Definitions in Literature Note vs. Zettel Note
I am a PhD student and often the papers I review have formal definitions (Computing & Maths). I figure it will be useful to keep these definitions in my notes for quick reference without having to go back to a textbook when I want to reference them. As far as I can figure there are two possible ways to integrate this goal into the Zettelkasten method:
- Define in Zettel, reference Literature
This is the approach seemingly taken here[^1] where the Zettel notes contain the mathematical definition in its entirety and then may hold links to other relevant definitions and perhaps the piece of literature it was extracted from. This method is useful for:
- Linking to specific definitions from other Zettel notes
- Quick, simple reading of a specific definition (atomicity)
- Reading in parts (you don't have to update the Literature note, just add more Zettel notes)
The main problem I see with this approach is it seems to violate the spirit of the Zettel notes being (1) your own ideas, (2) not just exact quotes from a piece of literature you have read, and (3) you may end up filling what is supposed to be your vault of your ideas with other people's definitions.
- Define in Literature
The second approach I could imagine is keeping all the definitions extracted from, say, a textbook in the Literature note for that book. This perhaps keeps more in the spirit of how I understand the Literature vs. Zettel note split to be. The idea being that exact quotations (which definitions are by technicality) should go in the Literature note, that is what it is for! But then it becomes harder to reference specific definitions, and in the case of a textbook, you may end up with an enormous Literature note filled with 10s if not 100s of definitions, which may be difficult to reference.
Please experienced zettler's, give me guidance! How have you/would you handle(d) this?
Howdy, Stranger!
Comments
In your case that is not a bad thing. Don't you want to access other people's definitions? :-)
Agree. It makes sense conceptually. And it is a fast method to capture material for future reference.
I consider bibliographical/literature/reading/source notes an integral part of the Zettelkasten. I find extensive quotations and excerpts very useful. (Others see it differently.)
Not necessarily.
Should you need to reference a particular definition, you could move it to the zettel, where you need it.
Should you need to reference dozens of definitions, then you have a different situation. I wouldn't optimize for a use case, that isn't clear yet.
For now, when you just want to make the definitions accessible in your Zettelkasten, I'd simply copy them to the source note.
In my experience long notes aren't a problem, if you use software that handles them well (which is pretty much every contemporary software) and if you find a system to structure them with headings, bullet lists and blockquotes.
Thank you @harr that really helps me clear up my thoughts on it. Appreciate the guidance, I have done a trial run with some study doing option 2 and it seems to work well!
Keep in mind that the concept of literature notes and their difference to so-called permanent notes (as Sönke Ahrens called them originally) is not based on systematic construction, but on the historical record of what Luhmann actually practiced.
The widespread adoption of these terms as something quickly to grasp led to the following chinese whisper chain: "Luhmann did this." -> "This is how it is done in the Zettelkasten Method." -> "This is how it should be done."
For a counter position: I see taking literature notes as a standard workflow step as wasteful. I, myself, rarely take them, and almost everything that I process comes directly from the original source.
I highly recommend the first approach, especially for your subject. The more formal the material is, the better the first approach is suited because the difference between so-called "your ideas" and "other people's ideas" doesn't even make sense if you go all the way. How would you put basic proofs in your "own" words?
Of these, I think (1) and (2) are not well-justified. The mechanics of the lack of justification are what I lined out above.
(3) seems like a conclusion to me. This points in the right direction:
Don't think of your Zettelkasten as something that should follow a specific procedure. First, ask yourself what specific tools and constructs you want to build to support your work. Then you aim to build these structures. If exact quotes are useful or essential parts, you should or even have to use them to bring into being what you want.
