Reading Notes, etc

[lucyyogi 0]

Hi all, first post but have been an avid user for the past few years.

 

I struggle using evernote to take notes while reading. I think because of some of it's structural limitations or my own lack of time for thinking about how to best leverage the structures of EN.....

 

So, how do you suggest taking notes with EN in big text books. I am reading B&D's Reframing Organizations for a class.

 

Do you do a big note for each chapter? Many little notes for chapter sections? I have read about some people making table of contents for their notes, etc.

 

Secondly, sometimes I am traveling and don't have a laptop. I have a nexus 7 and phone. Sometimes I use the n7 and use the multi-tasking feature to read using the kindle/nook app and then switch to EN to make a note. BUT, I have found that long notes on EN for Android are cumbersome. They get buggy, don't save, etc...

 

Sooo, if you are in a mobile setting, what do you do? Use the phone as one screen for notes and the tablet for reading or vice versa? It's easy on a laptop because of larger screen and better multi-tasking.

 

Thanks for your help!

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Hi all, first post but have been an avid user for the past few years.

 

I struggle using evernote to take notes while reading. I think because of some of it's structural limitations or my own lack of time for thinking about how to best leverage the structures of EN.....

 

So, how do you suggest taking notes with EN in big text books. I am reading B&D's Reframing Organizations for a class.

 

Do you do a big note for each chapter? Many little notes for chapter sections? I have read about some people making table of contents for their notes, etc.

 

Secondly, sometimes I am traveling and don't have a laptop. I have a nexus 7 and phone. Sometimes I use the n7 and use the multi-tasking feature to read using the kindle/nook app and then switch to EN to make a note. BUT, I have found that long notes on EN for Android are cumbersome. They get buggy, don't save, etc...

 

Sooo, if you are in a mobile setting, what do you do? Use the phone as one screen for notes and the tablet for reading or vice versa? It's easy on a laptop because of larger screen and better multi-tasking.

 

Thanks for your help!

Hi. Taking notes can be a bit of a pain on the tablet or mobile device because you don't have multiple windows (unless, of course, you are using Windows). My best solution so far has been to highlight passages I want to remember, and put comments into a PDF when I want to write my own thoughts. Then, every so often (preferably when I am done with the book or article) I email the annotations (highlights and comments) to my email account. Alternatively, if I already have a note for the book/article (maybe I emailed the annotations into Evernote sometime before), then I copy/paste the new annotations into the existing note.

Long notes? I prefer to avoid them, but I usually do one note per book/article. By the way, if you have an important note that you are writing on mobile, I strongly recommend writing it in several versions: create a new note every few minutes during an important lecture (for example) and copy/paste the data forward to manually create your own versions. During a one hour lecture, if you have four notes (for example) that will give you four note histories and four backups. When you have time later, just go into your account and delete the extraneous notes. Because mobile can be a bit unreliable at times, you can't plug in a backup device, and Evernote only records note version histories about every eight hours, there are more opportunities to lose data.

[Hackademic 8]

I, like Grumpy Monkey, take my notes in the PDF viewer/annotator on mobile platforms. I use a Mac, and I have written some scripts that export my annotations to text files formatted in Markdown with custom URLs back to the original PDF. I then send that Markdown plain text to Evernote as HTML, where all of my hyperlinks become "clickable." This has really helped my actual note taking (all in one place, in the PDF viewer itself) as well as my reviewing (I can easily get back to the original PDF). I've started discussing my methods and putting up my scripts on a new blogging platform that actually uses Evernote as its backbone. If you're on a Mac, some of the things there might be helpful (it's easier for me to refer you than to re-post my thoughts or scripts, which can be a bit long; as Grumpy Monkey knows, having seen a few of them himself). 

 

Hope that might help you, 

stephen

http://hackademic.postach.io/

[xnowimcoolx 4]

For big books I do a bit of work before I get into the note-taking.

 

First, I make a new Notebook with the title of the book

 

Then, in the Notebook

I make a ToC note with the names of all the chapters spaced out evenly (usually triple spaced - you'll see why)

 

I make a new note for every chapter of the book and link it to my ToC.

 

Then I do my reading and note taking - not forgetting to tag notes too.  And bold important subheadings

 

Lastly, I copy those important subheadings and paste them into the ToC under the relevant chapter link.  

 

I may also add other important details too the ToC - but more is less - it's only to get a general feel for the chapter.

 

Thats it - hope that helps.

[Candid 167]

I keep hearing about textbooks on Kindle, if so you could take your notes using Kindle and then from a computer access those notes and clip them with Evernote bringing them all to one place.