#like online annotations/commonplace book

[sitpwgs]

Hi! Any tips on how to read more often or actually finishing books? I think I just have a bad habit of starting too many books and then forgetting about them. Like I'll tell myself to start something new so I'll be more likely to remember to read more or something. But if it's a book I like..I tell myself not to finish it too quickly if I like it cuz there are always other books and I like to take my time if I'm enjoying something. So my habit that worked for a while was that I would try to read for an hour one day every week..but then I get stuck deciding what to read cuz I'm in the middle of so many. I prefer to read a couple chapters at one time. I thought the Daisy Jones show would motivate me to finally read it after a few years but it didn't and I was also reading with my sister who doesn't read much. Sometimes I try to read the same authors books at the same time so I can compare them and I think that will motivate me more to finish but I haven't. I have been in the middle of a few Emily Henry and Rachel Lynn Solomon books for about a year lol. I was hoping to try Business or Pleasure soon too. Is it better to just read a book you're enjoying faster than taking your time with it? Do you have a certain schedule or do you just read when you want? How are you able to finish so many books..and even ones that you're not enjoying? Sometimes I can be enjoying a book but still find myself skimming and I don't know why. Sorry for the long ask but any tips would be helpful! I set my goal to read two books every month..one new and one I owned, which seemed okay but I think I haven't even finished one book all year..even though there are so many I want to read! Sometimes I reread favorites too much which distracts me so that doesn't help either.

hello friend! no need to apologize for the long ask — my response is ... very long, and i'm sorry in advance for how long it is! 🤍 i've put it under the cut! x

i wanted to start this off by just saying that reading is a hobby! it's okay to take your time to read books as slowly as you'd like, or to put books down if you're not feeling them 🤍 all of that is a-okay!

i totally feel you with not wanting to get through books you're enjoying as quickly; i think that's a big part of why i reread my favorite books so often. last year, i noticed that i was reading books really quickly and not necessarily savoring them as much as i wanted to, and so i started annotating books more — which might be something you could try! i've also started getting into the habit of copying my favorite quotes into a commonplace journal (i tried doing a reading journal; just was not for me personally), which also forces me to slow down a bit as well. as someone who tends to juggle a couple books at once, i am also terrible at deciding what to read (as you might've noticed from my many tumblr polls about what i should read next). sometimes i just have a friend pick for me, sometimes i'll do a randomizer online, sometimes i'll try reading one book and then realizing that i am not in the mood for it at all, and then switch to a different book. there's been times where i've been like "i just need to finish something soon", or i'll get overwhelmed with bigger books, and i'll try to set a schedule! i don't always follow it and things do shift around based on what i've got going on (or sometimes i end up working late, etc.), but having a benchmark of "hey, i want to read [x] chapters" is helpful for me sometimes! more often than not, i'll end up reading more than the amount of chapters and that takes the pressure off for reading as much the next day. like you, i try to read a little bit each day, and i'll try to target my "sections to read" for something that'll take about half of that time. here's a photo of what my reading schedule looked like last week —

i'm definitely guilty of also starting books and then pushing them aside; like i've been "reading" strange the dreamer since january, but i really only read for chapters then, and then picked it up again last week and read another four chapters, and then haven't touched it since.

i've never been able to read multiple books by an author at the same time, but i do love binging an author's backlist books if i really like them! i read all the wibbroka books very quickly, back to back last summer, for example. i actually try not to read books that are too similar to one another at the same time but try to read books from different genres, so i'll read a fantasy, a nonfiction, a classic, a romance, something lit-fic-y, etc. but very rarely will i read two romances at the same time — i feel like it's a little too easy for me to mix up storylines/characters if i read books that are too similar, and also harder for me to decide which one to pick up that day.

i don't think i can answer your question about if it's better to read a book faster, or to take your time with it! that one is entirely up to you, but know that there is no wrong way to approach it. there are books, like emily henry's book lovers, for example, where i read the first chapter and knew i'd love it forever, and was simply unable to put it down. it's the only book i've ever read on my phone at the gym. i sped through it, just because i needed to know what happened, i could not look away from that story. and then when i've gone back and reread it, i've taken a little more time with it (and have annotated)! there are books that i've loved, like erin morgenstern's the starless sea, where i read it and was like "oh this book is phenomenal. i know i have to sit with it. i can't read it all that quickly; i have to digest it and go back and reread bits of it to totally understand it." so i think it really just depends on the book!

it takes a lot for me to DNF a book, and that's something that i should work on. i usually just push through if i'm not enjoying a book, whether that's due to curiosity, if i'm more than 50% done with it, or just because i sometimes feel obligated (this is usually if it's an ARC/a gifted book). but there's no shame in DNFing a book if you're not enjoying it, because ultimately, reading is a hobby!

i've definitely found myself skimming over sections too — more so, when it's a long book, or a fantasy! i usually take it as a sign; i'm not super interested in what i'm reading anymore, or i'm getting tired, which means i'll often either put the book down for the night, or i'll switch to a different book, or just not read that night and do something else instead.

and i will say that there's nothing wrong with rereading favorites! that's still reading! 🤍 any reading is still reading!

in terms of tips, i normally would say "pick up a bunch of books and juggle them", but you're already doing that! another suggestion, aside from switching genres, could be picking up some graphic novels, poetry and plays! just for a little variety.

