---
title: Reading Notes
tags: [Note-taking, Writing]
Summary: Tips on taking notes from Umberto Eco.
---

In his *How to Write a Thesis* ([Amazon][]), Umberto Eco suggests
that you keep a box of index cards devoted to "reading index cards"
alongside another box with "idea index cards."  In [my digital
version][] of the index card box, I have been primarily keeping
"idea" notes, with [one idea per file][].  Reading Eco, however,
has encouraged me to also keep distinct "reading" notes, with one
file per book or article that I read.

Here is an example screen-shot of a reading note:

![Lloyd Gerson Reading Note](http://dtsheffler.com/images/Screen_Shot_2015-08-10_1.png)

In this screen-shot we see three areas:

1. The title tells me both the title of the article and the author.
   This region is *not* always identical to the actual file name.
   Because this note is a child of `Lloyd Gerson.md`, the note file
   name is `Lloyd Gerson - A Note on Tripartition.md`.
2. A bullet list of connections to idea notes (or other reading
   notes) with a brief one-line explanation of what the connection
   is.  I leave out the explanation when it is completely obvious
   (e.g. the link to `Plato.md`).
3. A summary that contains both a sketch of the overall argument
   and my response to it.  I compose a draft of this in my notebook
   while the reading is fresh in my mind as soon as I finish
   reading the article (or as soon as I am done with each chapter
   in the case of books).  I then mostly transcribe this into the
   Zettelkasten later with a little cleaning up.  This also serves the function of [review][].

I do not use this reading note file to keep track of bibliographic
information as Eco suggests.  Instead, all this information is
stored in a BibTeX file so that it can be referenced automatically
with [Pandoc-style citations][].

  [Pandoc-style citations]: http://dtsheffler.com/blog/2014-07-09-bibdesk-and-latex-citations/

  [one idea per file]: http://dtsheffler.com/blog/2015-08-05-one-thought-per-note/

  [my digital version]: http://dtsheffler.com/blog/2015-05-11-my-zettelkasten-in-sublime/

  [Amazon]: http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Thesis-Umberto-Eco/dp/0262527138/

  [review]: http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2015/07/more-note-taking-principles.html