reply to Kirk Jackson aka u/NashvilleTypewriter at https://old.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1wjidrf/what_words_could_we_use_to_better_describe_the/pal3wez/

This is great. I find it to be the case as well.

Watching other spaces like note taking applications (and methods), stationery, planners, notebooks, pencils, pens, fountain pens, etc. it repeats itself over and over. Some will really love a particular object which seems to work for them while others don't. Fora are filled with people asking, what do you like? how do you use it? when instead they ought to be attempting to figure out what they like and how they would use it.

Some turn their love of a particular thing into a religion (Apple vs. IBM comes to mind) which also tends to make others doubt their own choices and what might work best for them. Instead of experimenting around a bit to see what works for them, they take the supposed "magic" propounded by others and wrongly try to make it work for themselves. This is one of the primary reasons I tell potential new typewriter stewards to visit shops or type-ins so that they can put their hands on a variety of machines to see which "speaks" or works best for them and their needs. There are so many people limping along out there on dreadfully maintained machines because they haven't tried others (or even cleaned, oiled, and well-adjusted ones) and don't know what they're missing.

I was reading/listening to a series by APM recently called Sold a Story about how some academics and scientists created a "new method" for teaching reading and sold it as a products to school systems all over the country. While it managed to work for a terrifically small population, it was broadly wrong for the majority of people. Decades of harm was done to children and the educational space because everyone went with what these experts said (and which may have seemed logical) rather than doing some work, trusting testing and results, or continuing to experiment with a variety of strategies. Similarly, while computers and writing software may work for many, some of the older tried-and-true methods out there using tools like pencils, pens, loose paper, index cards, notebooks, notepads, and typewriters can provide dramatically different affordances in ways of working with them which are actually better for some of the things one might wish to accomplish with them. Some tools have the ability to speak to you in ways that others do not.

(P.S. Thanks for your observation as this may become the kernel of the introduction to the book I'm slowly working on.)

An index card masterclass to kick start your writing.<br /> by [[Justin Hill]] on YouTube<br /> accessed on 2026-01-14T09:17:56

Justin Hill, a long form writer, uses index cards in his writing for taking notes, inspiration/prompts, as well as for outlining/organizing the plot of his material.

Julius Reizen in reviewing over Umberto Eco's index card system in How to Write a Thesis, defines his own "insurance card" as one which contains "hard-to-classify thoughts, questions, and areas for further inquiry". These he would keep together so that they don't otherwise get lost in the variety of other locations one might keep them

These might be akin to Ahrens' "fleeting notes" but are ones which may not easily or even immediately be converted in to "permanent notes" for one's zettelkasten. However, given their mission critical importance, they may be some of the most important cards in one's repository.

link this to - idea of centralizing one's note taking practice to a single location

Is this idea in Eco's book and Reizen is the one that gives it a name since some of the other categories have names? (examples: bibliographic index cards, reading index cards (aka literature notes), cards for themes, author index cards, quote index cards, idea index cards, connection cards). Were these "officially" named and categorized by Eco?

May be worthwhile to create a grid of these naming systems and uses amongst some of the broader note taking methods. Where are they similar, where do they differ?

Multi-search tools that have full access to multiple trusted data stores (ostensibly personal ones across notebooks, hard drives, social media services, etc.) could potentially solve the problem of needing to remember where you noted something.

Currently, in the social media space especially, this is not a realized service.

Nabokov used index cards for his research and writing. In one index card for research on Lolita, he creates a "weight-heigh-age table for girls of school age" to be able to specify Lolita's measurements. He also researched the Colt catalog of 1940 to get gun specifications to make those small points realistic in his writing.

syndication link

Hawk Sugano was introduced to index cards circa 2001 by means of Watanabe Shoichi's book “知的生活の方法” (A Method of Intellectual Life".

https://web.archive.org/web/20170530033313/http://pileofindexcards.org/blog/2006/08/20/me-and-indexcard/

https://emacsconf.org/2023/talks/nabokov/

Joseph Harris uses a mélange of materials to make his writing including books, papers, magazines, from which he is copying sections out, writing in margins, making notes on index cards and then moving those pieces of text and pieces of paper (the index cards, and possibly Post-it notes) around to create his output.

He doesn't delineate a specific process for his excerpting or note taking practice. How does he organize his notes? Is he just pulling them from piles around him? Is there a sense of organization at all?

Nabokov's wishes were that his heirs burn the index cards on which he had handwritten the beginning of his unfinished novel The Original of Laura. His wife Vera, not able to destroy her husband's work, couldn't do it, so the decision fell to their son Dimitri. Having translated many of his father's works previously, Dimitri Nabokov ultimately allowed Penguin the right to publish the unfinished novel.

is flexible, but I am rather particular about my instruments: lined Bristol cards and well sharpened, not too hard, pencils capped with erasers.

Nabokov on his system of writing.

Vladimir Nabokov's general writing method consisted of composing his material on index cards so that he could shuffle them as he worked as he didn't write in consecutive order. He rewrote and edited cards many times and when the work was completed with the cards in their final order, Nabokov dictated them to his wife Vera who would type them up in triplicate.

http://boffosockobooks.com/books/authors/henry-james-korn/the-pontoon-manifesto/

link to: - https://hypothes.is/a/peuV1MBBEeyz03uCkPkBqA

Hill and Wang published Mourning Diary by Roland Barthes on October 12, 2010. It is a collection of 330 entries which he wrote following the death of his mother Henriette in 1977.

Kristina Budelis indicates that she saw them in person and reproduced four of them as index card-like notes in The New Yorker (September 2010).