I was inspired by this image posted on discord.
I have ~600 notes on various books, but they are not made in Zettelkasten method, so I will have to refactor them based on principle of atomicity, internal links etc. Therefore those ~600 notes I will estimate to pass over 1500.
The main problem I’m confronting in the field of literature is the abundance of terminology, delimitations, opinions, definitions and various fields where a concept can be applied: dramaturgy, poetry, prose, frontiers text, ideology etc. This will result in a very fuzzy network and a very amount of time to select, process, construct a “Structured note” (or Map of Content) etc.
I want almost a bulletproof method to find my notes, but I want also to have the benefit of surprise and creativity when I’ll construct my MOC (Structured notes)
So, here is what I have in mind when I’ll refactor my notes, and here is I need your help to tell me if you spot some troubles that I’ll might encounter in the future. Tags as entry points/ doors, NOT as corridors.
Almost everything we encounter in our research has more or less the following:
- definition / is a concept
- characteristics, properties
- a history
- some boundaries
- can go into relations with other objects, ideas etc
- can develop a process or be part of a process
- has a methodological approach/ procedure or can develop one
- a structure
So I thought that these lines above should be my tags for notes. Titles of the notes should be made in order to reflect content. The content should be atomic & internal linked with other notes.
Searching through notes using tags.
Imagine we have 2 categories: fruits & vegetables
Apple’s notes:
- A note that contains definition of an apple (#apple #definition)
- Characteristics of an apple (#apple #characteristics)
- Structure of an apple (#apple #structure)
- Boundaries (#apple #boundaries)
- Growing process of an apple (#apple #process)
Etc.
Tomato’s notes
- A note that contains definition of a tomato (#tomato #definition)
- Characteristics of a tomato (#tomato #characteristics)
- Structure of a tomato (#tomato #structure)
- Boundaries (#tomato #boundaries)
- Growing process of a tomato (#tomato #process)
Etc.
When I’ll search for a particular problem (#apple #structure) I’ll get all the information I need, also I can combine for further analyses two categories: #apple process OR #tomato #process
to spot the resembles of those two processes. In this way (in my opinion) I’ll restrict the tags numbers, but also I have the advantage of being surprised by the title of a note and have creative ideas when constructing a Structured notes (MOC, Hub) and also to generate future research.
example:
Growing apples in the 19th century was restricted because of ... (#apple #boundaries)
Tomatoes can be cultivated only in a certain soil) -- (#tomato #boundaries)
I hope this post will make some sens to you.
Question for you:
- Do you see any limitation to this system of tagging when I will have let’s say 10,000+ notes, for example?
- Is it to broad?
Thanks in advance!