I am a Zettler
I would add here that the distinction between "permanent" and "literature" notes as "your thoughts" and "thoughts of others" was introduced by Sönke Ahrens, not Luhmann. If you look into Luhmann's archive, you will quickly find many lengthy quotations in the main part of his Zettelkasten, and his bibliographic notes weren't restricted to "just retelling" but contained Luhmann's own remarks on what he read as well. For Luhmann this distinction was purely formal. Whether he would write bibliographic notes or cite the book/article directly in the main part of the Zettelkasten (many bibliographic entries don't contain any notes at all) depended on what was more convenient for him at the given moment.
Yes, good add.
This is interpretation at this point. Could be, could be otherwise.
I am a Zettler
In Ahrens's system both notes are permanent. He writes 2022 in chapter 6 of the 2nd edition of How to take smart notes (emphasis mine):
Both note types are permanent, but they are stored in different places. One in stored in the "reference system". The other is stored in the "slip-box" (which reminds me of Sascha's distinction between Zettelkasten and "actual Zettelkasten".).
I think the confusion arose, because Ahrens uses the term "permanent note" ambiguously, eg in the same paragraph:
In much of the Zettelkasten conversation "permanent notes" has became a synonym for "main notes". Ahrens' however introduced the term "permanent notes" to distinguish notes by life-span. Only a few notes are permanent, the rest are "fleeting notes" or "project notes".
To be more precise, it's based on Ahrens' interpretation of Luhmann's practice. Ahrens writes in chapter 1.3:
Ahrens might have oversimplified Luhmann's practice. :-)
Thanks for stating the counter position so clearly!
As a possible counter-counter position, I'd like to refer to Umberto Eco, who explicitly recommends taking reading notes (Chapter 4.2.3 in the 2015 english edition of How to write a thesis):
Interesting question!
My smart machine translates Luhmann's recommendation "strikte Trennung eigenen und fremden Gedankenguts" as "strict separation of one’s own and others’ intellectual content" or even "intellectual property".
Unless you had an original idea on your own, you've got the idea from someone else. In subject areas like maths and philosophy, with thousands of years of history, you're most likely standing on the shoulder of giants.
Even basic proofs in mathematics have a history. Someone discovered/invented/devoloped them. Someone rewrote them. Someone passed them on to you.
There are many way's how you could attempt your own wording (Luhmann: "eigene Formulierungen versuchen"). You could explain it in actual words. You could draw charts. You could use a formal notation.
At the end of the process your proof might look like something you might find in a textbook or like something very personal. It doesn't change the fact that you used your own words to capture someone else's idea. (This is a different process than copy-and-pasting excerpts into reading notes for future reference. Personally I combine both.)
Yes! For example as in ZK I 57,7c2 with a combination of literal quote and personal comments.
No. Luhmann explicitly distinguished between own thoughts and thoughts of others (see previous post). And Luhmann had a distinct section in his Zettelkasten for bibliographical notes.
That part is pretty much standard stuff in most sciences. You keep track of (potential) sources with a bibliography (today maybe with Zotero). And you properly credit your sources.
Yes, because this is also pretty much standard procedure for most scientific work.
Ahrens (2022) recommends what many teachers in academia recommend: rewriting as a tool for better understanding. It's good advice for people who copy-paste quotes instead of reading and processing them. Ahrens gives examples where literal quotes are useful.
I don't know, at what point the sound advice "try to rewrite in your own words" became the absurd dogma "you must not quote, ever".
Not sure, what you mean by that. His bibliographical notes contained mostly boring bibliographical data.
The interesting part is that some also contained short reading notes. (Personally, I think that's a rather obvious location to keep those notes, if you want to find them later. :-) For that reason I don't distinguish between bibliographical notes and reading notes in my own notes.)
I don't know what Luhmann was thinking. Looking at my own notes, I can relate. I don't create bibliographical notes for every reference either.
In section V. 3) of the above mentioned talk, Luhmann gives advice on how to deal with bibliographical notes and references in text (machine translation):
Personally I prefer Eco's advice in How to write a thesis (2015):
This interpretation seems pretty obvious to me based on everything I said before it in my post, but oh well.