i think there's the 21-90 habit rule (might be getting my numbers wrong), where it's like, it takes 21 days to build a habit, and then 90 days for it to be permanent. for me, i've worked it into my routine — i read before bed, if i'm commuting i'm most likely reading, i listen to audiobooks when i walk my dog. i carry a book with me everywhere (or almost everywhere) and i find that it helps. for example, every week i go in for allergy shots, and i spend about 45 minutes at the doctor's office waiting — that's 45 minutes of reading time!

i have different focus modes set up on my phone, and i have the 'reading' one so i don't get most notifications when i read. taking away distractions while i read also helps a lot for me! i also really like doing "reading dates"; whether that means going outside/sitting at a cafe/sitting at a park and reading (either with a friend, with my dog, etc.), or over facetime with a friend! there was a period of time this year where i was really trying to get through a book because i was so unmotivated to, and i'd call up a friend and we'd sit on facetime and read our respective books in silence! i still do it now, but less so because i'm struggling to read, but just because i like sitting on facetime with a friend and doing my own task while they do theirs.

i know you said that you tried reading daisy jones with your sister, and it seems like that one didn't go too well! have you tried buddy reading with someone else, or joining a book club? a little more structure might be helpful! i know there are some book clubs that will let you read at your own pace, whereas others are more structured and will say which chapters you need to have read by what date. having a built in discussion / community might also be helpful too!

this one's more of a "study tip" than a reading tip, but i really like the pomodoro method! it doesn't work for everyone, but it's essentially: work on your task for 25 minutes, take a 5 minute break, repeat. i personally go for longer stints (45 minutes, 5-10 minute breaks), but it's all about what works for you personally!

once again, i'm so so terribly sorry for how long this ask got! i hope even part of that was helpful, and i hope you're having a lovely day!! 🤍 xx

[silverysongs]

chapter 4:

oof. gen. you really know how to torture someone without physically torturing them.

costis's ally is definitely not sejanus. (is it gen?)

"Thank gods I didn't ask about fertilizer." / costis gets gen's humor! ugh just let them be friends already

"Perhaps not the most direct route." / did gen purposely take the wrong way? did he not realize the courtyard had been turned into a hall?

costis and the ring... starting to realize what eugenides goes through...

[glvernal]

Reflection

Back in March when I was trying to figure out what classes to take for the summer of 2020, a friend of mine told me about the Women's Writing Worldwide class.  She gave a brief description of the class and what she learned, along with how the class was designed with interesting readings and cool tumblr posts.  She described the class as an eye opening experience that allowed her to read interesting stories along with hearing speeches from breathtaking women defining the odds. My knowledge of the class was that it was going to be a different kind of set up for an online class but still be very informative, and it most definitely was.   From the very first reading called “The Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, I was hooked on learning about the interesting lives of women all over. Through the different TED talks we heard about how one of the women was African American and people thought that when she came to college she would have tribal music on her Ipod, but in retrospect she had Mariah Carey. People get judged everyday for their physical features. And get treated differently and unfairly.  Personally I wanted to learn about this issue because being a girl I have experienced different treatment due to my gender.  I know that in my family the rules for me versus my older brothers are way different.  Even though compared to them I was a better student in highschool, more involved, better athlete, and more mature/responsible.  But still they were able to do more and get away with more.  I am not saying that I live in a house of hell or anything, but as I have gotten older I have been able to see the unfair treatment.  The hardest thing about this situation is that parents are always right so standing up can look to be disrespectful. 

When we started doing the commonplace project with weekly posts, finding the right picture, meme, or video on google was so fun and also entertaining. But, it was also a struggle because I put so much pressure on myself to find the perfect picture that I wanted.   I never knew finding a picture on google could take so much time and energy, but I was proven wrong.  For my personal commonplace book project finding pictures for those was shockingly easier.  I had the idea of exactly what I wanted so the distraction of other posts was not there.  For my project my idea and focus was on “The Girl” after reading it I would always come back to it. I was so shocked at what it said I sent  a picture of it to my friends saying “isn’t this just a lovely thing?” Because the short story really upset me.  People in society see women as the one who does; the cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, raising of kids, and just being looked at as weaker. But I would like to think and hope that as time changes so do peoples' opinions.    In some of my descriptions for my post I address how I take the short story as a to do list. A list that a mother would tell her daughter.  I also imagine that if the story was rewritten today it would say something a little differently.  Throughout my commonplace I address what it is like to be a girl, the treatment we receive, and how things will change in the future.  

The phrase “like a girl” is a quote that people use when someone does something wrong or bad. For example if someone regardless of gender makes a bad throw, one will say”wow you throw like a girl” When girls are just as good or even better athletes than men.  But the thing with treating others equally starts at a young age. Addressing the issue that anyone can do anything as long as they work hard in life.  I also talk about how I wish that in the future when I have kids that the phrase “like a girl” is just not a thing that people say.  The treatment that men receive makes me always question, What did they do that was so good? I mean for real what did men do that was so amazing that we allow this torture to happen. I am pretty sure that they have not done anything that is amazing or world changing that makes up for the treatment we receive on the daily.  

