FULL note-taking session for my PhD with DETAILED commentary!

The first 500 people to use my link will get access to one of Skillshare’s best offers: 30 days free AND 40% off your first year of Skillshare membership! skl.sh/morganeua1023
Ask me questions in the comments below or let me know what part of my note-taking process you'd like to see covered next!
And thanks again to Skillshare for sponsoring my channel! 🙂
✨TIMESTAMPS✨
0:00 - intro
1:10 - how I read
4:24 - writing a synopsis
5:26 - creating zettelkasten notes
6:55 - writing zettelkasten notes
12:18 - outlining with notes
14:00 - conclusion

[@Yasharvl]

So courageous of you to share that referencing mistake with us! Your warning could save lives! Thank you!

[@morganeua]

Lolol, maybe not lives. But maybe... careers?

[@gerardoducos1864]

Hi Morgan, you can easily achieve what you mentioned at the end of your video with 2 plugins, one for Zotero and 1 for Obsidian. The latter allows you import all you Zotero metadata and annotations with just one click. There are a couple of videos on youtube about that. great videos

[@shelby5725]

So good to have you back! I definitely missed you on here. I hope your phd is going well. I actually got to feel the benefits of keeping a zettlekasten. I had a random opportunity to speak in a panel and I was able to write my content in just a couple hours because I just had to review what was in my vault. I was so grateful for past me putting in the work, and also you for introducing me to zk!

[@morganeua]

Exactly! I love that feeling when it finally pays off. My favourite is when I'm just in a random zoom call and able to directly reference quotes and ideas in detail because my Obsidian is up in the next window :P

[@rabrojonel]

So true that no one tells you how to do school! In undergrad it's not so bad, because professers really manage your learning with assignments and tests. In grad school (especially for a PhD) it's a whole different level! You're expected to just know how to find and organize knowledge on your own. I think learning about knowledge management in the first year or even during an orientation session would be super helpful!

[@ZeinabeeM]

this was really helpful :)) Thank you so much. I'm gonna implement all of them RIGHT NOW. I'm so looking forward to your next video 💙💙

[@massaglia]

Thanks for another helpful video, Morgan! I'm building my Obsidian skills thanks to you. I love how your approaching your process with a 'less is more' mindset. I can complicate things real fast! V

[@timbushell8640]

Thanks again. ... basic idea, base idea, etc. Writing IS thinking. Worth re-mentioning I think, as a confirming need to have the 'basics' in the Zettle, not just advanced concepts. Plus - in catching the 'error' of mis-citing did you then make any further new links, having to slow down a little and repair the error, and then realising the citing the citee... did that raise a new thought/link/avenue of explorations... mistakes are good - they often open 'hidden' doors. : ))))) And going back to notes and 'tickling' consciously helps join things at a distance and perhaps things you missed last time around. Good luck with the water colouring too

[@morganeua]

"Tickling" notes is a wonderful phrasing ☺

[@fionaizzy_]

I’m working on my master thesis at the moment and your videos on Obsidian are what helped me develop a method of notetaking and making connections between different articles and it’s being really life changing! Thank you so much for your videos :)

[@morganeua]

That's so awesome :) It was life-changing for me, too!

[@bjornflintberg3809]

I can SO relate to this "noone tells you HOW to do it". Doing my PhD now as well, and your videos have been so enormously helpful - I'll be sure to follow your journey - and best of luck with your PhD!

[@morganeua]

Thank you! And thanks for all your comments! What is your PhD in, by the way??

[@flowingblaze]

Thank you for another wonderful video Morgan, I love this video and I always like it when you upload.

[@morganeua]

😊

[@luisanayelhyfloreselguera7699]

I really love your videos, thank you

[@ngoziharrison7002]

following your videos and journey has been really helpful as I start my phd really appreciate you!

[@morganeua]

Thanks! Good luck in your PhD journey!

[@e00d20]

this is very cool, thanks for keeping it post

[@nelsontienne]

THAT'S WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@JoaquinIM.]

I discovered Obsidian through you around a year and a half ago, you have no idea how much it has changed my life. Thanks a lot for making these videos! Keep up the work and good luck with your PhD.

[@morganeua]

Thank you! And I'm glad Obsidian is working as well for you as it does for me!

[@torspedia]

I am gonna have to learn Zotero and the Note Refactoring plugin, especially for my research.