I know that he distinguished between his own thoughts and thoughts of others by specifying the source when there was one. What I meant to say was that this distinction was not tied to a specific area of his Zettelkasten or a specific type of note.
What you call reading notes here is what I meant by "bibliographic notes" in my post. We think the same thing.
I don't see what you tried to tell me in the other parts of your post, to be honest. It sounds as if you assume I know nothing about Luhmann's bibliography, which is not the case.
I guess I may contribute something else to the discussion if I mention that Luhmann
1) sometimes marked those bibliographic (or reading) notes that he already processed,
2) wrote "Lit" in a note for a page of the book where he (presumably) found some interesting bibliographical data,
3) could write multiple notes for a single page,
4) used "f." and "ff." abbreviations after page numbers to write notes about multiple pages (I took note of this technique but I personally use two page numbers with a hyphen, e.g. "1-3" for a note about pages 1 to 3).
A permanent note is a specific term based on the English translation of Sönke Ahrens. It is a technicus terminus not general term for notes that is permanently stored. In German, there are different words for "permanent" (e.g. "permanent", "dauerhaft").
This translation issues are part of the confusion.
I can live with the notion that arises with the use of the same word as part of the natural language and termini technici.
My copy of Ahrens' book is vacant. So, I can't provide exact quotes.
Luhmann showed the practice in Beobachter im Krähennest. Reading (in library) -> Literature Note -> Zettelkasten note (avoiding the confusion).
Eco wrote his book in the 70s. Bibliographical work was a nightmare compared today. Today, most of the work is mostly automated via software.
There are specific benefits to specific practices in specific cases. In German, exzerpieren is not identical with excerpting in English. In university, I learned it as a specific practice of creating writing and research tools that (optimally) make the original source obsolete, but also create a bridge from the source to your own work. It was especially useful in history. (I learned it also in this context)
But breaking down the individual components and the mechanisms by which they elicit specific (hopefully beneficial) effects, you can remove a lot and therefore save valuable time and mental energy.
The emphasis of my position is as standard practice. I still create excerpts. But rarely and only for specific use cases.
I am a Zettler
Makes sense. I thought you meant something else.
We don't. :-)
My reply is about the difference between bibliographical notes and reading notes.
The bibliographical notes capture bibliographical data. Luhmann's bibliographical notes in ZK II work like Eco's bibliographical notes. One note per book. Alphabetic order. Basic bibliographic data. Sometimes library numbers.
Eco had a separate box for reading notes with extra large cards. Luhmann wrote his very short reading notes on the back of the same card that contains the bibliographical note.
Take the famous Lucinde card for example. The front side contains the bibliographical data, the reverse side contains the reading notes.
I'm trying to compare apples with apples. Luhmann's paper bibliography with Eco's paper bibliography.
I can help you out. This is from the Das Zettelkasten-Prinzip (2017):
Note the two headings: "Dauerhafte Notizen: Lektüre" and "Dauerhafte Notizen: Zettel". Note the first sentence of 6.2: "Man kann zwei Arten von dauerhaften Notizen unterscheiden". There are two different kinds of permanent notes.
The German version has the same ambiguity with the word "Zettel" as the English version with "permanent note". It can refer to both, literature notes notes and the notes in the slip-box.
In English I prefer terms like "main note" or "point note" to "permanent note", because they avoid the ambiguity. Personally I like the word zettels, because it looks and sounds fun. :-)
On the other hand, Ahrens distinguishes clearly between bibliographical notes and reading notes. Luhmann wrote the permanent reading notes on the back of the bibliographical notes.
OPs question was about reading notes.
My approach is to use the same file for bibliographical data and reading notes. I like to keep those "source notes" together with zettels and other notes in the same digital tool, because it allows me to link between all kinds of notes.
Others use a reference manager like Zotero to manage bibliographical data. This still leaves various options for reading notes, eg in the reference manager, in a separate note-taking tool or in the zettelkasten.