The one prost from my project that really stands out to me is the tree part photo. The first photo asks what do women have in common. Then the second picture answers that with saying things like; breast, nurturing, sweet, breast, and chatty.  But then the last photo says the other thing that we women all have in common.  And the thing about women is that when men see us all they see is the physical features or the activities that the majority of women take  part in.  But the real thing that we have in common is; assault, belittled, raped, dismissed, harassed, and underpaid.  Every woman has experienced two or more of those actions.  These three photos really open a new perspective, I know it did for me. What people see about us women is not what they get.  Like I stated in the beginning about the one female her ted talk addressed how due to her skin color people thought she listened to a certain type of music.  

With addressing issues regardless of it is a big issue or a small one the most important thing is “voice.”  I know personally that before this class I never really thought of women's issues, which I know is sad.  However, after this class it is almost like there is a little fire that just got lit.   And I have learned so much from listening to others voices, rather than being in a speech or reading something.  I know that I complain about the treatment I receive in my household that I think is unfair. Come to find out there are women that have it a hundred times worse than I do.  I will say that in one of my classes that I took last semester, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, I saw videos about different tribes and villages that do not allow a woman to have any say in who she marries.  But with that being said, here in America we have the opportunity to have a voice, to stand up, show others what we are experiencing. Then why has there not been any kind of change for the treatment of women.  The idea that women do the exact same job as some man but make less, just does not make any sense to me.  It makes me think of a funny idea.  What if for a year or two the payment rule was different where women made more and men didn’t.  I know for a fact the men of America would be livid.  

The other thing that women experience on an everyday basis is that we have to be safe everywhere we go, who we talk to, and what we wear.  About a week ago I watched the movie Bombshell, which addresses the sexual harassment that women received working on Fox News.  Going to work women are getting treated like animals. All we are trying to do is get through the day and collect a paycheck.  But in the movie so many women were being sexually harassed and assaulted, for years and nothing was said.  When did we lose our voice? How did we let that happen?  So many questions, but there is not a straight answer to any of them.  

The thing that I think is the scariest and the saddest, is we have allowed this to happen for so long. The belittling is nothing, being cat called nothing.  I have been whistled at before (I was wearing a baggy T-shirt, and shorts not that fancy of an outfit) but I wanted so bad to turn around and say something like how dare you or just give them the beloved finger.  This goes back to the short story The Gil, it is like at a young age our parents have told us to turn the other cheek, or walk away. But that does absolutely nothing to the unfair treatment. The next generation of young women should be told not to stand for unfair treatment and do not let anyone talk to you as if you are nothing.  When will there be a change? When will men realize that they are not that great? Truth is without us women there would be no next generation. We destroy our bodies and experience awful pain for nine months, and what do we get in return?  Oh I know, unequal pay.  

After eight weeks of reading, watching, and annotating I can say that I walked away from this experience with a voice, a fire that is lit.  And knowledge that being a woman is one of the most challenging things, but also the best.  The thing about us women is that we are in this together. We are a team, all fighting to win the same game of equality. 

[inkofamethyst]

January 28, 2019

There!  Is!  No!  Reason!  For!  Me!  To!  Have!  Self!  Doubt!

And yet, here we are.

Still no notification on my choice 2 scholarship today, and as you all know, I’m bracing for the worst.  My dad says I should keep hope alive but that’s really hard when all signs are pointing toward a negative outcome.  Of course, there’s still some hope within me, but it wanes day by day.

If I don’t get that one then the only real hope that I have left is the full-ride scholarship to my choice 3.  But that too is super-ultra selective and... I don’t know.  All I know is that I don’t want to stay in-state but I can’t go out of state without at least a full-tuition scholarship and I surely don’t want to go to my choice 7.  I mean... I guess that my choices 8 and 9 could still offer me big scholarships, but they’re in-state so...

My mom says that I need to learn to love myself and that I need to stop with the self-deprecation but like?  That’s definitely something that I’ve grown into ~as a part of youth culture~ since I’m an ultra-edgy gen-z kid or whatever and that’s pretty commonplace.  We’re all special and we’re all anxious all the time.  To the backdrop of the Crab Rave.  What’s new.

My parents say that I go on these emotional rollercoasters where I’ll be up on cloud 9 for a few hours and then I’ll crash to the floor for a few days and then it’ll repeat.  They think it’s unhealthy and displays my emotional immaturity.  I’m inclined to agree.  This is tiring as hecc.  But being an optimist all the time sets myself up for disappointments which are no fun.  I try to be a realist instead, but that might dip into pessimism because the universe is indifferent.

Still haven’t written that essay for my choice 2 either.  Woo.  

I did start taking notes on the chemistry chapter last night and I’m pretty proud of myself for that.  I think I got through 75% of the notes by watching an online teacher teach through the textbook and it’s been going really well.  And I’m doing all of this before we’ve even started discussing the material in class.  Hey, maybe tonight I’ll start on the actual homework!  Maybe.  I also have math homework due tomorrow and a book to read for English (that I may start tonight, it’s due in about two weeks and I have to annotate it).

I need to start my skincare routine again because that’s something that makes me happy.  I also need to clean my room, because I’ve definitely found that a messy room makes for a messy mind.  And the chair is looking a little stuffed.

