ALL YOU NEED IS NOTES
Writing is hard. Sometimes it just can’t start. You will be lying to yourself if you think you’ve never experienced that terror, sense of sterility while taking a blank piece of paper or starting a new document.
There’s a thing to be written, you know it. But nothing happens. Once upon a time, Stephan Mallarme wrote (what follows is my interpretation): “Get up and produce a blank sheet of paper as the poem that expresses your feeling inner devastation.”
While it is artistically plausible — you may get into the trouble if it is your assignment.
In order to avoid such situations, you take notes. To avoid such situations, you take notes.
Why notes matter?
Notes are an integral part of the writing process. They are those dirty little rascals that bring everything together to a tee. No way to escape them, no way to ignore them. They’re everywhere. You know it.
Without them, you can’t even start. Notes lie in the foundation of your text. They serve as the glue for the bricks that are thoughts for your reasoning. They shape your writing. They make it happen.
For the most part — writing is planning and looking for ways to express specific ideas. Notes are natural results of that process.
Taking notes — is something that may be called pre-writing. As such, some heist plan is a fair description. It is a blueprint for synthesizing the text. Study it to the smallest detail — learn every turn, every spot, and line — you get the picture and make your way through.
To do it smoothly — you need to note everything down. But on the other hand — notes have one regrettable side-effect — they tend to become a mess that can turn into a swamp where you can drown with righteous animosity.
Here are several tips to avoid that and make your notes highly effective:
Stick to keywords and phrases
Every message can be broken down into a series of keywords regarding its theme and how it is represented.
It is essential to know where you are while receiving the information.
Pulling out keywords, phrases, and other tidbits will help you navigate through the flow. Noting buzzwords of note, linking points, and snippets is also important.
Keep it simple
You need to keep clean spaces around every entry for them not to blend with the others.
Spaces keep every note distinct. Take every new fact, every idea in a separate line.
Leave blank areas for missing or coming information. Spaces also serve as a psychological relief over the amount of material.
Make connections
While piles of keywords can be comprehensible in many ways — it’s connections that make them tick.
Link keywords, add questions to them, create timelines, run-throughs, and slicing.
In the end, you’re going to have a large net of various connections between a variety of concepts. That will allow you to make your reasoning rock solid and logical.
Write a separate glossary
This one is optional.
Sometimes while doing the research, you may stumble upon an unknown word or concept.
Be kind to write it down just in case. It may come in handy later when you reflect on the gathered material.
Use signs
Notes are for useful information, not your verbosities.
Since every idea has its place in a grander scheme, you must develop a sign regarding its function.
In order to break down the note in the most effective way — use highlights, underscores, circles around certain words and phrases, arrows, dots, and other marks to build a structure within a note.
Never do it in one-piece
Taking notes is not about writing something down on a piece of paper again and again or putting it into Notepad.
You need clear separation between layers of information you extract.
That’s why you need to keep a note regarding some aspects of the subject divided.
For example, this thing is for a description of aesthetic values, and this thing is for putting it into a historical context.
Themes aside — you need to keep your main concepts separated from supplementary materials, comments, and summaries. Otherwise, you’re going to get lost in your own notes.
Get used to write on the margins
Have you seen Delmore Schwartz’s copy of Finnegans Wake? Here it is. Lo and behold!
Why writing on the margins?
First of all — it is fun. Such an act of creative barbarism serves a double purpose. 1 — you get the heat off; 2 — you catch every little idea regarding any element of the text on the fly.
Since you can multiply the document you’re reading — you can make a double or triple set of margin writing organized in a variety of ways.
Review your notes
It’s always fun to make revisions. Reviewing your notes means you need to break down things you broke down already.
This process helps you get a clearer picture of what you already have.
The standard operating procedure includes: making a summary of critical points, linking ideas forwards and backwards, reverse engineering of certain concepts, finding out what information is lacking and what things you need to add.
Forge your own set of ideas using gathered information (not the sources)
AKA notes from the notes.
This technique allows you to do the quick and straightforward perception of specific concepts and subsequent reforming them into your own set of thoughts.
While you can develop them otherwise — they may be scattered and lost throughout other notes.
Reflecting on the gathered information instead of the sources allows you to take distance from the subject and concentrate on what you’ve chosen to tackle it.
This limitation gives you the scope. Knowing it eases the forming of your attitude towards certain concepts.
If you think this is ridiculous since you already have a set of notes — here one thing: philosophy is built around that (and that thing isn’t very friendly if you don’t have something to say).
In conclusion
Following these simple tips will help you make your notes a powerhouse that will make the subsequent writing process smooth and satisfying.
