Cardcraft And Atomicity
In a comment, @harr asked
@tomp said:
I'm mostly interesting in moving away from paying too much attention to whether a note is "sufficiently atomic" and thinking instead of what the note is supposed to be for, and crafting it so that it promotes that purpose in a helpful way.
(…)
I think the focus should be on cardcraft and not atomicity. Realizing that a card is usually best when it is about one subject is part of cardcraft; but it's only one part.Interesting topic. Would you mind starting a new thread, so that we can chime in?
Happy to oblige. By cardcraft, I mean all kinds of techniques to make a z-card effective. So what makes for an effective z-card? To some extent it depends on what one wants the card to do. I think that a card should generally be about one subject, but whether that is the same as "atomic" is another question. Let's not get into that here - for now, let's just say that the card should usually be about a single subject without being too particular about what that means.
Why does a card exist? I have cards that remind me of the right syntax for a computer command. Useful but not very exciting. The main thing I want from them is that I can find them when I need them. That, at least in my system, is mostly about the title. I also want to be able to find the actual command easily when I scan the card.
The purpose of a card might be to comment on a quotation, to collect a number of sources about a subject, to capture one's speculations about "consciousness", to be part of a chapter for a book, to keep the correct citation form for some published work, to act as a structure card, just to name a few. I want my cards to help me pick up the card's purpose.
For this discussion, I created a mind map to help me work out the things I wanted to write about. I put a link for it into a card. Actually, I put a link to both the mind map and its .png image file. I can open either one with a click. That way I don't need to go fussing around trying to find the right file. There is no computer machinery to get in my way.
As usually happens, working on the mind map got my mind associating and I kept thinking of things to include. As I wrote, some of the points made their way back to the mind map. By now there is too much material for this post and I will have to cover some of it once over lightly. Here is an image of that mind map.
Of all the branches in the mind map, all the ways in which a card can be tuned up for its purpose, note how there is only one related to the subject (the "aboutness") of the card; or two if you include the title. The aboutness is important, no doubt about that, but it's only one of many things involved in making a card that can sing to you.
Let me just talk about a few of the elements. Refresh means to recreate the mental state or "scene" which was active when that card was created. That scene will naturally depend on the card's purpose. All the elements aren't needed for every purpose.
"Cache" means to save for later use, a time when one will come back to the work. The idea is that one's mental scene will get refreshed by the card. Any z-card can only be a flattened and compressed version of one's thoughts, so it is worth while to work on adding some depth with the aim of having the card un-compress and un-flatten in the mind when one returns to it.
By typography I mean mostly boldface and italics, though if the ZK system supports more, great.
The branch labeled title refers to working up a title that will help the user to find the card, and to serve as a reminder in itself as to what the card is about.
Spreads means spreads of multiple cards, images, etc., across a screen as if they were actual physical cards and photos. A card can be a multimedia hub. It helps to have a second monitor but even with just a single monitor one can put up a small spread. Right now I have the image of the mind map up on my second monitor. I have been looking back and forth at it as I write.
Every card does not need all these elements. But many will benefit from some of them. Even if you only pay attention to the title, physical, and cognitive principles branches you will have nine ways to enrich your cards.
To Illustrate, here is a side-by-side view of a card with the basic content of the mind map as an indented list (I can copy-paste this directly from the mind map editor). It is contrasted with a crafted version, shown in a rendered view. Which one speaks more vividly to you?
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Comments
@tomp, I have a couple of suggestions for improvement of your framework here.
First, if this framework is for your personal use, then it may be sufficient, but if it's for general use, then the variety of systems of knowledge organization could be expanded beyond what you call topics. See, for example, the various figures in the third section of Maria Teresa Biagetti's article on "Ontologies as knowledge organization systems" (which are not exhaustive). This point is particularly obvious to me because my own note system is not organized by topic. In a topic-based knowledge system, a topic could be atomic, but other systems of knowledge organization could have other types of atoms or knowledge building blocks.
Second, I think physical is not the best label for that category; what you are referring to (typography, layout, etc.) is more precisely user interface design or graphic design. What you call spreads would also be part of this category. I'm reminded of the user interface category in the analytical framework in Davies et al. (2005) (full citation in the footnote here and previously mentioned here):
1.1. Structural framework
1.2. Knowledge elements
1.3. Schema, or formal semantics
Cardcraft (Zettelhandwerk?) is a nice term, but if we take into consideration all of the elements from Davies et al., we're dealing with personal knowledge system craft (Zettelkastenhandwerk?) instead of just cardcraft.