Today I’m thankful that the first semester has ended.  That’s probably about 5/8 of my school year done.  Actually?  Mathematically: I have to attend school in senior year from September to May, which is nine months.  I have completed five of those, so I’ve actually completed 5/9 of my senior year.  That’s technically less than 5/8, but only slightly, so I’ll say that my estimation was pretty accurate.

I’m going to see if I get got to bed before midnight tonight, with a stretch goal of before 11:30.

[okeider]

Commonplace Book Reflection

Olivia Keider

Dr. Richard

WGS 3298-02

29 July 2020

           Studying women’s lives in other cultures inspires a profound appreciation for women (Burn, 3).  This is exactly what this “Women Writing Worldwide” class has provided me with at High Point University this summer.  I have always had the thought in my head, "I wonder what other women around the world are dealing with and how they are dealing with it."  I now can understand the what problems women face in their cultures and change the negative perceptions people have with women’s cultural differences.  Tradition is the root of where our beliefs come from and is usually followed for a lifetime. Worldwide, especially in third world countries, women want to have equal rights and opportunities, but they are faced with opposition and discrimination based on sex, culture, and religion.  Undoing and fighting preconceived notions and breaking stereotypes of oppression that Western society has placed on their countries is a difficult task.  I have chosen to center my individual commonplace book online in traditions of other countries and transnational third world feminisms that they represent.  

           Tradition, according to the Oxford dictionary, is the transmission of customs or beliefs passed from generation to generation.  Unfortunately, these traditions are not only Eastern religious beliefs but are Western stereotypes too.  We are taught to believe what our parents teach us, but we should not rely solely on their beliefs and opinions to lead us forward.  The world and its beliefs change and evolve, and societies, whether Eastern or Western, should be doing the same simultaneously.  In some ways, women all over the world have a lot in common (Burn, 7). This passage specified exactly which countries were fighting for which discriminations.  The discriminations, such as veiling in Middle Eastern countries or femicide in other countries, can be used to unite women across the globe to fight for what is right.  Women who veil are usually classified by Western societies as oppressed or held down by male-dominant societies.  The real issue is that the women choose to veil for themselves, as a symbol of modesty, respect, and protection.  In my commonplace book post, I used a few ideas that reflected reasons for veiling and opinions related to the concept.  The picture I used shows a wrapped lollipop, representing women who wear hijabs and an unwrapped one with flies on it representing women who do not. A wrapped candy is more protected and desired than one that is not covered but many Western societies do not understand and learn this ideal in their own tradition.  Women’s lives in other countries are structured around ending stereotypes and creating their own ways to fight for their own issues, rather than the ones that Western culture creates for them, due to the difference in traditional practices.

           Feminism needs to become a global movement.  A truly global feminism recognizes the diversity and acknowledges that there are diverse meanings of feminism, each responsive to the needs and issues of women in different regions, societies, and times (Burn, 8).  To explain this, I used an analogy with feminism being compared to gender equality like water is H2O.  They both represent the same things, although they may look or sound different.  Women are not just women…we need to see all of our similarities and differences. Anyone can be called a feminist, whether that be a woman or someone who presents as a woman.  The idea is to include all women, from all cultures, all traditions, and all areas of the world along with their unique experiences to fight for equality and equity.  Another post that represents the ideas of feminism that I explain in my commonplace book is the photo of Isabel Allende in the Olympics with three other women.  They all are the first group of women alone to carry the Olympic flag and represent not only their country but their beliefs and ideals as women.  I mentioned in my Perusall annotations of her Ted Talk that Isabel Allende took a risk by talking about controversial topics in front of an audience. She mentioned names and told stories of these other women who were “rule-benders” to convince us of their passion for good change.  These women, who are extremely driven, feel the need to bring themselves forward and help other feminists and people make the world a more equitable place.

     Third world countries experience the most difficulty in spreading awareness for themselves, due to the lack of resources available to do so.  These countries have little to no food and water, housing that is just enough to keep them safe, and are not as updated in medical care usually.  Due to these factors, other nations such as the United States, begin to feel empathetic and send help and relief to the countries.  These third world countries, while they do need the provisions sent and given to them, the women and children are fighting for more than just nutrients.  The women are fighting for their children and their own lives, as I explain in the quote by Mahatma Gandhi: “Any young man, who makes dowry a condition of marriage, discredits his education and his country and dishonors womanhood.”  Dowry, especially in societies like these, cause huge financial burdens to the families and leads to crime against the woman who is married, such as abuse, neglect, and potentially death.  Due to the large amount of people who want to follow the initial tradition of India’s dowry, even though laws have been passed to make it illegal, still practice it with no consequence.  The tradition of dowry leads to women and their families killing off the children they have that are girls, since they are seen as a burden and of no use to the family name.  I talk about how Mahatma Gandhi is very influential in India’s community, and seeing a prominent man say this message may change another man’s mind about taking dowry. This could eventually become a large movement to benefit all women and their families in countries such as India. Ultimately, the women and children who need more than just food cannot explain and fight for their other needs, such as safety and security.  Western culture and society have been taught that their “major” issues are lack of supplies. The true major issue is the lack of listening and deeper thought from societies that can actually help save lives.