Some don't write any literature notes at all, because they write their thoughts either directly in the book or on a zettel.
Luhmann did not write in books. He wrote (very short) reading notes and zettels.
Thanks for clarifying your position.
We do. I took my term "bibliographic notes" from Scott Scheper (he shortened it to "bib notes"), see his explanation here. It is literally the same thing you mean by "reading notes".
Please stop trying to explain to me something that I already know. We just call these things differently.
You are correct that what I call "reading notes" is similar to what Scheper calls "bib notes". Unlike Scheper I consider "reading notes" to be free in form and size.
In the video we see Scheper explain his terminology. "Bib cards" are the cards you find in the "bibliographical box" or "bib box". They contain "bibliographical info of the book" on the front side and "bib notes" on the reverse side.
The misunderstanding is that I use "bibliographical note" in a strict sense, ie only for the part of the card with the bibliographical data.
In Luhmann's and Scheper's Zettelkasten, bibliographical notes and reading notes are written on front and back of the same card. In other systems, like Eco's, they are kept separately.
The terminology for writing notes about literature is a mess.
Then this is not a possible counter-counter-position.
It doesn't seem to be the same ambiguity if the Zettelkasten notes are called Zettel and the other notes "Lektürenotizen" usw.
"Zettel" still will be both part of the technical terms and the everyday language and I'd be surprised if he'd keep the artificial separation consistent over the entire book.
I am a Zettler
Clarifying the counter-counter position. First
Then
Then
The counter counter position is about taking reading notes, not about capturing bibliographical data. (Eco uses a different sets of cards for that.)
The countering positions:
I think that much of the confusion here is about the difference between bibliographical records (aka bibliographical notes) and reading notes (aka Lektürenotizen, Lektüreextrakte). They serve different purposes.
As another counter-counter position, I'd like to refer to Niklas Luhmann. ZK II captures bibliographical records and reading notes on the same set of cards, but he keeps them visually and conceptually separated. Here are two quotes from the 1997 Interview Die Realität der Massenmedien (machine translation, emphasis added):
Taking notes while reading was ok for Luhmann. Keeping them permanently in the same big wooden boxes as the other notes was also ok for Luhmann.
I consider my approach to such notes very Luhmannesque. :-)
I keep bibliographical records and reading notes in the same file. Bibliographical data is captured as structured data on top of the file. Reading notes follow below, without restrictions on form or length. (I don't use page numbers, because I work mostly with digital sources, that don't have page numbers.) Both are stored permanently.
You explicitly wrote:
I don't get what role the "paperness" does play here.
I am a Zettler
Both researchers solved the same problem with the same tool: standard-sized pieces of paper in a box.
Paper has different technical constraints than digital tools. We can only speculate how they would have managed their bibliographies with digital tools.
I don't use paper (as you know?) and you don't use paper (as I remember that you use Obsidian).
So, how does the paperness connect to the overall line of thought and exchange?
I am a Zettler
Comparing oranges with oranges is fine with me. Oranges are the digital systems you and I use.
I just don't like to compare apples with oranges. Apples are the paper systems used by Luhmann and Eco and countless other researchers back in the day. Apples are the paper systems used by contemporary zettlers like Scott Scheper or Victoria Crowder.
Short answer: Index cards and digital hypertext have different capabilities. Some solutions for a design problem work well with index cards. Others are only possible in digital hypertext. When you analyze historical paper-based systems you should be aware of the constraints of paperness. When you design digital hypertext you should let go of the constraints of paperness.
Long answer: The original post asked about writing literature notes for books in a digital system.
a) In my opinion it is a good idea to write "reading notes" for a book. I'm arguing that reading notes do have a place in a Zettelkasten. I'm pointing to Sönke Ahrens's and Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkastens as examples.
