#zettelkasten

if you struggle with writing research papers, often procrastinate and then scramble to assemble a paper from a single source, you are setting yourself up for likely plagiarism. here are some real tips for avoiding this and getting better at academic writing. these are a short version of sonke ahrens's great book on the Zettelkasten method, How to Take Smart Notes (which i recommend reading, but it is one of those Books That Could Have Been a Blog Post, as If Books Could Kill would say, and the full Zettelkasten method is probably overkill for most people).

1. Take notes on what the texts make you think while you read, with a pen and paper, in your own words. These are not summary notes, but "this section reminds me of that one episode of the simpsons" or "i don't think it's true that willpower is finite..." these are your own thoughts and feelings

2. When you're completely done with an article or book chapter, start a note file on the computer with the proper citation at the top and write a 1-2 sentence summary of the content of what you just read. Without looking at the text. Yes, this is hard!!

3. Go through your personal notes from step 1 and see if anything there is a Big General Idea or theme. It may take reading a few articles or stepping away/thinking in the shower before these emerge. "Hmm I'm noticing that a lot of societies have similar rituals about food and gratefulness, I wonder if it's a superstitious way to ensure future abundance?" Elaborate on that in a separate note.

I'm in the process of translating my obsidian zettelkasten into a digital garden website (!!) aka my digital archive. I've been toying with the idea of sharing my study notes + reflections "publicly" for a while now, but could never figure out the right format. A blog felt way too published, and an instagram study account wasn't enough.

Then I stumbled on this article by Writing Slowly about digital gardens -- basically public note collections / personal wikis. Andy Matuschak describes it as "working with the back door open", which I love. I then fell headfirst into the digital garden rabbit hole.

Digital gardens flip the idea of "personal blog" on its head -- basically going against the conventions of a blog: they're about evolving ideas, not finished articles. They are exploratory and meant to grow over time. Less rigid and less performative (as Maggie Appleton puts it). Bascially, a zettlekasten made public.

I'll post updates of how I'm creating my little garden here. In my initial explorations of this corner of the web, I've been inspired by Chromatically and The Quantum Well, showing that even high technical fields can make thought-provoking digital gardens. If anyone has tips (or would like to share their digital gardens), I'm all ears!!!!!

Storytime

Word and Writer (see this post) used to have one huge disadvantage – the number of pages either of them were capable of keeping in active memory before the whole thing would just crash. This was, of course, in part because computers had less RAM in those days, but also because Word and Writer constantly keep everything you write available in exactly the layout it will be printed as. Or, to use slightly more computer-y language, both of them are “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG).

That also means that if you start using certain features – lots of headings, footnotes, images especially – they quickly reached their capacity. I had one document consistently crash at 100 pages, although usually, it would take up to 300 pages before that happened.

Nonetheless, it was frustrating, also because the crashing meant that documents would get corrupted and I would lose what I had written. Yes, corrupted documents are a real issue. Especially because Word’s source code is protected, so it’s not easy to recover them.

Also annoying was the “having to split up documents into several files”.

But the worst part, for me, was that I lost some really good stuff because I was rearranging the order of scenes and forgot to paste before cutting another scene, and didn’t notice in time.

So I went looking for other options. How I ended up finding Zettelkasten is a mystery today, but I did.

Word/Writer/Google docs versus Zettelkasten

So what is Zettelkasten?

Many notes, one story

Well, if you have heard of Scrivener, that would be an equivalent. The principle is fairly easy – every new thought/idea/scene is created as a “note”, which is added to a growing collection of other “notes”. That means you can keep different scenes separate and work on them individually without always opening the whole document, which, given the crashing problems mentioned above, definitely a +1.

Features

It is also easier to rearrange the order of scenes without losing anything, because Zettelkasten has a virtual “desk”, on which you can place your notes. This “desk” can be divided into chapters, sections and subsections, basically small “folders” that you keep all the scenes for a specific story in, in the order you want. They can be moved up and down, to different chapters, or entirely removed from the desk. That’s important to note, because it doesn’t mean you’re deleting the note completely. Even if you accidentally delete a scene from this desk, the note will still be there, so you can simply add it again, no harm done.