           The main post that focuses the most on my topic is the quote “The most dangerous phrase in the language is we’ve always done it this way.”  This phrase, as I mention in my caption for the post, is not ideal for society today.  We cannot expect to change for the better and modernize if the world fears moving away from tradition or refuses to understand others’ traditions.  We have to find a way to be critical of practices that are harmful to women, but understand that the issues of greatest concern to women in our country may not be the major issues of concern to women in other countries (Burn, 9).  Another post I made is of women in handcuffs who have statements of their “crimes” behind their back.  The women are of all different cultures and religions, and all treated poorly and are unable to stand up for themselves.  I state that in the world today, feminism is becoming a movement allowing for many of these women to be able to stand up for themselves and their beliefs within their culture.  This modernization and branching from tradition are important for women in third world countries to be able to potentially change their societies’ and other societies’ beliefs on certain ideals.  

           Overall, the ten individual commonplace book posts I made reflect harsh feelings towards the treatment of women in other countries.  This mistreatment has been justified for many years through the use of tradition in many third world countries.  Spreading the word about these nations with disparities and inequalities towards their women could be what changes their society forever.  I talked about this issue in my Perusall annotations for Chandra Mohanty’s Under Western Eyes article.  As soon as I read this, I instantly flashed to Dr. Richard's class lecture about losing the identity between a "woman" and "women." The difference is huge! Comparing an individual in the same way as an entire group can be misleading, cause many misunderstandings, lead to stereotypes, and eventually become oppression. This is exactly what is going on in the United States and other countries for women. Every woman and every countries' situation and experience are unique and different in its own way and should be respected and understood. Not all "women" are in need of the same representation in the same areas. Some need representation politically, others physically or sexually, some mentally and socially,     and these differences, are what keep implications of "women" being similar across nations from being assumed. The world needs to look at the intersectional and transnational analysis between "women" to understand what each "woman" traditionally experiences on a daily basis and make a change.

[chrisaldrich]

Organizing my research related reading

There’s so much great material out there to read and not nearly enough time. The question becomes: “How to best organize it all, so you can read even more?”

I just came across a tweet from Michael Nielsen about the topic, which is far deeper than even a few tweets could do justice to, so I thought I’d sketch out a few basic ideas about how I’ve been approaching it over the last decade or so. Ideally I’d like to circle back around to this and better document more of the individual aspects or maybe even make a short video, but for now this will hopefully suffice to add to the conversation Michael has started.

Lots of good insights in the responses. One thing stands out: this is a real pain point for many, & I don’t think anyone feels like they’ve nailed it (or how they organize information in general). It’d be great to have more ideas added to the thread! https://t.co/6KfhO5aVU3

— michael_nielsen (@michael_nielsen) March 8, 2018

How do people organize their reading? Perennially frustrated by this. I want one system that lets me trivially add books, papers, webpages, etc, re-organize very easily, search & filter. What works for you?

— michael_nielsen (@michael_nielsen) March 8, 2018

Keep in mind that this is an evolving system which I still haven’t completely perfected (and may never), but to a great extent it works relatively well and I still easily have the ability to modify and improve it.

Overall Structure

The first piece of the overarching puzzle is to have a general structure for finding, collecting, triaging, and then processing all of the data. I’ve essentially built a simple funnel system for collecting all the basic data in the quickest manner possible. With the basics down, I can later skim through various portions to pick out the things I think are the most valuable and move them along to the next step. Ultimately I end up reading the best pieces on which I make copious notes and highlights. I’m still slowly trying to perfect the system for best keeping all this additional data as well.

Since I’ve seen so many apps and websites come and go over the years and lost lots of data to them, I far prefer to use my own personal website for doing a lot of the basic collection, particularly for online material. Toward this end, I use a variety of web services, RSS feeds, and bookmarklets to quickly accumulate the important pieces into my personal website which I use like a modern day commonplace book.

Collecting

In general, I’ve been using the Inoreader feed reader to track a large variety of RSS feeds from various clearinghouse sources (including things like ProQuest custom searches) down to individual researcher’s blogs as a means of quickly pulling in large amounts of research material. It’s one of the more flexible readers out there with a huge number of useful features including the ability to subscribe to OPML files, which many readers don’t support.

As a simple example arXiv.org has an RSS feed for the topic of “information theory” at http://arxiv.org/rss/math.IT which I subscribe to. I can quickly browse through the feed and based on titles and/or abstracts, I can quickly “star” the items I find most interesting within the reader. I have a custom recipe set up for the IFTTT.com service that pulls in all these starred articles and creates new posts for them on my WordPress blog. To these posts I can add a variety of metadata including top level categories and lower level tags in addition to other additional metadata I’m interested in.

I also have similar incoming funnel entry points via many other web services as well. So on platforms like Twitter, I also have similar workflows that allow me to use services like IFTTT.com or Zapier to push the URLs easily to my website. I can quickly “like” a tweet and a background process will suck that tweet and any URLs within it into my system for future processing. This type of workflow extends to a variety of sites where I might consume potential material I want to read and process. (Think academic social services like Mendeley, Academia.com, Diigo, or even less academic ones like Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) Many of these services often have storage ability and also have simple browser bookmarklets that allow me to add material to them. So with a quick click, it’s saved to the service and then automatically ported into my website almost without friction.

