Looking to improve my note taking/highlighting
I am looking to create highlighting pens linked to notebooks to improve my note taking and highlighting system and was wondering if anyone would be willing to share what has worked for them. For example, I plan to create a highlighter for illustrations and a highlighter for sermon ideas. Any suggestions on other themes that would be helpful to mark for future reference?
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I use the following for over 20 years now in any book/text I work throught:
- yellow: any (substantial) reference to place/time
- red: Person(s)
- blue: technical terms
- green: title of literary works (or title of movie, painting etc.)
- orange: motifs/themes
- brown: (church) history
- pencil wavy line: statements I question or I disagree with
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Aaron Hamilton said:
Any suggestions on other themes that would be helpful to mark for future reference?
I've long used a highlighting system that attempts to map out the author's line of reasoning. Logos offers a huge palette of highlighting choices, but I settled on 5 simple ones that use the basic text highlighting pens:
Purple - author's main point.
Blue - points that directly support / explain / illustrate the main point
Green - points that support blue
Orange - points that support green
Yellow - points that support orange
My reason for doing this is based on the assumption that the author's reasoning won't change over time. I just need to understand it and wrestle with it.
The result can look something like this:
Using this highlighting system often makes my head hurt, but I do think this method honors the author's work. It can make the page visually busy, so I occasionally just switch off notes and highlighting and read from a clean page. Another benefit is it makes for lively discussion in study groups. What I think is purple-worthy might not be what another person thinks is purple-worthy.
I also use a very small set of icons for special areas of emphasis. E.g., commandments and imperatives are enclosed in a double-lined box.
I hope this gives you an alternative to consider. Good wishes in your exploration.
Mike
Logos 10, 2024 M2 Macbook Air, Sequoia, < == > Obsidian
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I'm really appreciating the contributions that have been shared. It's giving me a lot to think about.
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I've used color coding for so long in printed bibles... but oddly I don't use in in digital bibles... don't know why other than I don't like the looks...... but here are the colors I use for printed bibles...
red - things pertaining to sin.
Yellow - things pertaining to salvation.
blue - things pertaining to heaven.
gold - things pertaining to the Godhead
light green - things pertaining to Old Testament law.
dark green - things pertaining to the church.
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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I used to highlight Bibles in Logos, but not anymore because eventually almost everything gets highlighted and reading the second go around was tough with so much color.
I am wondering if Visual Filters may be a better alternative. There are tons of them under Public Documents. Pick one that matches your preference close enough. The advantage of Visual Filters is that you can turn it on and off and, thereby, avoid the permanence of highlights.
I believe in a Win-Win-Win God.
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Thanks for the additional contributions! To clarify, while I will certainly also make notes and highlights in my Bible, my primary concern is for resources outside of the Bible. I want to mark thoughts that are of special interest to me and have those thoughts linked via personalized highlighters to notebooks that I can reference later. If I don't have a system of note taking/highlighting, I will likely never find many of these ideas again as my library is a bit overwhelming and in desperate need of structure. I am aware that many of you have been doing this much longer than I have and am grateful for the opportunity to learn from the structures you have found to be beneficial for your purposes.
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I too tend to use very little highlighting, except for the most important things I want to retain. Otherwise, I take a lot of anchored notes and also use visual filters, that I can switch on and off. I find the visual load becomes a distraction if I use it too much, so less is more.
At least that is how my brain seems to be wired.
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Thanks! Anchored notes is a fantastic idea. I'm certainly going to incorporate those more fully. I'll have to look into perhaps utilizing visual filters more.
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Thanks! Anchored notes is a fantastic idea. I'm certainly going to incorporate those more fully. I'll have to look into perhaps utilizing visual filters more.
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