Tag: Study Skills

Book Review: How to Take Smart Notes

This review relates to the book ‘How to Take Smart Notes’ by Sonke Ahrens. It is available on Amazon here and you can also download the first chapter, free, here and learn more about the book.

Introduction

‘Imagine if we went through life learning only what we planned to learn or being explicitly taught. I doubt we would have even learned to speak. Each added a bit of information, filtered only by our interest, is a contribution to our future understanding, thinking and writing. And best ideas are usually the ones we haven’t anticipated anyway.

Ahrens

I can’t remember how I first fell across this book. No, actually I do. I was recommended Roam Research (I’ll come back to that in another post) on Twitter when I was asking for advice about note taking apps and then through trying to learn about Roam and how to best use it, I came across discussion of the Zettlekasten technique of note-taking. This book is an explanation of the Zettlekasten technique. That’s the name of the ‘one simple technique’ which is referred to on the front cover, that will ‘boost writing, learning and thinking – for students, academics and non-fiction writers’. And being of a curious mind, I bought the book.

Context

‘Studying does not prepare students for independent research, it is independent research’

‘Zettlekasten‘ is a note-taking technique devised by Niklaus Luhmann, a well -known sociologist in Germany who wrote vast numbers of papers. He used this method of note taking and storing and it has been debated ever since. This book explains the system that Luhmann used and refines some of the discussion around in as times have changed and notes are more likely to be digitised now.

The book doesn’t just describe a system though, it seeks to provide an understanding of what note taking is used for and how and particularly to challenge those who might (and I include myself here), underline vaguely interesting paragraphs while I was reading something and rarely return to it.

The idea of the Zettlekasten is that notes would all be linked to each other by topic so you create notes from everything you read/watch/discuss/learn around topics and draw links together in themes which you might not have seen, if you create ‘book’ or ‘lecture’ notes in a traditional way.

By not restricting notes to the book or the paper you are making notes about and linking by ideas, you might fall across links that the authors haven’t and find your own topics or see things you didn’t know you didn’t know, that you want to follow up.

Summary

The initial premise of the book is interesting to start with. It is that the skill of good note-taking has been left out of many study skills books. When we might have books about how to write essays or dissertations and how to think critically, there is little literature available and far less teaching, about how to take good notes. While, considering this, it is important to understand that writing and taking notes isn’t the ‘end-game’ for a writer (and we are all writers). But taking and storing notes well, means you don’t need to rely on memory, or scraps of post-its or chronological notes that don’t make sense in context so you can’t remember what it is you were trying to remember anyway.

In order to think, the premise goes, you need to write. That writing usually starts with notes. There are some simple guides the author ‘teaches’, which is about always having a pen or something to write with (it might be a smartphone app or a notebook) especially when you are reading.

You make three types of notes with this ‘system’. There are the fleeting notes, which are these notes you might make as you write. These are notes about initial thoughts and feelings and responses. You ‘decant’ these notes to your ‘literature notes’ which are the notes which are about particular texts or pieces that you might watch or listen to. The literature notes shouldn’t be verbatim, nor should they contain any quotations. They are about your recollection of the text and how you interpret it through writing about it.

Then from the literature notes, you develop permanent notes. This is where the ‘Zettlekasten’ sits, the repository of themes and ideas that have developed from the literature you read. You link these together as you understand them and it helps you to build connections or locate gaps more easily. Permanent notes should be notes you return to. They are the ‘memory’ you don’t need to retain, because, the idea is, you will come back to the permanent notes and have those connections and references all in place which will make writing about them, more useful.

Ahrens is very much focussed on moving away from too much planning when you are approaching texts and research and to find where you are going, by doing. Perhaps I’m not explaining it as clearly as he does but when I read it, it made a lot of sense.

“A truly wise person is not someone who knows everything but someone who is able to make sense of things by drawing from an extended resource of interpretation schemes’

Ahrens p119

Reflections

There were parts of this book that made a lot of sense to me, and made me cheer as if a curtain was being removed in my mind. Yes, I thought, why DIDN’T I think about being more flexible about note-taking, about adding my thoughts and commentary alongside the key ideas. Do I write too many notes that I will never return to? And particularly, summarising books or articles as I read them, in my own words so I will be able to come back to them. I also enjoy making links between articles and I use Roam to do that.

I am not sure I’m a purist though. My ‘permanent notes’ are as refined as I think they are ‘supposed’ to be, but the book has given me ways to think about note taking and using notes that I think will be useful. I see it as giving me tools and ideas, some of which I will use and some I will not.

Use in Practice

This book has changed some of my practices regarding making and considering notes as I have mentioned above. I’ve created ways of storing and taking notes which have adjusted on the basis of the writings even if there are parts I have discharged. I love making links between what I am reading and thinking though.