My WordPress-based site uses the Post Kinds Plugin which takes incoming website URLs and does a very solid job of parsing those pages to extract much of the primary metadata I’d like to have without requiring a lot of work. For well structured web pages, it’ll pull in the page title, authors, date published, date updated, synopsis of the page, categories and tags, and other bits of data automatically. All these fields are also editable and searchable. Further, the plugin allows me to configure simple browser bookmarklets so that with a simple click on a web page, I can pull its URL and associated metadata into my website almost instantaneously. I can then add a note or two about what made me interested in the piece and save it for later.

Note here, that I’m usually more interested in saving material for later as quickly as I possibly can. In this part of the process, I’m rarely ever interested in reading anything immediately. I’m most interested in finding it, collecting it for later, and moving on to the next thing. This is also highly useful for things I find during my busy day that I can’t immediately find time for at the moment.

As an example, here’s a book I’ve bookmarked to read simply by clicking “like” on a tweet I cam across late last year. You’ll notice at the bottom of the post, I’ve optionally syndicated copies of the post to other platforms to “spread the wealth” as it were. Perhaps others following me via other means may see it and find it useful as well?

Triaging

At regular intervals during the week I’ll sit down for an hour or two to triage all the papers and material I’ve been sucking into my website. This typically involves reading through lots of abstracts in a bit more detail to better figure out what I want to read now and what I’d like to read at a later date. I can delete out the irrelevant material if I choose, or I can add follow up dates to custom fields for later reminders.

Slowly but surely I’m funneling down a tremendous amount of potential material into a smaller, more manageable amount that I’m truly interested in reading on a more in-depth basis.

Document storage

Calibre with GoodReads sync

Even for things I’ve winnowed down, there is still a relatively large amount of material, much of it I’ll want to save and personally archive. For a lot of this function I rely on the free multi-platform desktop application Calibre. It’s essentially an iTunes-like interface, but it’s built specifically for e-books and other documents.

Within it I maintain a small handful of libraries. One for personal e-books, one for research related textbooks/e-books, and another for journal articles. It has a very solid interface and is extremely flexible in terms of configuration and customization. You can create a large number of custom libraries and create your own searchable and sort-able fields with a huge variety of metadata. It often does a reasonable job of importing e-books, .pdf files, and other digital media and parsing out their meta data which prevents one from needing to do some of that work manually. With some well maintained metadata, one can very quickly search and sort a huge amount of documents as well as quickly prioritize them for action. Additionally, the system does a pretty solid job of converting files from one format to another, so that things like converting an .epub file into a .mobi format for Kindle are automatic.

Calibre stores the physical documents either in local computer storage, or even better, in the cloud using any of a variety of services including Dropbox, OneDrive, etc. so that one can keep one’s documents in the cloud and view them from a variety of locations (home, work, travel, tablet, etc.)

I’ve been a very heavy user of GoodReads.com for years to bookmark and organize my physical and e-book library and anti-libraries. Calibre has an exceptional plugin for GoodReads that syncs data across the two. This (and a few other plugins) are exceptionally good at pulling in missing metadata to minimize the amount that must be done via hand, which can be tedious.

Within Calibre I can manage my physical books, e-books, journal articles, and a huge variety of other document related forms and formats. I can also use it to further triage and order the things I intend to read and order them to the nth degree. My current Calibre libraries have over 10,000 documents in them including over 2,500 textbooks as well as records of most of my 1,000+ physical books. Calibre can also be used to add document data that one would like to ultimately acquire the actual documents, but currently don’t have access to.

BibTeX and reference management

In addition to everything else Calibre also has some well customized pieces for dovetailing all its metadata as a reference management system. It’ll allow one to export data in a variety of formats for document publishing and reference management including BibTex formats amongst many others.

Reading, Annotations, Highlights

Once I’ve winnowed down the material I’m interested in it’s time to start actually reading. I’ll often use Calibre to directly send my documents to my Kindle or other e-reading device, but one can also read them on one’s desktop with a variety of readers, or even from within Calibre itself. With a click or two, I can automatically email documents to my Kindle and Calibre will also auto-format them appropriately before doing so.

Typically I’ll send them to my Kindle which allows me a variety of easy methods for adding highlights and marginalia. Sometimes I’ll read .pdf files via desktop and use Adobe to add highlights and marginalia as well. When I’m done with a .pdf file, I’ll just resave it (with all the additions) back into my Calibre library.

Exporting highlights/marginalia to my website

For Kindle related documents, once I’m finished, I’ll use direct text file export or tools like clippings.io to export my highlights and marginalia for a particular text into simple HTML and import it into my website system along with all my other data. I’ve briefly written about some of this before, though I ought to better document it. All of this then becomes very easily searchable and sort-able for future potential use as well.

Here’s an example of some public notes, highlights, and other marginalia I’ve posted in the past.

Synthesis

Eventually, over time, I’ve built up a huge amount of research related data in my personal online commonplace book that is highly searchable and sortable! I also have the option to make these posts and pages public, private, or even password protected. I can create accounts on my site for collaborators to use and view private material that isn’t publicly available. I can also share posts via social media and use standards like webmention and tools like brid.gy so that comments and interactions with these pieces on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and others is imported back to the relevant portions of my site as comments. (I’m doing it with this post, so feel free to try it out yourself by commenting on one of the syndicated copies.)

