negative impacts.
So if you apply a FOSS criteria (important for me) and something which is mid-way between a word processor and complete WYSIWYM like LaTeX suited to long form writing there's only Zettlr basically. I am reasonably proficient with Zotero so this seems like a good academic workflow where there's less having to switch between apps and theoretically focus is all on writing and doing everything in one place. The app situation isn't the main concern that I was expressing, but thank you for the link on avoiding the trap of hunting for ideal software, read through it, and found myself agreeing with many parts of its underlying philosophy. It may be quite useful when I get urges to seek an optimal solution in terms of tools which does keep creeping up even now intermittently.
In terms of Zettelkasten and my current state of Zettels, perhaps I wasn't clear, I have literally one Zettel, my comment that started this discussion post which was my first attempt. My first thesis version (the one that needs major revisions to pass) was not produced with the remotest idea/application of Zettelkasten at least consciously (nor were the short pieces of writing/submissions mentioned before).
No idea the situation, by first thought is that if you've come this far, and have presented something already, just keep going. Don't try to impose zettelkasten on top of what you already have and are doing. Instead, finish this thesis to the best of your ability, and then when you're done, if ZK is still interesting to you, get in to it. Then, you can let your writing be "bottom-up" or "ZK-out" rather than imposing it onto something already in the works. Good luck!
Also, @Annabella you are becoming a great resource for digging up old posts. A human spaced repetition! Thanks for the link.
When you transform your notes into zettels, you are re-aligning the atoms so to speak in your brain. This step is absolutely useful for you, other than that you may not have enough time as you fear.
Maybe you could start producing zettels out of your rejected thesis. Treat the thesis as notes as per zk method. By zettelizing those, you will hopefully understand the weaknesses of your thesis better and be faster at improving the work.
At the same time you would produce your first bunch of zettels. Make sure you time and datestamp them. Then, after writing your new thesis, you could take the time to build your zk using this first bunch of zettels.
@taurusnoises I'd rather not be known as a resource of texts, but I'm glad you and scaked found the post helpful.
@scaked Got nothing else to say than good luck. And, please let us know about the progress, outcome, or both.
@Annabella Fair enough! You are not a good resource for great texts from the vault.
You are free to use it or or not, or to adapt it as you see fit. I think the description is overwritten. The checklist is superfluous.
I use Zettlr on Windows myself. Earlier today I figured out how I can use
Luhmann-like Folgezettel IDs with it. Timestamp IDs have become boring. I would rather see the spanning tree of notes as they were added to the graph encoded in the ID. Neither search nor the network visualization capability of Obsidian or Logseq provide this.
The Zettel IDs in Zettlr have to conform to a user-modifiable JavaScript-style regular expression (regex).
For Folgezttel I experimented with the regex:
(^z(\d+\w)+\d*). Examples:z0000is the ID of an indexz3ais the first of a series of notes on various windows troublesz3bis the second such noteA Zettel ID always starts with z, which is the third least frequently used letter of the alphabet in English. I avoided the underscore, because although this matches \w, it is a Markdown metacharacter.
I'm still not settled on this. IDs can be defined so that they combine the date with the soft categorization of Folgezettel. The regex could be
(20\d{2}[01]\d{3}\.(\d+\w)+\d*)In this scheme, the date and Folgezettel number components of an ID are separated by a period. This presents no problem for Zettlr. The scheme allows the date portion of the timestamp of an existing Zettel to be preserved. the Folgezttel component is added after. Also, the Folgezttel component is read from right to left.
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These are boring examples, but at least they give a compact encoding of the spanning tree of Zettels and an indication of their content...
The Folgezttel filenames will tend to get longer over time. This should not present a problem.
Some background on ID handling in Zettlr.
The default regular expression in Zettlr for IDs is (\d{14}). The fourteen digit identifier was probably chosen because it is unlikely to match something other than a Zettel ID when clicking on a wikilink, at least for most users. Zettlr scans markdown files for the first occurrence of a string matching the Zettel ID regex and considers this to be the ID of the file. If the ID is also the name of the file, Zettlr will open it. For that reason it's a good idea to place the ID at the beginning, or at the first H1 level heading, so that Zettlr can identify the file.
Another point: if you change the regex, the new regex shouldn't be something that will have many matches in many files. This will make the new system unusable. Section and subsection numbers are unusable, generally speaking.
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GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.
I second this advice. Being in the process of writing your master's thesis is not the right time to incorporate the Zettelkasten Method, neither in total, nor just some of its principles. Your main objective is writing the master's thesis and trying to make the ZKM work for your detracts form your main objective. Making the ZKM work for you right now would mean to use your master's thesis as a tool for learning and adapting the ZKM. That would flip the whole thing upside-down since the ZKM should be the tool for something else. Not an end in itself unless you want to make it a hobby.