For example, this is my note about the book on Roam – you can see the blue links which take me to other pages – each hashtag is also a link and this is how my ideas are pulled together.

And some of the links I have made between these ideas look like this

In a work context, I have started using OneNote through Microsoft 365 for which I have a work account, to make ongoing daily notes as things happen and then link them to other things which are going on at work but also ideas I have as they pop up.

Conclusion

I have been really inspired by this book and even though I’m not following the Zettlekasten method religiously, it has helped me to understand how to gain a different perspective on studying and note-taking. Studying isn’t a means to an end, but can be an end in itself. The good thing about this book is that while it will ‘click’ with some people and won’t with others, the first chapter is available free (see link at the top of the page) and that will be more than enough to make a decision as to whether it’s a book you want to buy or not.

Learning about Learning

This week, on a day off from the full-time work, I took a day back at the university to attend a couple of workshops they set up for postgraduate students. I was wondering beforehand if this had been something of a luxury. Unlike my previous job, I don’t get any days off for study leave (welcome to the NHS!) anymore so all the leave I take is annual leave and I am a bit short on AL this year due to the changes in job where the dates didn’t quite line up.

So despite my reservations about whether it would be better use to sit in a library, I went to the workshops to learn with a mixed group of doctoral and post-doctoral students about learning techniques.

The first session was about speed reading, or as the tutor told us, repeatedly, better reading. He was right. Noone really teaches you how to read effectively after the first few years in primary school unless there is a specific reason or at least, that was my experience.

We started with some fun activities, testing our reading speed and the importance of understanding that memorising (as we did in reading comprehension tests at school) and understanding is vast.

In some ways, I expected a lot of what he said to be obvious, but it really wasn’t. I can say that I have a few more ideas about how I read (and have been reading) and how I can be more effective in reading through information more quickly but also making sure the notes I make about what I read are better (this might be counter intuitive about learning in a class about reading but it is what I took from it).

While I came away eager to practice new techniques, I thought that it was probably, for me, anyway more about reading efficiency than reading speed. How can I get the information I need from a text in the quickest way that ensures I remember and record (if necessary) what I have read. One of the key techniques that I want to practise is about extending my peripheral vision when I read so that I read more ‘at once’. This was something I hadn’t considered before learning about it.

The second half of the day was about mind-mapping. I probably wouldn’t have signed up for it if it hadn’t followed on from the morning because the speed reading was what I had been most interested in.

I’ve tried a bit of mind-mapping, particularly on software (iThoughts if anyone is interested – I’ve tried a few and that’s my favourite) and thought if there is a ‘way’ to mindmap, it might be useful to know. I used it when I wanted to gather my ideas in a different way.

Fortunately, this is how it was presented to us. This isn’t a panacea. It won’t make you cleverer or quicker or more imaginative, but it is a tool that can help with taking notes and recording information in a clearer way. I tend to doodle a lot and make notes with lots of arrows in them, so it could be the method I didn’t realise I wanted. I hadn’t thought of mindmapping to summarise or take notes.

Having attended the course, I’d say that learning from someone who knows, is useful. I have tried any number of mindmaps since the training. The next morning, at work, I arrived and drew my day’s to do list as a mindmap (which I then had to explain to a colleague who was intrigued), it took no longer but it was visually more pleasing – although that is not the point.

What has been more useful were my brief attempts, over the weekend, to link up the speed reading and mindmapping and creating a ‘mindmap’ notes of book chapters and articles. I’ve been able to jot mini-mindmaps after chapters of a book I am reading, (have been trying to speed read!) so I remember what the key points are. I’ve used post-its or pieces of printer paper which I have then popped into the book at the required chapter or scanned and saved with the paper on Mendeley entries. For the first few I’ve done, I’ve written some more conventional notes afterwards, using the mindmaps to test if I have learnt or remembered more or at least, noted down the key useful points and I think it may work as a technique when I need to remember things I have read.

I’m still at the early stages of this. I am mindmapping everything. As we were told though, it’s often about practise and getting better at it. It may not change the way I learn and think in the long run, but it was an enjoyable session that helped me think differently. And I think it helped when I went back to work as well because this isn’t just about helping my learning at university but also at work.

Even if I don’t persist with mind-mapping as a note-taking technique, at least I know a bit more about it and why I would reject it which is a better place to be. As for the speed-reading, I can’t see any situation that won’t be useful so I’m going to continue to practice and if I do get better, I might write up more about the specific techniques. It is good to have a day out from the usual though, particularly if we are able to challenge our own thinking.