Now when I’m ready to begin writing something about what I’ve read, I’ve got all the relevant pieces, notes, and metadata in one centralized location on my website. Synthesis becomes much easier. I can even have open drafts of things as I’m reading and begin laying things out there directly if I choose. Because it’s all stored online, it’s imminently available from almost anywhere I can connect to the web. As an example, I used a few portions of this workflow to actually write this post.

Continued work

Naturally, not all of this is static and it continues to improve and evolve over time. In particular, I’m doing continued work on my personal website so that I’m able to own as much of the workflow and data there. Ideally I’d love to have all of the Calibre related piece on my website as well.

Earlier this week I even had conversations about creating new post types on my website related to things that I want to read to potentially better display and document them explicitly. When I can I try to document some of these pieces either here on my own website or on various places on the IndieWeb wiki. In fact, the IndieWeb for Education page might be a good place to start browsing for those interested.

One of the added benefits of having a lot of this data on my own website is that it not only serves as my research/data platform, but it also has the traditional ability to serve as a publishing and distribution platform!

Currently, I’m doing most of my research related work in private or draft form on the back end of my website, so it’s not always publicly available, though I often think I should make more of it public for the value of the aggregation nature it has as well as the benefit it might provide to improving scientific communication. Just think, if you were interested in some of the obscure topics I am and you could have a pre-curated RSS feed of all the things I’ve filtered through piped into your own system… now multiply this across hundreds of thousands of other scientists? Michael Nielsen posts some useful things to his Twitter feed and his website, but what I wouldn’t give to see far more of who and what he’s following, bookmarking, and actually reading? While many might find these minutiae tedious, I guarantee that people in his associated fields would find some serious value in it.

I’ve tried hundreds of other apps and tools over the years, but more often than not, they only cover a small fraction of the necessary moving pieces within a much larger moving apparatus that a working researcher and writer requires. This often means that one is often using dozens of specialized tools upon which there’s a huge duplication of data efforts. It also presumes these tools will be around for more than a few years and allow easy import/export of one’s hard fought for data and time invested in using them.

If you’re aware of something interesting in this space that might be useful, I’m happy to take a look at it. Even if I might not use the service itself, perhaps it’s got a piece of functionality that I can recreate into my own site and workflow somehow?

If you’d like help in building and fleshing out a system similar to the one I’ve outlined above, I’m happy to help do that too.

Related posts

Notes, Highlights, and Marginalia: From E-books to Online

A New Reading Post-type for Bookmarking and Reading Workflow

PressForward as an IndieWeb WordPress-based RSS Feed Reader & Pocket/Instapaper Replacement

[smartworkingpackage]

Timeless Note-Taking Systems for Students

It’s time to head back to school, and to celebrate, eligible college students can now get 50 percent off Evernote Premium. How best to use it? Read this comprehensive guide to different types of note-taking, and decide which styles resonate with the way you think. The best part? They all work in EvernoteIn classrooms and lecture halls around the world, millions of students—from elementary schools to the highest levels of collegiate research—bear the torch as our most consistent note-takers. While we’ve experienced massive shifts in technology over the course of the past four decades, the essence and methodology of note-taking remain largely intact. Same purpose. Different medium.

Whether scribbling shorthand in a notebook or capturing lecture notes on a laptop or mobile device, students still need to find ways to remember what they are taught.  Note-taking is essential to the learning process.

Organizing Information

For centuries, we’ve been distracted.

No matter your profession or pursuits, interpreting and capturing information is more challenging than it seems. Students experience this every day. Research shows us that overcoming information overload begins with organization. For students, this starts with having a system for organizing their notes. How students organize notes can have an enormous impact on how well they can recall it later.

Perhaps that’s why professors at Ivy League schools designed their note-taking systems to help students organize information more efficiently. From commonplace (at Harvard and Oxford in the 1800s) to Cornell (1960s New York), best practices for note-taking became a critical component of education. Today, academic institutions such as  California Polytechnic Institute to Stanford University still place a premium on educating students about note-taking methodology. But, most of these approaches are designed for paper and pencil. Many universities still point students toward online resources that offer advice designed for the pencil-based note-taker. That’s a testament to the perseverance of tradition, but it’s also indicative of a need to empower students to use technology to capture and study notes.

Image: The Stanford University Academic Center provides writing tips for paper-based note-taking using the Cornell Method.

How we Learn to Remember

As students, we learn through exposure to information. We keep a record of that information, and, following repeated exposures to the information, we can recall it later during exams, pop quizzes, and tests. Nowadays, the use of smartphones and tablets for note-taking can significantly improve the learning process:

Capture and record only the information you don’t know.

Identify the most important material.

Remember the information by setting time to review it later.

Recall the information when it is needed (research, connecting ideas to writing, exams).

Psychologists say that to recall information and build knowledge, it’s essential to understand three distinct stages of memory. Interestingly, they mirror the phases of note-taking:

Encoding (writing down notes, capturing information, capture audio, photographs).

Storage (physical notebook, pen and paper, or a digital system like Evernote).

Retrieval (revisiting and reading your notes and the information you captured).

