28 Matching Annotations
  1. Sep 2024
  2. Mar 2023
  3. Feb 2023
    1. I’ve also begun adopting a style loosely based on the approach to introductory signals used in legal writing, where things like See: [[something]] and See also: [[something]] and But see: [[something]] each have slightly different meanings. This gives me a set of supporting, comparison, and contradictory signals I can use when placing links as well.

      Shorthand notations or symbols in one's notes can be used to provide help in structuring arguments. Small indicators like "see: x", "see also: y", or "but see: z" can be used for adding supporting, comparison, or contradictory material respectively.

    1. Are there symbols for 'supported by' or 'contradicted by' etc. to show not quite formal logical relations in a short hand?

      reply to u/stjeromeslibido at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/10qw4l5/are_there_symbols_for_supported_by_or/

      In addition to the other excellent suggestions, I don't think you'll find anything specific that that was used historically for these, but there are certainly lots of old annotation symbols you might be able to co-opt for your personal use.

      Evina Steinova has a great free cheat sheet list of annotation symbols: The Most Common Annotation Symbols in Early Medieval Western Manuscripts (a cheat sheet).

      More of this rabbit hole:

      (Nota bene: most of my brief research here only extends to Western traditions, primarily in Latin and Greek. Obviously other languages and eras will have potential ideas as well.)

      Tironian shorthand may have something you could repurpose as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tironian_notes

      Some may find the auxiliary signs of the Universal Decimal Classification useful for some of these sorts of notations for conjoining ideas.


      Given the past history of these sorts of symbols and their uses, perhaps it might be useful for us all to aggregate a list of common ones we all use as a means of re-standardizing some of them in modern contexts? Which ones does everyone use?

      Here are some I commonly use:

      Often for quotations, citations, and provenance of ideas, I'll use Maria Popova and Tina Roth Eisenberg's Curator's Code:

      • ᔥ for "via" to denote a direct quotation/source— something found elsewhere and written with little or no modification or elaboration (reformulation notes)
      • ↬ for "hat tip" to stand for indirect discovery — something for which you got the idea at a source, but modified or elaborated on significantly (inspiration by a source, but which needn't be cited)

      Occasionally I'll use a few nanoformats, from the microblogging space, particularly

      • L: to indicate location

      For mathematical proofs, in addition to their usual meanings, I'll use two symbols to separate biconditionals (necessary/sufficient conditions)

      • (⇒) as a heading for the "if" portion of the proof
      • (⇐) for the "only if" portion

      Some historians may write 19c to indicate 19th Century, often I'll abbreviate using Roman numerals instead, so "XIX".

      Occasionally, I'll also throw drolleries or other symbols into my margins to indicate idiosyncratic things that may only mean something specifically to me. This follows in the medieval traditions of the ars memoria, some of which are suggested in Cornwell, Hilarie, and James Cornwell. Saints, Signs, and Symbols: The Symbolic Language of Christian Art 3rd Edition. Church Publishing, Inc., 2009. The modern day equivalent of this might be the use of emoji with slang meanings or 1337 (leet) speak.

  4. Jan 2023
    1. It may be an advantage to learn shorthand, as many do , and takethe notes verbatim, but there really is no necessity for taking entire lectures ; in fact lectures may be a disadvantage because they make morework to be gone over.

      Notice the advice for shorthand here in 1910. When was it a dead technology for students? Certainly by the 1980s when it was less frequently taught in schools.

      Even with the ability to do shorthand and get things verbatim, he suggests against it for the sheer volume of material to go over.

      Link to/compare with: - https://hypothes.is/a/gqSGbpVaEe2pmiuwPwm8Vw from 1892

    2. me word or expression every time the notes may be bothfull and legible. Thus "b," with date , is "born" and "d" is "died" ; "dif"is "different from" ; "lit" is "literature" ; "Shak" is " Shakspere" ; "gov"is "governor ;" "govt" is "government" ; "cal" is "calculate" ; "cur" is"current"; "org" is "organic" or "organism"; "prep" is "precipitate" ;"dec" is "decant" ; " " is "filter"; "comp" is "compound" ; " H" is"Hydrogen" ; "dyn" is " dynamo ", or "dynamic" ; "dn" is "dyne", etc. ,without end. You need not be particular about grammar or completeness .There is no limitation save clearness and accuracy. One must be able toread the notes later.
    1. Tobeuseful,thenotestakenatmedicallecturesshouldbeasummaryonly;noattempt shouldbemadetotakeaverbatimreport

      Verbatim notes are not the goal.