+1 for organisation and another +1 for not having to be afraid of losing stuff.

Additionally, Zettelkasten lets you tag every note. I had tags for characters, so each note would be tagged with the characters appearing in that particular scene, but you can create tags as you like. This also allows you to search specifically for scenes with certain characters involved, which is useful because I used Zettelkasten a lot to simply jot down ideas for scenes that weren’t yet part of a larger story. If and when I decided to actually write that story, I’d create a new virtual “desk” (you can have several) and find the notes via tags to add them to that desk.

Great feature, much beloved, +1.

Since it was originally developed for taking notes for academic papers, Zettelkasten also has a literature tab. For every note, you can add a reference. I used that to enter the provisional title of the fic, which again made it easier at the end to find all notes belonging to the same story. Additional benefit: renaming the story is super-easy, because there’s no need to find every note and replace the “reference” individually, instead you just rename the title from the literature tab and it automatically changes on all notes with that “reference”.

Again, a much-beloved feature, +1.

There are more features – bookmarks, cross-referencing, attached files – but since I rarely used those for writing (fan)fic, I’m not covering them here. If you want to know more, leave a comment.

File formats

Zettelkasten has its own file format, .zkn3. That means it’s difficult to open it with other programs but the original (but not impossible – 7zip, for example, can open .zkn3 files). The idea here is that you jot down all of your ideas in notes, sort and organise them on your virtual desk, then export them either as the whole desk or as single chapters/sections/subsections from the desk to a file format of your choice, and there are many. HTML, DOC(X) (Word), ODT (Writer), RTF, XML, MD, TEX …

Safe to say you’re somewhat spoilt for choice here, with one caveat: some of those require you to have Pandoc installed on your computer. Which is also freeware, so, you know, not a problem.

My preferred method of uploading to AO3 was usually to export to HTML, then copypaste from one browser window into the other browser window with the Rich Text AO3 text field. Just like with Writer, rich text formatting (bold, italics, underlined, etc.) are copied over, so you don’t need to redo all of that.

Or you just open the .html-file in an editor (Notepad) and copy the code over to the HTML text field on AO3. Either works. Black magic is not required.

Interface

Like Writer, the big pro of the Zettelkasten interface for me is how uncluttered it is. It’s divided into areas where you can see your note, the note’s title, the “references” field and then, on the right, two columns showing the tags for the currently open note and another column with tabs showing available tags, individual note titles, all available references and more.

New notes or notes you’re working on are opened in a separate window, where you enter your changes and then save them. The desk is similarly simple – on the left side are your chapters/sections/subsections, in the middle are the notes and their text, on the right are three fields for additional notes.

Again, the interface isn’t fancy and may put some people off. I love it exactly because it’s so simple. I want to write, edit and develop my story, not be distracted by something the designers thought would look cool.

So, at least for those of similar simple minds as me, +1 for clarity.

Cost

Zettelkasten is free to download, unlike Scrivener or many other comparable applications. However, as with many a free software application not backed by a company or corporation, it probably has an expiration date and will likely stop working at some point in the future.

Since you can export the whole .zkn3-file to various other formats, you aren’t going to lose anything – in a worst-case scenario (and yes, been there, done that, it works), you can open the .zkn3 file with an archive application like 7zip and extract the underlying .xml-files from there. So no, your stories will not be lost forever just because Zettelkasten stops working. It might just require half an hour’s work to get them out.

Syncing

No cloud storage for Zettelkasten, either. As mentioned here, alternative options include Dropbox, GIT, OneDrive or a regular old USB.

Ease of use for Word/Google doc-users

Again, I really like the uncluttered interface of Zettelkasten, which only has very few buttons. The “write notes first, export later” took a moment to get used to, but was outweighed by the knowledge that I couldn’t lose a note, any note, unless I actively deleted it.