I'm comparing Luhmann's bibliographical notes with Eco's bibliographical notes, because they use the same medium. They are similar in how they capture bibliographical data. They are different in how they handle reading notes. The point was to show, that Luhmann himself kept reading notes in his Zettelkasten. So if reading note are ok for Luhmann, they should be ok for any Luhmannian Zettelkasten.
Paperness matters here, because when we talk about Luhmann, we talk about paper. Luhmann didn't have a digital Zettelkasten. His Zettelkasten was made of paper. So the reference for Luhmannian workflows is paper.
b) Another topic of this thread is how you justify your break with Luhmann's workflow.
You say that we should ignore Luhmann's and Eco's example and not take reading notes, because "I, myself, rarely take them". That's not much of an argument. Why exactly should we follow your example and not theirs?
You're switching from apples to oranges, when you make the technological argument against bibliographical notes, that today "most of the work is mostly automated via software." I would counter with the technological argument in favor of reading notes, that a digital Zettelkasten has enough space for long messy notes. I'd argue that digital tools have capabilites that make it easy to edit, navigate and search such notes.
Of course digital tools allow for different designs than paper index cards. That's why I was comparing Luhmann's index card system with another index card system and not with a digital system.
c) Atomicity might be the actual issue.
You argue that "the difference between so-called 'your ideas' and 'other people's ideas' doesn't even make sense if you go all the way". Why exactly doesn't make that sense? It might not make sense to you, but it makes sense to many other people.
If I wanted to steelman your argument, I'd start with your premise and work from there:
My counter-arguments would be that
Who says that one note should only contain one atom? Why not think of a reading note as a collection of possible atoms? If you don't keep the reading note in a separate system, but in the actual Zettelkasten together with the zettels, you can link from and to these atoms while they are (still?) in a reading note.
d) Back to paperness: what if the principle "one atom, one note" is a relic from paperness? What if it is an obsolete constraint carried over from an obsolete technology?
When you work with paper index cards you want to keep your notes short, because the space on paper is limited. You want to keep atoms on individual cards, because they are easier to rearrange/link/address/reference.
Whereas digital hypertext makes it easy to access text anywhere in a long document. You can directly link to subsections of a long document. (An example is the link above, that uses text fragments in HTML to jump to a particular part of a text and highlight it. In Markdown you can easily address headings and subheadings within a note.) If you prefer full-text search (or links-as-search) in Markdown notes, the length of a note is practically irrelevant.
So why structure knowledge in digital hypertext, as if we were still using paper index cards?
e) Back to the original post and oranges: What is gained, when we banish reading notes from our digital Zettelkastens?
"One atom, one note" is not characteristic of every paper notetaking system. Luhmann himself didn't have this rule. Also, from my experience making long notes that span multiple cards doesn't make referencing them difficult. On the contrary, it is easy to reference some specific place of a long text when the text is split into pieces which you can reference separately. Consider the Bible, for example: it has a system which allows you to reference specific verses, but these verses are still parts of long texts.
Good points.
I should have added more context: "one atom, one note" refers to Sascha's definition of atomicity. In particular to "an atomic note is a note that contains exactly one knowledge building block".
Thanks for the Bible as example. I agree that you can have long paper documents and reference individual sections, if you have a good system in place. I would use this as an argument that there are plenty of historical examples, where small units of text can be addressed precisely within a longer document.
Paperness was only referring to the paperness of index cards in particular. How is a paper index card different from a digital note?
I'm aware that Luhmann's notes can span multiple cards. But I didn't want to trigger another round of Great Folgezettel Debate. :-)
Here I'm trying to say that even if we accept atomicity as an ideal, we don't need the "one atom, one note" rule. The rule makes a lot of sense for practical reasons, if we organize atomic notes on index cards. But why should we keep it when we write digital notes?
Reading notes only break the principle of atomicity, when atomicity relies on the "one atom, one note" rule. But if the actual goal of atomicity is to identify knowledge building blocks, reading notes can be a very useful tool to achieve atomicity.