Book review: How to Write a Lot – A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing

I read ‘How to Write a Lot – A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing by Paul J Silva published by American Psychological Association – I have a copy of the 1st edition (2007) which is the one I am reviewing below but I have linked to a more recent 2nd edition (2018).

Introduction

To write well, you need to choose good words.

p61

This is a short and accessible book from the US Psychology Academic. The background of psychology becomes more important through the book and it is intended to be a ‘tap on the shoulder’ type book nudging reluctant academics and people who need to write in academic contexts, towards writing. I can’t remember how I came across it, if it was on a reading list or a recommendation (mostly how I decided what books to buy).

Context

As mentioned above, the author, Paul Silva is an academic psychologist based in the US. He has taken the approach of writing in a conversational manner and the book is intended to spur writers who may not see themselves as writers to ‘get on with it’. It would be of less use to experienced writers who have their own systems in place.

Of course, it also serves as a means to delay actually starting writing because you are writing it but fortunately, it is a short book which does not need a lot of time to cover.

The author covers a broad range of topics at a steady pace, including starting out and just writing as well as, more specifically, writing for publication including journals and books. The book itself is 132 pages.

Summary

Delete very, quite, basically, actually, virtually, extremely, remarkably, completely, at all and so forth. Basically, these quite useless words add virtually nothing at all ; like weeds, they’ll in fact actually smother your sentences completely

p64

The book is divided into chapters that cover the areas you would expect, including knocking down those barriers, including the excuses like ‘I don’t have enough time’ or ‘I need to read more about X before I start writing’ as well as ‘I don’t have any space/working PC etc’. They’ll be all the usual ones you can think of. Silva comes back at the reader with responses, some more helpful than others.

Ultimately, the reason is often related to time or alternative priorities with work or life, to which the answer is, unsurprisingly, just write and allocate protected time to write. This isn’t a wonderful relevation but it is a message which can keep being knocked on the head to make sure it has a difference.

Silva may claim to not always have been a planner but a planner and a scheduler you need to be if you are going to write effectively and productively. Planning your writing, counts in the writing time and setting achieveable goals is important as well and give yourself deadlines if noone else is going to. He also talks about prioritising projects and how those priorities can differ and that needs to be fluid.

He likes monitoring progress by word counts or meeting specific daily goals which might work if reading is writing.

To Silva, ‘writers block’ is not something that happens to academic (as opposed to creative) writers. It is just ‘not writing’ and by ‘not writing’ you have ‘writer’s block’. The way to cure it is to write. This is about approaches, attitudes and excuses. It might be that some writing needs more editing than other writing because of the flow that develops but it can be progress and it can be measured all the same.

There is a chapter specifically about style and the importance of clarity in writing. This includes a good reminder to write for audiences that may not have English as a first language. The best writing is accessible and readable. Use jargon when it is necessary but don’t import it in if it does not add to the understanding of the reader. This may be a good discipline in all writing exercises and tasks. He reminds us, as writers to think of the meaning of the words you use, each one having a function to increase clarity. This is a lesson which stuck to my heart as I often write with excess verbosity.

Strengths and Gaps

Silva writes unapologetically as a psychologist and the book is published by the American Psychological Association (APA) so examples about journals and book are based on psychology. I don’t think this is a weakness or a gap so much as a ‘thing to be aware of’.

As he goes through the different parts of a paper and how to construct them, he includes a section on the importance of references and what the reference section means. I have not seen this in a book of academic writing previously but that might say more about my reading than about what is out there but I found this helpful.

It was useful to see a differentiation in the way writing would be approached when considering papers with empirical research and ‘review’ articles, both of which he covers.

This is, though a small book. It probably won’t teach you information you have not come across before regarding how to start writing and get writing but it is concise, clearly written and accessible. It is quite pricey though so might be worth tracking down in a library or getting a second hand copy (as I did).

Use in practice

This is an eminently practical book which has immediately led to some changes in behaviours and ways I think about writing. While it isn’t about innovative new methods, the point about writing is you just have to do it and the way to get better at it is doing more of it, so the book serves to grant permission to believe in yourself and your ability to improve by doing.

For myself, I tend to schedule writing time anyway. I write and study at weekends because I work during the week but it has made me consider how much time I may be able to add to weekdays before work and how to quantify the writing I do. For example, I am now editing this post at 5.45am when I usually get up for work at 6am. I’m also writing a blogpost instead of academic writing though, so swings and roundabouts. Writing is writing!

Silva makes writing – including articles and books, accessible. It seems like the ‘I can do it and so can you’ attitude prevails to the extent that I almost begin to believe it. More importantly, it is a fun book to read. It wasn’t difficult to sail through it quickly. It wasn’t an effort to read which some texts can be.