Honestly, that decreased my stress levels significantly. I used Zettelkasten for a long, long time, also for work-related stuff. Once I’d wrapped my brain around the idea of having a note for every idea, I found using it extremly easy and conducive to writing. It wasn’t even a problem when I decided later on that two scenes in two notes should actually be merged – I just put them in the right order on the desk and then deleted the empty line between them when uploading to AO3.

A very long story can take some time to appear on the virtual desk, admittedly, but not once has Zettelkasten crashed on me. My fears of losing ideas and scenes disappeared after I started using it, and I like to believe it even helped me get better at writing, because structuring on the virtual desk made me really think about what was happening in which order.

In short, it is software I can whole-heartedly recommend.

Read No-Google (fan)fic writing, Part 1: LibreOffice Writer

Read No-Google (fan)fic writing, Part 3: LaTeχ

Read No-Google (fan)fic writing, Part 4: Markdown

Ah, dear wanderer of knowledge, come sit by the fire, and let me tell you the tale of Zettelkasten, the ancient and powerful method of keeping one’s thoughts as organized as the archives of Minas Tirith, yet as alive as the Ents of Fangorn.

What Is the Zettelkasten System

Zettelkasten — a word from the tongue of the scholars of old Germany — means "slip box." But do not be deceived by its humble name! It is no mere box, but a treasure chest of ideas, bound together like the great libraries of Elrond’s house in Rivendell.

At its heart, the Zettelkasten is a forest of notes, each a living tree. These notes grow, twist, and link together with threads. As your collection grows, your understanding deepens. The system becomes your companion, your guide — like Sam to your Frodo — leading you through the long road of study and creativity.

How to Take Notes in Zettelkasten Style?

Let me teach you the Three Great Arts of Zettelkasten Note-Taking:

1. Fleeting Notes – like fireflies in the dark

These are your wandering thoughts, things you hear or read that sparkle for a moment.- Where to write them? A notebook, a scrap of parchment, or your magical device. What to write? Just enough to remember the idea. What next? Do not hoard them. Review them within a day or two, or they shall vanish like mist.

2. Literature Notes – wisdom from the tomes

These are notes you take while reading scrolls, books, or listening to the wisdom of others. What to do? Summarize ideas in your own words. No copying! Make them clear. As if writing for your future self 100 years hence. Write only what sings to your heart — that which you find meaningful or useful.

3. Permanent Notes – the gems of your mind

These are your true notes, each a polished jewel forged in the fires of thought. One idea per note. Not too long, not too short. Just enough to stand on its own. Give it a clear title — like naming a sword or a star. Link it to other notes. Use references, IDs, or tags — so your notes can speak to each other like the Elves of Lothlórien.

And how do the notes connect?

Ah, this is the magic of Zettelkasten: each note is not alone. Through links, they form a web — strong as the bonds of the Fellowship.- "This idea reminds me of that one," you might write.- Or, "To understand this, you must see that."- Over time, they become a map of your mind, guiding you through the wilderness of thought.

The Tools of the Craft

Some scribes use parchment. Others use tools like Obsidian, Zettlr, or Roam — enchanted notebooks that help link and search your notes. Use what fits your journey.

A small link list around a thing I keep circling without wanting to name too early: paper as an operative surface.

Markus Krajewski: Paper Machines: About Cards & Catalogs, 1548 to 1929

Sybille Krämer, ed.: Schriftbildlichkeit: Wahrnehmbarkeit, Materialität und Operativität von Notationen

Sybille Krämer: “Operationsraum Schrift”

Johanna Drucker: Graphesis: Visual Forms of Knowledge Production

Ursula Klein: Experiments, Models, Paper Tools: Cultures of Organic Chemistry in the Nineteenth Century

Ann M. Blair: Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age

Ann M. Blair: “Note Taking as an Art of Transmission”

Frederic L. Holmes, Jürgen Renn, and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, eds.: Reworking the Bench: Research Notebooks in the History of Science

Frederik Stjernfelt: Diagrammatology: An Investigation on the Borderlines of Phenomenology, Ontology, and Semiotics