How to use Obsidian to outline/write a new article?

[Awy]

Hi Folks,

First I am grateful to Obsidian developers, and the online community for introducing this great tool in such a short period.

Does anyone have experience /develop an effective workflow on how to use taken notes (zettelkasten notes) on Obsidian, to generate a novel article effortlessly?

I see there are heaps of YouTube videos are coming up, but I doubt who is really using the power of this system for academic / research life? I sense most of the available videos are done, just for the sake of popular trend.

So far, I noticed most of the Youtubers are talking about taking daily notes and visualizing connections between notes with the graph view.

Yes, I agree that these linked notes and graph view help to gain novel insights. So is this the ultimate use of this tool?

What I am really interested in is it possible to create a new article in this platform from taken notes before. In other words, we have our zettelkasten , # tags , [[]] system, so can’t we extract specific zettelkasten , # tags , [[]] to a new note? Just based on what I’m interested from the graph view.

Is this possible?

If someone has a workflow for this could you please show how it looks like? and how you try to build a new idea/knowledge based on the notes.

Otherwise, still I am reluctant to shift to Obsidian. I feel the current workflow that has shown in Youtube and blogs can simply build in an Excell.

[santi]

hey, great question. I use obsidian to write articles, and books. I have a workflow I’m really happy with and I’m currently working on developing it further to easily teach it.

I made a video on just a few tips for students, but I plan to go a lot further in the future to break down the process of what you are looking for

Obsidian Organization of Notes / University Student Example / Part 1

Even if my videos are still in development, for now I can assure you that everything you mentioned is possible, and way supperior to what something like excel could ever do.

If you need help to figure out how, feel free to message me, either here or https://santiyounger.com/contact

[Awy]

Thank you Santi. Awesome! Looking forward to seeing how could this is possible. Excellent Youtube lesson TBH

[santi]

thanks, my mail goal is to cover everything you said, I think that’s where the real value of Obsidian (or any good tool) really is.

I’ll keep you updated as I make more useful videos

Thanks for your kind words!

[Awy]

Great. Looking forward to see. Hopefully soon
Cheers!

[akaalias]

Hey @awy, I put together a video for that because a friend of mine had the exact same question for his writing a book. I demo my process from creating atomic notes, linking them, and then to creating a basic and novel outline of a text.

Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP4AeGY2mz4 - You can skip to 9m:30s where it’s only about using your notes and the graph view to find new ideas.

PS: I shot a new video yesterday that’s very much related as well on how to extract ideas/create ad-hoc MOCs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWdEatdD2bo

[Awy]

Thank you @akaalias appreciate your kind support.

[Philloctetes]

Hi Santi:
I am a late student that is exploring approaches to build knowledge. Some methods I am exploring are:

Principles
To build knowledge you need to interrogate the text
Verbatim notes are facts but say a list of definitions is an organization of facts,

Sources

1. Bloom’s Taxonomy, Revised
   Anderson and Krathwohl, A Taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing

2. Summarizing
   https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/english_as_a_second_language/esl_students/paraphrasing_and_summary/summarizing.html

Build an Index
An example of an index is the alphabetical index at the back of the say textbook,…, but as the Chinese language is not alphabetic, the index needs to be organized subject wise, say in the form of a body of knowledge, …, e.g. an index for the sci-fi “three body problem” might look like Setting, Characterization, Plot and Structure, Narrator and Point of View, Theme, Style, … most of this is extracted from searching for “narrative analysis”, …

Draft writing assignment
Learn the difference between description, critique, summary, essay, review, plot, story, narrative, synopsis, abstract,… these are usually short forms of the original text but they are a great help to interrogate the text, … , and are great as exam review because they emphasize control over knowledge (relationship between items of knowledge) as opposed to storing knowledge (isolated facts),

[santi]

Hey @Philloctetes I’d love to conver how to organize that kind of notes. My methods are not necesarily focused on academics, since my main focus is creative output and entrepreneurship.

but you might still benefit from my online course / Youtube videos

[Bioworld]

I’m also here to know the answer to this question.

Had a chance to go through @santi 's YT, great stuff.
Does his mentioned course cover the answer to this Q?

Came across how academics using Roam R to answer this very question; e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvWic15iXjk /
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6PIrVZoZAk Merry Christmas!

The most interesting thing for graduate /postgrad is how to use Obsidian for academic writing from existing literature.

Also noted some good stuff from @matthewhirschey Youtube channel, however, it also just basic note-taking/essaystuff. Not addressing advanced writing based on literature.

Would be great to see if Obsidian actually can do this job.

Also notice now Youtubers introducing another note-taking app - Craft / Noteplan or something! Haha this going to be crazy.

[santi]

hey @Bioworld thanks for leaving the comment on my video, I saw that one first, so I replied there.
But just for those who are here in the forum, I do intend to cover these important topic in my course.

As of writing this, my course is already available here, it doesn’t have these section yet, but it soon will. There’s an early discount for those who buy now, with future updates benefits.
Feel free to contact me if you got any questions!

[Bioworld]

Thank you @santi. Keep me updated in this thread once you add those lessons to your course. Looking forward to taking your course. Happy New Year!

[santi]

awesome! will do @Bioworld I appreciate the support, happy New year to you too!

[Cedric]

Hi,
I’m neew to Obsedian and the forum and I was about to ask the very same question. Did you find a proper worklow to do so?

I’m also wondering if and how I should use tags. Some people recommend to use them only to specify the status for your note, such as Unread, etc.

[atiz]

My 2 cents:
no matter what method /setup one uses, the paper still has to be written and it’s hard work and it’s not going to write itself even with the “best possible workflow” (which there isn’t).

Having that, everyone’s workflow is different, and what may work for me, may not work for others.
Right now I have a folder for each writing project – where I actually do the writing. I try to start with an outline, where I try to figure out most of the sections, and link to the notes in my vault that may be relevant to that section.
Then I have my draft note. Sometimes I have separate files for each section, and then in the draft I just transclude them so that I can read it as a whole. But sometimes I just have separate sections in the draft itself.
This works fine for me. But again, the paper still won’t write itself :).

[Awy]

Unfortunately not yet.

However, Have you had a look @santi 's course -Tags / How To Make The Most Of Them? There he presents a hint of how can we work on this. Worth watching. Hopefully, He will update his course in realtime.https://courses.santiyounger.com/p/obsidian

[Awy]

Exactly!

No, what I was looking at here was, if there is any easy pipeline to filter the notes based on tags and network analysis (graph view), to narrow it down to generate new ideas.

Otherwise, of course, it still has to be written

[santi]

Hey thanks @Awy for recommending my course, tags are super important in my workflow.

I am still updating the course with a lot more content, and I’ll break down even further on how to best use tags and a complete workflow.

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Regarding what @Cedric asked. I personally don’t think tags should be researved for just status, I use tags extensively to capture any topic, theme or category that I want to access.

Tags have the advantage of being extremly searchable, easily combined and filtered.

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There’s a lot to cover, and of course my system isn’t a perfect solution for everyone, but it’s highly targeted for creative people and entrepreneurs. So I’ll make sure to keep working on it and I can share updates on both my course, and the free Demo’s for YouTube!

Thanks guys!