For students, it’s a time-honored system: Capture the knowledge and then find a system to retain that knowledge so that it will be usefully applied in moments that test your abilities later—exams, quizzes, and tests.

Choosing Your Note Style

Note-taking is deeply personal. How you implement a particular method mirrors not only your productivity habits but also the way you think and your creative workflow. For some people, organizing information into outline formats and lists is the key to success. For others, it’s all about visual systems that help them see information in a new light.

No matter your system, the challenge is universal: how do we parse the noise, sift through information, and decide what’s important?

Though the process sounds complicated, there are two primary classifications of note-taking systems: linear and nonlinear. But the method you use depends on personal choice, the class environment you’re in, and the way your brain works. These are the most common approaches—all of which are easy to implement in Evernote.

The Outline Method

With origins dating back to the 1500s, the outline is a classic paper and pencil style of linear note-taking in which you take capture information alongside Roman or Arabic numerals.

Its durability is part of its legacy—it works on paper, but it’s also easy to adapt and implement digitally.

With a linear outline, you can also use bullet points or other characters and symbols.

This tactic of note-taking works in almost any class setting, and helps you record content quickly. In addition to capturing key points, it also helps you catalog and remember what the subtopics have to do with the bigger concepts. Because this style of note-taking aims to capture the most important parts of a lecture, it’s easy to turn your notes into questions you can use later to study for exams.

The Cornell Method

Originally invented in the 1950s at its namesake university, Cornell is considered by many to be the Cadillac of note-taking systems.  

Broken down into three distinct sections, the Cornell system allows you to capture and retrieve information in a single place. Using Cornell, you can hone in on major concepts and ideas in lectures and build learning from there. This system is perfect for high school or college students in lecture situations. It is also a good system for attorneys and knowledge workers. Here’s how it works:

Record: During a lecture, use the note-taking column on the left to record the lecture using sentences.

Questions: Formulate questions in the right-hand column based on your class notes, shortly after class ends (while they’re fresh on your mind). Writing questions helps to clarify meanings, reveal relationships, establish continuity, and strengthen memory. Jotting down questions also sets the stage for exam-studying later.

Recite: Cover the note-taking column with a sheet of paper. Then, looking at the questions or cue-words in the right-hand column only, say aloud, in your own words, the answers to the questions, facts, or ideas indicated by the cue words.

Reflect: Reflect on the material by asking yourself questions, for example: “What’s the significance of these facts? What principle are they based on? How can I apply them? How do they fit in with what I already know? What’s beyond them?

Review: Spend at least ten minutes every week reviewing all your previous notes. If you do, you’ll retain a great deal for the exam.

Additional tips helpful for Cornell:

Add symbols for clarity. Add highlights, underlines, or symbols around information that is important to your studies. If you can, avoid writing out entire sentences. The point of note-taking is to clue yourself into things your professor indicates may be important, and to help create personal study guides.

Shorthand. Create your own shorthand language to help you type faster. If you use abbreviated language to chat with friends on Snapchat, implement it into your note-taking. Use w/ (with) and % (for percentages).

The Sentence Method

This method is a good way to capture content in sentence-sized pieces. Although you lose the ability to organize through numbered or bulleted lists, the sentence method allows you to capture a running list of information that is new to you.

Since what you have written is not organized into paragraphs, you can return and review material later. Sentences have the benefit of making sense because of they are easily readable. If you type quickly, and if the information is presented in an organized manner, this may be the perfect note-taking system for you.

Mind Mapping

If you’re a visual thinker, then mind maps are an opportunity for you to connect ideas and notes together visually. In class, mind maps are an efficient way to sketch out topics. Here’s one Evernote customer’s mind-map for remembering how to use Evernote. In this method, sketching and doodling are encouraged because these types of drawings are relevant to the notes.

More tips for taking great notes

From annotations to highlights, here are some additional ways to take your notes to the next level.

Attend lectures regularly. It goes without saying that consistent class attendance is a huge part of being successful in school. You have to absorb lecture material in class to understand textbook reading and to prepare g for exams and final projects.

Become an active reader. When you’re studying for class or developing ideas for writing projects, push hard to read actively and understand the material.

Ask questions.

Think through the material you’re reading.

Cite sources. Many classes require annotated bibliographies, so you’ll save time if you capture your sources as you study.

Use Amazon Kindle. Capture and save your Kindle notes and highlights into Evernote in three simple steps. Learn more.

Blinkist. Blinkist curates the world’s best business books and distills them into manageable, easily readable 15-minute summaries offered in both text and audio formats in a mobile app for smartphones, tablets, and any web browser. As you save highlights in Blinkist, they automatically sync to Evernote—which are all easily discoverable and searchable any time you need to access it. Learn more.

Instapaper. With a single click, you can save articles you’re reading on the Web. You can save anything you read on iOS, Android, and Kindle. Save your notes, comments, or highlights directly to Evernote with this IFTTT recipe.

It’s amazing how the legacy of note-taking has both evolved and endured. Spanning centuries, the concepts have remained the same. Notes help us separate the important stuff from everything else so we can learn more efficiently.

Eligible college students get 50 percent off Evernote Premium. Check out the details and get organized today.

from Evernote Blog http://ift.tt/2w1RU2Y via IFTTT