I’m intrigued by Obsidian. I have explored other platforms like Roam but I believe that all things considered Obsidian is the application I’m most interested in. Before I dig into learning the application I want to make sure that Obsidian can do what I’m wanting to do.
In short, I have outlined a large book project and I’ve gathered my research. Most of the research is in text, markdown, or PDF files. I want to go through all of this research by topic and cull out and/or quote material and put that material into Obsidian so that I can then go back to Obsidian to see all of that information consolidated and connected not only within a given topic but other topics as well. Assuming I use Obsidian correctly, will the application do what I am trying to achieve or am I misunderstanding how it works? Any input will be deeply appreciated. Thanks in advance for your kind help.
From a technical/app perspective, Obsidian can handle this easily. The core of the app is connecting markdown files to one another. So, assuming you feed the app your ideas and references in an orderly fashion, I’d think it’s great for a final phase of research. For, me, I’d then go do my writing in Ulysses. It seems the question for you is do you have some good organizational best practices within the app. For that I’d recommend you read up on MOCs (map of content) and think about how you’d use tags.
Check out @nickmilo starter pack for examples of MOCs.
If you have the chance, try to prototype this workflow in Obsidian somehow. Maybe try writing a section of a chapter or something and see how it goes, then post here with any qualms/curiosities/lessons learned. It’d be neat for others to learn from your process and it might help the community provide more detailed insights.
I’m thinking that my chapter divisions would be the decentralized notes that I would use based on the MOC recommendations. I’m going to give this a shot. Thanks again.