      The idea of note taking as a means of sensemaking and understanding is underlined in an 1892 article in a shorthand magazine whose general purpose was to encourage shorthand and increasing one's writing speed, often to create verbatim records:

      To be useful, the notes taken at medical lectures should be a summary only; no attempt should be made to take a verbatim report.

  5. Dec 2022
  6. Aug 2022

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  7. Apr 2022
  8. Jun 2021
    1. Willis’s primary interest was shorthand writing—he is chiefly noted forArt of Stenographie—andhis memory treatise is clearly influenced by shorthand’s mechanism of one-to-one correspondence.

      John Willis's Mnemonica (Latin 1618, English 1621, 1654, and 1661) covers memory, but he was apparently more interested in shorthand writing and also wrote Art of Stenographie.

      I'll have to read this for a view into the overlap of memory and shorthand with respect to the development of the major system. Did this influence others in the chain of history? It definitely fits into the right timeline.

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  9. Apr 2021
    1. In Germany the great Gottfried Wil-helm von Leibniz was sufficiently intrigued by the notion to incor-porate it into his scheme for a universal language;

      I wish he'd written more here about this. Now I'll have to dig up the reference and the set up as I've long had a similar thought for doing this myself.

      I'll also want to check into the primacy of the idea as others have certainly thought about the same thing. My initial research indicates that both François Fauvel Gouraud and Isaac Pitman both wrote about or developed this possibility. In Pitman's case he used it to develop his version of shorthand which was likely informed by earlier versions of shorthand.

  10. Mar 2021
  11. Nov 2020
  12. Oct 2020
    1. Looking up “ars memoria” on Wikipedia, I found a suggestion that for some people in the Middle Ages, looking at certain images was considered a means of gaining all knowledge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_memory). It quotes Yates, Art of Memory: The practitioner of the Ars Notoria gazed at figures or diagrams curiously marked and called 'notae' whilst reciting magical prayers. He hoped to gain in this way knowledge, or memory, of all the arts and sciences, a different 'nota' being provided for each discipline. The Ars Notoria is perhaps a descendant of the classical art of memory, or of that difficult branch of it which used the shorthand notae. It was regarded as a particularly black kind of magic and was severely condemned by Thomas Aquinas.

      I'm intrigued by the word shorthand in this setting along with the idea of notoria or notae, but I don't hold much hope...

    1. In any case Quintilian makes it clear that non-alphabetic signs can be employed as memory images, and even goes on to mention how 'shorthand' signs (notae) can be used to signify things that would otherwise be impossible to capture in the form of a definite image (he gives "conjunctions" as an example).[36]
    2. The Art of Signs (Latin Ars Notoria) is also very likely a development of the graphical mnemonic. Yates mentions Apollonius of Tyana and his reputation for memory, as well as the association between trained memory, astrology and divination.[37] She goes on to suggest It may have been out of this atmosphere that there was formed a tradition which, going underground for centuries and suffering transformations in the process, appeared in the Middle Ages as the Ars Notoria, a magical art of memory attributed to Apollonius or sometimes to Solomon. The practitioner of the Ars Notoria gazed at figures or diagrams curiously marked and called 'notae' whilst reciting magical prayers. He hoped to gain in this way knowledge, or memory, of all the arts and sciences, a different 'nota' being provided for each discipline. The Ars Notoria is perhaps a descendant of the classical art of memory, or of that difficult branch of it which used the shorthand notae. It was regarded as a particularly black kind of magic and was severely condemned by Thomas Aquinas.[38]
  13. Jul 2020