W.r.t. an "one atom, one note" rule, I personally agree that it's good to regard this as an ideal but not as a hard rule. It's important to be pragmatic and work incrementally towards that ideal.
That said, personally, it greatly helps me if my notes are kept small and only contain just one "thought" (idea / statement / knowledge bit / building block / ...). For each of these "thoughts" I want to:
For me, all of this gets much easier (or is only possible) when I keep my notes small.
And while it's true that some tools allow you to directly link to (sub)headings or blocks, or show just the found text in full text search results, this greatly depends on the used tool and as such would make me more dependent on a particular tool. Also, adding individual keywords & comments is only really feasible with individual notes (otherwise it gets too messy).
If we are looking for tools to help us with the process, IMO we should not look for tools that ease dealing with larger chunks of text but instead we should look for tools that can combine again smaller individual notes in smart ways. E.g., selecting multiple notes would dynamically merge these and display them together so that you can view, edit & export them as a whole (think "Scrivenings" mode). Or, as another example, have the tool offer sound support for transclusion so that you can easily include notes (or certain parts of them) within other notes. In general, I think that we should strive for tools that can help us keep our notes small and focussed.
In my experience this works well, if you figure out a good way to structure long notes.
In my experience there's much more text editing software available, that can view, search and edit one big file, than tools hat can combine/transclude/arrange many small text files in a meaningful way.
Another thing that should work is a relational database. The notes don't have to be "atomic" or small. The trick is database normalization.
Looks like a specification for a database to me. :-)
In the main table "thoughts" each record has the following fields:
An additional table "lists" would store the lists:
Search and Filter functionality:
You could store all your info in plain text files that use some data format for structured data, eg YAML. You'd need some kind of connector/importer that makes them accessible for your database.
The technology to manage such a database has been around at least since the 1970s.
Today offline tools like Obsidian do much of the database stuff invisibly in the background. In Obsidian you can query your Markdown files like database records, if you use YAML frontmatter.
Thinking about it, the ability to query notes like a database is actually a strong argument in favor of small notes.
Actually many historical card indexes work very similar to relational databases. Hmm.
If you don't mind proprietary tools that keep all the data on a server, there's a lot of choice out there. My favorite Zettelkasten blogger Morgan Eua seems to have switched to Scrintal.
Which brings us back to constraints imposed by technology. A plain text editor is enough to edit your files and maybe do simple searches. But you need other tools for the features you want. The good news: such tools exist.
BTW, none of these considerations have anything to do with Sascha's concept of atomicity. His starting point isn't technology, but the content of a note.
Returning from our excursion to databases, I'd like to emphasize that atomicity of zettels isn't the issue here.
The question is if we should also allow messy reading notes in our zettelkasten. I say yes, Sascha says no.
Apologies if this was derailing from the main thread too much. I just wanted to point out why short focussed notes can still be very useful with a digital setup, and also in the context of "reading notes".
To me, at least, this directly applies to "reading notes" as well. I.e., I don't use "reading notes" in the above sense (which may include different "thoughts" from the same source in one note) but instead create multiple individual notes for the same source. And I treat these notes as regular notes and keep all of them within my "Zettelkasten". While such a note may start its life as a pure quotation from a book, it may get more of my own when I add my comments to it. So any note may be evolving gradually and may need to get linked, thus it belongs together with any other notes.
For your suggested "database approach", this is excactly what I have done: I've written a database-based app that parses the plain-text notes into its components and implements all of the points from my original reply above (incl. the Scrivenings mode). I've also written scripts that enable other tools (like DEVONthink & Tinderbox) to better deal with individual notes, e.g.:
Script to create individual Markdown notes from PDF annotations
Exporting notes from DEVONthink to Tinderbox
My personal advise would be to follow approach "1. Define in Zettel, reference Literature" and don't think too much about whether that's violating any rules or not. Then adopt the approach if that doesn't work for you.