I am a Zettler
Very much seconded. Well put!
Thirded. On another note, I abandoned my ID experiment due to inanition--it isn't worth the effort to switch from timestamps to Folgezettel in Zettlr. This means relying on search to link adjacent notes.
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.
@ZettelDistraction you will be sorely missed. But, know that I will personally make sure you are forever on the guest list to any parties we throw.
With time, links and structure notes can take over.
I am a Zettler
I use links all the time, but I am holding out against structure notes. If I need an outline with links to other notes, then and only then. But prematurely injecting inorganic wart-like non-zettels into the graph is verboten.
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.
img1
I am a Zettler
(6) verboten
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.
@Sascha Ich habe kein Problem damit, jedem Körperteil des vitruvianischen Homunkulus eine Verknüpfung zuzuweisen. It's cute, actually. I don't know what Arete means here. Does this mean a range of motion?
Of course there are uses for "structure notes" in this wider sense. I am postponing their use until I have a pressing need.
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arete
I am a Zettler
Thanks for that link. It fills in a gap in my education that is welcome.
I've often thought of Jesus' injunction from Matthew 5:48: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”. It used to bother me quite a bit. Then someone mentioned that the word "perfect" in that statement was translated from a Greek word "teleios", meaning "complete, sound, whole, having integrity". That seems tied into the concept of Arete, as explained in the Wikipedia link. Apparently the apostle Paul thought that we should develop both excellence (arete) and "perfection" (teleios). It's given an unknown number of Christians a headache while thinking about this concept, until they dig a bit deeper into the meaning of the original (Greek) words.
@ZettelDistraction Oh, I am sorry. I overread "here". It felt strange to think of you not knowing arete.
Here, Arete cannot clearly defined or better. I am not able yet to clearly define. Take the the spine for example: There are three main aspects of the spine:
The Arete of the spine is to be found if you develop each quality to a high degree.
There are some evolutionary reasons for it since our spine is still aquatic yet adapted to the land.
The theory is that by developing the Arete of the spine you get superior qualities to health and functionality while sacrificing minor peaks in each special area. (Basically 1/10/1 if you are a powerlifter but as a generalist having a 8/8/8 spine)
@GeoEng51 I am guilty of this exact mistake.
All to often, I forget to look up the original word in greek or hebrew.
I am a Zettler
Ido goin grey. Welcome to the club, Ido.
Hi All, thanks for all your responses, I'll try to go in their order
@taurusnoises thanks for initiating the very sound advice on not imposing ZK on my thesis and get into it further down the line when this kind of thing isn't on the line.
@Perikles, it was fun to think of this idea of decomposing/deconstructing my thesis into Zettels, but it would be way too time consuming, still fun to imagine haha!
@ZettelDistraction thanks for pointing out that the Zettel template can be considered overkill with a flexible choice to implement or not and to what extent.
@Sascha I really appreciate what you said here and especially the way you said it. Also the first part of your post was a good reminder of the main objective.
Apart from this I have some fuzzy idea about folgezettel but most of it went over my head and following all this, the meanderings into Arete etc. totally lost me on all that given initial topic.
Goes without saying that I appreciate all of you that reinforced what @taurusnoises initially said.
@Annabella speaking of (sort of) progress -
I think what I am currently doing is simply to get comfortable drafting directions (for revision), writing notes and then eventually drafting arguments and re-worked chapters, all of these steps and later requirements within a plain text environment through Zettlr (used with Zotero of course for the citation aspects).
My current objective and approach is to do a lot of notes, think, write and draft a revised thesis all within Zettlr in the most low friction way possible. Whenever I get frustrated with aspects of the tool I just find an easy way around without spending too long. For this to work well for me personally I had to mimc some aspects of Zettlr to look like Textedit i.e. like a barebones RTF writing environment but actually markdown, this removed quite some anxieties so far and I might make a separate post on that (reducing friction) sometime. Hopefully this continues to work well, will try to update down the line how it goes if it is of interest.
Thanks again everyone for chipping in with your thoughts
and feel free to keep this conversation flowing! (Who knows maybe it helps some other poor soul down the line anxious contemplating ZK and a thesis)
Glad to have helped, @scaked
Good luck with revisions, @scaked! That's a very hard step.
I used my ZK to write my own thesis recently and I wrote about it here.
As others have said, implementing ZKM now may not help revise. But it will help you understand your own thinking and research when you do feed your thesis into your ZK.
@scaked Bon voyage!