Strategies for using highlighting and notes effectively

Think of note files as physical folders. Then think about the kind of notes you might be taking: would you want them all in the same folder? If you want different folders, what folders would you want (create a note file for each one).

I can share what I do, but others may have different systems that work for them. 

I have three main types of note files: 

1. Notes attached to Bible references
2. Notes attached to selections in books
3. Topical notes I have created that are not attached to anything (although they could be attached to the corresponding headwords).

In the first group, I have Bible Notes which is my personal commentary. I have Evangelism Notes, Discipleship Notes, and Ministry Notes. For each set of notes I use a different colour (for the note icons). This way I know right away what kind of note is attached to a verse.  

I have some notes on entire passages: I use a different icon (but same colour as the corresponding note file) to signal that. For instance, I would have a note on the whole of the Gospel of Matthew (a star icon), on the Sermon on the Mount (a round icon) and on verse within it (a rectangle icon).

For the second group, I use only one file, that I called, Articles/Books Notes. All the notes use the same icon. My default colour is green, but for a more important note I use blue, and for a critical note, I use red. 

In the third group, I have a file with Bible topics (e.g., Abraham, Baptism, etc). I just add notes or update them as needed. I have a file in which I am compiling notes on a set of related books that I am reading as part of a larger project. In the latter, I have entries for books, but once in a while I find need to create a different kind of note to comment on features I have seen across several of the books I look at, I then use a different colour/icon to make this more visually apparent. 

As far as highlighting goes, I only use it in relation to the Article/Books notes. I prefer to just see an icon at the head of a verse to signal a note than to have too many highlights. I have, however, created visual filters when studying specific books that can be turned off when not in use. For instance, you can choose to have instances of the word "kingdom" underlined in a specific way in the Gospels. 

This is just what I do and no more than that. I hope it can give you some ideas. Hopefully, this is what you are looking for. If not, feel free to ask further questions. Others will probably provide you with further ideas or ways of doing this.

alabama24 said:

In my opinion, "resource specific" note documents is the best choice for most users. If you make highlights just to highlight for comprehension and review purposes, and don't look at highlights as "notes," then "resource specific" is the way to go. 

I agree with this. When I am highlighting, I am usually just marking key information, quotes I may want for later, or other things that stand out to me in some way. All highlights for each book are in their own note file, along with any "actual" (non-highlight) notes that I add. Having separate note files for separate resources also keeps the file size down on individual note files, which has several advantages when it comes to syncing and performance issues.

This is a good question, Armin, and I am interested in the answer as well. I think performance used to be a greater concern with larger note files in the past (esp. with Logos 4). Now, I am not sure I see the point of splitting resources across different files (unless the study of a specific resource is a highly focused project).

When I put notes into my Articles/Books file, Logos automatically titles it with the abbreviated title of the work. So, if I really wanted to see all the files on a given book, all I need to do is either (1) sort the notes by title or (2) within the resource, use the navigation arrows to go from highlight to highlight. But this is not how I use the notes in this file. These are observations/comments I make about the book as I read it. Usually, it is as I review the book that I see that I had put comments here or there, at which point I can hover on the icon to see what it says. I don't need to go to the note file at all, and so, for me, it is superfluous to have these notes separate from other book notes aside from their identifying titles.