I found your comment helpful, because it helps better understand the options.
I'm still fond of the long messy reading notes, because my brain thinks of Zettelkasten primarily as hypertext.
But if I think of it more like database, well, then your approach makes a lot of sense.
Aside: One of the strange experiences with Obsidian is how new features change my thinking about my Zettelkasten. I was perfectly happy with hashtags, before they introduced "Properties" in 2023. Now I use YAML a lot. I was perfectly happy without a database feature before they introduced "Bases" in 2025. Now I'm using Bases every day, because it's such a fast and efficient way to query the Zettelkasten, while still keeping the actual data in human-readable plain-text local Markdown+YAML files.
Hmm. You made me think. Thanks!
PS: I love the scripts!
What is missing is a justification of this constraint as essential.
The initial goal was to store references in the system (literature apparatus or Zettelkasten core). Constraints are not given by OP. Though, you can infer (e.g. usage of "vault" and "link") that OP is using a digital system.
This doesn't establish that the paperness is essential. If you use Luhmann as justification for your own digital practice, the implicit precondition is that the paperness is accidental and not essential.
I never said that you shouldn't take reading notes because I rarely take them. I just presented the counter-position that taking literature notes as a standard practice is wasteful.
As stated above: I am not switching from apples to oranges. As a metaphor: If the task is to each a natural source of carbs with vitamins, I am saying that oranges are overall the better source. (not actually and not in all cases; it is statement just for the metaphor)
Functionally, the difference is a footnote. Imagine you write a note and think you got an idea. After 2 years to figure that out, after all you learned from a book. The only change needed is to add a footnote (and add the footnote to every use of the idea everywhere).
Tracking the idea's source is not a tool to augment processing the idea as material for knowledge work, but a tool to cite correctly (e.g. avoid plagiarism, give credit, document sourcing, etc.)
I appreciate the steelman attempt. However, there is nothing to steelman because I never provided any justification for my position here.
I merely provided a hint on how you can reap the benefits of taking literature notes without just copying the whole practice:
So, I don't know if the above would count as a steel strawman.
This, at least, I provided: Time and energy.
Examples of Luhmann ignoring the brevity nudge
https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_21-3a1_V
https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_21-3d8ce8_V
https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_21-3d8d_V
https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_21-3d8d1_V
https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_21-3d8d3_V
https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_21-3d8f3_V
https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_21-3d8f8_V
https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_21-3d7g_V
https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_21-3d7h_V
https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_21-3d7i_V
https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_21-3d7i2_V
https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_21-3d7j_V
I am a Zettler
That's your approach to knowledge work.
My approach is influenced by the historical method, where sources are the foundation of pretty much everything.
I've been talking the whole time about bibliographical and reading notes, not zettels. So a more appropriate example would have been Luhmann's bibliographical and literature notes about Talcott Parsons' Comparative Studies.
Bibliographical note:
Reading note spanning three index card sides:
See also the visualization from another thread:
I had this example in mind, when I wrote: "if reading note are ok for Luhmann, they should be ok for any Luhmannian Zettelkasten."
It's easier to write such notes in a digital system, because you have more space and because it's easy to copy and paste extensive quotes from digital sources.
You could structure such reading notes, so that each section would contain only one "idea". Why should such proto-atoms not live in the reading note for a while, before we decontextualize them as proper zettels?
You quietly ditched the whole paperness-line. Let's work that out to its conclusion.
No, it is not just a personal approach. The quote is a bit to brief. Let's focus on this one example:
You found an argument X while reading source Y. Which historical method (or methods inspired by the historical methods) help you directly testing its soundness or providing empirical evidence for its premises?
The answer is already covered in the guide to atomicity: Having proto-atomic notes in your Zettelkasten is completely fine.
Christian is showing how to use structure notes as a staging note for this exact purpose.
I am a Zettler