I usually write important quotations but other times I summarize chapters or the entire book. I am more used to writing index cards of books than of articles. This card is the analog equivalent of my Synthetic Note method.
I use index cards to write direct quotations (with page number and full bibliographic reference) from articles, books and book chapters I find useful. Here are some resources on taking notes in index cards that I found useful as I was trying to make sense of my own system. I produce at least 5 different types of index cards, which are more or less the same categories other folks have all agreed upon. Make sure to note page number /6MyK9MWtyU And the reverse, you can digitally store these in Evernote. What I call synthetic notes (summaries of articles, books) can be done in traditional index cards. People have asked me if you could digitize (or make analogous) all my processes. Mine isn’t all that sophisticated, and since I combine my very analog Everything Notebook and notes in index cards with digital synthetic notes, memorandums, Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dumps, and Evernote, I don’t know that my system would be extraordinarily systematic.
Hawk Sugano has shared his Pile of Index Cards (PoIC) method as well. Other authors have referred to the process Niklas Luhman followed ( Zettelkasten ). The very first method I use is the Index Cards Method. In this series, I will share my processes to take notes using different methods. I graduated with my PhD years ago and I’ve been a professor for a pretty long time, so I thought that maybe I needed to settle down and clarify my ideas of the process I follow to take notes.
In a previous blog post, I had shared how I take notes, but I am not 100% certain that undergraduate students would actually find my blog post very useful, since it’s been a very long while since I last took a class. Yes, small (3″x5″), medium (4″圆″), and large (5″x8″) cardboard, ruled index cards. Therefore, I am sure that it will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody in the entire world that I still write bibliographic references, quotations and thoughts on index cards. I carry index cards, highlighters, fineliners, pens and my Everything Notebook everywhere I go. I keep just one notebook, my Everything Notebook. I like highlighting, scribbling (by hand, on paper). I’m an old school kind of guy, and I think everyone who follows me on Twitter and reads my blog (and knows me as a person) knows this.