"Explain Like I'm Five": Zettelkasten

< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >

Posted by zoe
Apr 23, 2015 at 04:26 PM

(A note on this post’s title: there is a sub-forum of Reddit called “Explain Like I’m Five,” where posters ask to have ideas explained to them in as simple terms as possible.)

I’ve seen a lot of discussion here, and on other blogs, about the Zettelkasten approach to information gathering and outlining. However, I am having a great deal of trouble understanding how it’s supposed to work in practice. Here is what I *think* I understand so far:

- each card (or digital note) is given a unique ID, typically a number or number/letter combination.
- the numbering is based upon branching out or relatedness of concepts. So, a card about poodles might be numbered 27, and a card about poodle haircuts might end up being 27b2, because the writer started with 27, added additional cards on this topic which he/she numbered 27a, 27b, 27c, and then expanded upon the content of 27b with another card descending from 27b, which is numbered 27b2. (Do I have it right so far?)
- direct references to other cards are indicated by writing that card’s unique ID on another card.

Here’s what I don’t get:

How is this all indexed? If I start a new card about squids, how will I know what to number it without going through all the cards to find the thread of numbers that relates to sea creatures? How can I find older information if I don’t remember the number of the card?

I like the notion of organically expanding categories, but I don’t understand how to retrieve information in this setup.

Please help!

Posted by Dr Andus
Apr 23, 2015 at 04:57 PM

zoe wrote:
>- each card (or digital note) is given a unique ID, typically a number
>or number/letter combination.
>- the numbering is based upon branching out or relatedness of concepts.
>So, a card about poodles might be numbered 27, and a card about poodle
>haircuts might end up being 27b2, because the writer started with 27,
>added additional cards on this topic which he/she numbered 27a, 27b,
>27c, and then expanded upon the content of 27b with another card
>descending from 27b, which is numbered 27b2. (Do I have it right so
>far?)
>- direct references to other cards are indicated by writing that card’s
>unique ID on another card.

It sounds like you’re referring specifically to Luhmann’s system, which was paper-based (fairly large index cards in a massive filing cabinet), and the above numbering approach was developed to create and retrieve links in such an analogue system.

I took Manfred Kuehn’s advice on this and never bothered to replicate that system (or even fully make sense of it). Manfred’s argument is that with modern software where you can create direct and multiple links in every which way there is no need for that numbering system. Simply create an electronic link and that’s it.

Having said that, I do give a numerical ID to each of my note titles in the form of the date and time of the note taken, but simply for practical reasons, so I can order my notes in a chronological order and have a quick idea about when the note was taken.

Here is what that looks like in CT:
https://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1405/7322/original.jpg

And here is the commentary:
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/zettelkastende/zettel_note_header_automation_in_nvalt/#comment-1653945810

There was actually an interesting debate about the nature and need for such electronic links between Manfred and Christian Tietze over here (see also the comments section):

“You Don’t Need a Wiki – Being Content with Your Software”

http://zettelkasten.de/posts/you-dont-need-wiki/

Though as you might suspect, I’m with Manfred on this one :)

Posted by zoe
Apr 24, 2015 at 12:57 PM

Thank you for that clarification, Dr Andus. So in your CT setup, it appears that you have a markup template when you create a new note. In the case of your quotes archive, you have the quote itself, your commentary on the quote, the source of the quote, the date accessed, and then (I assume) and automatically populated list of other fragments which are associated with that date—so you may retrace your train of thought on that day, which probably relates to the source material. I’m supposing that the backlinks and outlinks map finds more use in other types of entries.

In the bog-basic CT setup (the Welcome Project tutorial), much is made of the Categories system, however I find your metadata more in line with what I’m looking for: context for trains of thought, and incoming/outgoing connections. More like what you get in The Brain, where discrete categorization is not necessary for relating large amounts of information along many axes of relationship.

Posted by Dr Andus
Apr 24, 2015 at 04:23 PM

zoe wrote:
>So in your CT setup, it
>appears that you have a markup template when you create a new note.

Yes, the template is a plain text file with CT markup.

>the source of the quote

The highlighted text in the reference (Vickers etc.) shows that those are attribute links (using CT’s attribute markup). So you can click on the author’s name, and it will go to a meta page with all the entries for that author. The same with the year, the title, and the publication or publisher.

>then (I assume) and automatically populated list of other fragments
>which are associated with that date—so you may retrace your train of
>thought on that day, which probably relates to the source material.

Yes, that’s an optional feature, such as the calendar (both can be turned off). It is a function of CT’s special “date topic.” So date topics with the same date in the title can be displayed within the body of each note for that day. (I believe these were created to use CT as a calendar and for daily task management, so you can see your tasks for the given day.)

>In the bog-basic CT setup (the Welcome Project tutorial), much is made
>of the Categories system, however I find your metadata more in line with
>what I’m looking for: context for trains of thought, and
>incoming/outgoing connections.

In a way it’s up to you what you use the categories for. I use them as labels or tags, to categorise the content. I have 973 categories in my main Quotes & Notes database, and prefer not to organise them hierarchically into a sub-category tree, but it’s possible to do so.

> I’m
>supposing that the backlinks and outlinks map finds more use in other
>types of entries.

Sorry, this was the wrong example to illustrate the utility of links (the screenshot was originally made to illustrate how the date and time ID is displayed in the topic titles). But the back links, out links, and the graph are automatically populated when there are such links from a note. It’s just that this particular note doesn’t have any incoming or outgoing links. But the graph at the bottom actually gives you a TheBrain-like star-formation of outgoing links, when there are any, on which you can click.

Back to topic list