Use of tags
Tags can both express the entity/type that the page and topics that the content relates to.
Entity tags (like #đź–ż, #đź•®, or #âś˝) are generally only written in the YAML frontmatter of a page.
Topic tags (for example,habitus) are expressed within the page immediately following relevant content. Historically, I’ve used these tags in frontmatter as well, but I am moving away from that for two reasons. First, putting them in frontmatter leads me to try deciding how to organize and denominate topics at the start, which violates the Emergent Design Principle. In other words, it is a top-down or taxonomic approach that I don’t find useful in practice. Second, putting the topic tags near the content it refers to can take advantage of search queries in Obsidian which will show the exact section of the page that is relevant to the topic.
Note
The code block below renders a list of pages matching the given topic in Obsidian, but not on the website. To see a similar list on the website, check out the habitus tag.
tag:#habitusOne limitation of this is that it can be difficult to maintain an organized list of tags. It needs to be kept in mind that there may be similar topics under multiple tags when reviewing my literature notes.
Types of pages
Literature notes
These are literature sources like books and articles. Literature note filenames are BibTex keys. These pages will include the tag #🕮 to identify it as a source for search and graph view queries. I’ve tried both topic pages and topic tags in the past, but instead avoid imposing any topic structure up front and let sources link together organically through Atomic notes and Maps of content (Gaul’s Law).
The purpose of a source is to contain the metadata of the source (including BibTeX entries), quotes from the source I want to remember, and paraphrased statements that are links to Atomic notes.
Each source should also contain a Rhetorical Précis of the source’s content. This is usually written in the past tense with limited assumed context just as if I were referring to the article in a literature review. I can use this summary in literature reviews or in annotated bibliographies, or to familiarize and remind myself of the general idea of the source at a later date.
Quotes are always represented in a source document with block quotes. Double block quotes are used when the source quotes another source. If the source has page numbers, a reference to the page number will be provided. If a PDF is publicly available for the source, the PDF will be provided in the document. Each quote may also contain a list of topics after the page number.
Atomic notes
Atomic notes are pages that represent a complete and atomic idea. These are titled as a complete sentence including punctuation. Simple, positive, declarative sentences are ideal for this, and overly complicated sentences are a good indicator that the idea is not as atomic as it could be.
The concept of an atomic note is derived from Niklas Luhmann’s Zettelkasten workflow1.
Maps of content
As I begin to collect a large number of ideas on a topic, maps of content serve to keep an index of those Atomic notes and organize them as a review on that topic. Maps of content could be quite general, like Linguistic minority students in higher education or more specific and project-based in its purpose, such as It is important for schools to be aware of the language skills of its students.. Broad topics are likely to contain links to sub-topics as those develop and the map of content gets unwieldy.
Changes coming
I’m not fully satisfied with this interpretation of a map of content. I don’t think I’ve made it distinct from just another atomic note. I think maps of content should be more comprehensive of a topic rather than a single idea and in list form rather than prose.