Conclusion

This is a useful addition to the toolkit for someone who is new to academic writing. It can also serve as a cheerleader in the resources to give more confidence to do what you do regarding writing and to feel better about writing than not-writing. Style is essential but practice embeds style. I would recommend this if you come across it, particularly in a library.

The link to buy it is at the top of the page – this is not an affiliate link. I bought this book for myself.

Book review: Developing Research Questions

This review refers to

White, P. (2017). Developing research questions : a guide for social scientists. 2nd ed. Basingstoke England ; New York: Palgrave Macmillan which is available to buy on Amazon here (non-affiliate link). I was not paid to write this and bought the book myself.

Introduction

This is a book which I picked up quite early in my ‘research journey’ and I picked it up because it was one of a number on a reading list. It was written by Patrick White who is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Leicester.

Content

This is a book that is best suited to the beginning of a research project as you start out. It’s focus is entirely the start of the process and how to build both effective research questions but while doing that, identify the key areas to focus on when starting with a topic and trying to narrow it down. As well as focussing on the process of defining a clearly focussed topic with an answerable research question, which is the starting point in terms of the aims of the book, it also covers aspects of this including what a good research question looks and sounds like.

For experienced researchers this is probably more than they need but it helps to clarify some of the confusion which can start at the beginning of a project when you have an idea but want to make from it, questions that are not just interesting but answerable.

When I bought the book, I read through it start to finish, which probably isn’t necessary, but I also tried the suggested exercises as I went, saving my initial thought processes into my research diary to return to and to help me understand and then reflect on my thinking early on in the process.

White gives frequent examples, which are taken from a range of disciplines, about what might make a good research question and the different types of questions one can ‘ask’ or at least, identify in research. It is written very much from a social science perspective and as that is where I am coming from, I’m not sure how translatable it is but it makes sense.

Summary

This is a book very much aimed at novice researchers but it highlights the importance of clarity of purpose in research from the very start in the building of research questions that might well be dipped into from people at different stages of their careers. As well as an explainer of types of questions in the context of research questions specifically, and how ‘answerable’ they need to be, the book covers broader areas around research design and levels of evidence, information required to answer them.

Starting from a premise that literature reviews, lead to identification of areas in need of research in order to justify the research questions being asked, White writes, taking a logical order to offer clarity in the face of what can be an surplus of information and studies and cleverly helps the reader find a path through the jungle of information to read the end goal.

While the focus is clear in the title of the book, there are some excursions into later stages of the project including whether and how one manages to answer the given research questions and use of hypotheses and what ‘counts’ as evidence and linking evidence to claims which can help to answer these questions.

This is a practical text which refers to the answerability of a question which can depend on time, resources and level of research projects. Each chapter ends with exercises and has chapter bibliographies for further reading. Personally, I found the earlier exercises in particularly, helpful in narrowing down some of my initial thoughts.

Key strengths and gaps

I enjoyed this book. The strength was in the narrowness of it’s aim, in a way. I have other books which talk about research processes from start to finish but this was focussed solely on identifying research questions which work. It is a cross disciplinary book which a focus on social sciences and the research methodologies used predominantly in social sciences.

There are some useful conceits introduced, or were for me in any case, including the ‘literature funnel’ which models broad reading across a topic, through a funnel of contemporary issues, debates and findings to establishing a relevant and useable research question.

One of the suggested exercises was to reduce your topic to 140 characters. It can provide focus but it was other similar exercises that allowed me to think about things in different ways.

Of course, many of the issues raised in this book which will very familiar to experienced researchers so this is a book aimed at novices and primarily aimed at novices in universities with access to libraries and wide ranges of reading materials.

The examples given are from across social sciences and some of the exercises might not be useful. I like the key points which were set out at different points and above all, it is clearly written and concise which only works to its benefit.

Use in practice

I’ve mentioned this previously but this was one of the most useful books I found around methodology towards the start of my research. ‘Research questions’ can be frightening and establishing a good mix between pertenant and manageable is not always easy, especially if it is a first time research project. It might be that these are the things you learn early in university careers but if not, I’d recommend finding this book.

As well as clarity of scope and purpose, it has some useful glossaries of research terms which help when learning the different professional language needed to become a researcher. Even if you are not doing the research yourself, some of the exercises and background information about types of questions can be useful in appraising and understanding the research of others and identifying distinguishing research questions in papers that you read to keep up with the subject area in which you are working.

Conclusion

I both enjoyed reading this book and found it useful. It is a short text and it is written with a style that is conversational and therefore not too intimidating. It has provided an additional confidence in understanding what might make research both good and logical. It has definitely helped me along my journey.

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