#lortaylearns

What is it? 

It’s a way of taking notes for an article or a book using dots and dashes. The first I ever heard of it was here . This is not something I have come up with myself but it is something I use a lot. 

How do I use it? 

For every point made in a piece of writing put a dot in the margin, then once you come across the explanation for that point put a dash in the margin. After a while your margin should be littered with lots of dashes and dots to transcribe into notes. This method for me is extremely effective as it keeps my books and e-books and articles clean and not messy, everything is neatly lined up in the margin. 

I tend to team this with one highlighter and use the highlighter for pull quotes. 

For me it works best for new concepts that I am being introduced to and I used it all throughout my time reading about ethics, as the textbook we were reading from tended to take a long time to make a point and then to justify that point. 

It also works for the recommended reading because sometimes all that reading is very daunting and it breaks up one big task into more manageable smaller tasks. I am then also not rushing through the article not really processing what its saying, the dots and the dashes keep me on task and make sure I am processing what I am reading. 

It can be adapted