[@buntomat]

You can import your quotes from Zotero to Obsidian in markdown file format. It works in both directions.

[@arvendal]

I really enjoy your videos - great work! I can see how this system works for your academic work. Have you also interlinked this with, for instance, books you are reading, quotes from podcasts, random ideas, etc? In my case, I get a lot of ideas when I link between different domains or parts of my life, and it would be interesting to hear if you tried to implement that into your Zettlekasten-Obsidian setup.

[@morganeua]

Yes, absolutely! I use it to document my learning from all those sources. Podcasts in particular get quite integrated into my system. And popular non-fiction. But the fiction I watch/read ends up pretty siloed. I'd like to make more of an effort to link my notes about fiction reading to other areas of my life, because I think that'd be really valuable.

[@ArtAndTechWithNicolas]

Thank you for video

[@russ0659]

Great video! I’m now doing research for my Master’s thesis, and was wondering how you worked with highlights from texts/articles. How you work lines up really well with what I’ve distilled for my own process from some of your earlier videos (and a few other folk as well). I too start with the quotes (or sometimes atomic thoughts jumping off of statements that get my mind going), and put those in a file for that source. I’m just now starting to work with translating the individual quotes to notes, and haven’t yet used canvas. I do tend to use tags on notes, but find I’m have to learn to use tags that actually matter, and not just repeat tags that fit with the source itself….

[@morganeua]

Yes, I don't use tags, but I use notes themselves like people use tags. And choosing which words to "tag" can be a struggle! But you can always add more later! I do that sometimes, I search for a word in my obsidian and then go "tag" all the relevant notes with that word.

[@user-ny3pg7tm9h]

I came across Zettlekasten, Obsidian and then your channel a few weeks ago, and it has honestly been life changing in terms of structuring my knowledge! So thank you for taking the time to make this videos. I was wondering, when questions emerge in your research do you (and if so how) put them into your Zettlekasten?

[@morganeua]

By questions do you mean like, possible research questions that I don't have the answer to yet? Oftentimes a question will emerge from a particular idea and I'll have a note already existing about that idea. So, I will just write the question at the bottom of that note. Or, if the question is unique/significant enough to have its own note, I'll give it it's own note and connect it to the relevant ideas. No different than a non-question note!

[@user-cx9qs3sc5x]

Thank you for your videos. Obsidian has saved my life as a 1st year PhD student. I am really worried that I lose my notes someday and I try to back up on a hard drive but it’s tedious.

[@morganeua]

Yeah, I save my whole zettelkasten as a .zip file and upload that to my google drive to make sure I'm backing things up.

[@SWINDISA]

How were you able to edit the refrencing link? Also, could u please make a video showing how u get from note to essay step by step or another video on this process as I found it went too fast for me? I just found your earlier videos on this system & love your videos so much

Thank you for the video! Do you use any other Obsidian plugins, and if so, what are they?

[@termite9501]

I have a science obsidian vault and it looks completely different. it’s funny seeing the humanities side!

[@morganeua]

That is so awesome! I love that they look totally different, and it makes sense!!

[@sandanista2002]

I used Evernote during my masters, but didn’t find it user friendly. Watching your videos with interest as I want to see how helpful Obsidian will be on my PhD

[@ebbandflowph]

Wait, what plugin did you use to create a new note with the quote? Also, I started my master's a few months ago, and I got into zettelkasten and using Obsidian and Zotero because of you! Thank you for the videos, you've made it so easy to understand and implement.

[@morganeua]

Note Refactor by James Lynch! It's super easy to use even though it looks kind of confusing in the settings!

[@ebbandflowph]

@@morganeua Thank you! :D

[@giddycarousel]

Have you ever tried integrating your work into Tana? It could be a great tool to combine Obsidian's atomic capabilities with Notion's databases

[@morganeua]

Oh, no I have not, thank you!

[@MrTomGourlay]

Is there a way to copy highlights and notes from endnote into obsidian like you do with zotero?

[@liamwhalen]

Thank you for not editing out the typo misattribution. Seeing the pitfalls is one of the quickest ways for me to comprehend the importance of a system. That example gave substance to how the notes are used because the mistake illustrates where the process breaks down. That moment of frustration focuses the imaginary conception I am using to understand your process at a precise moment. I hope that is intelligible. Also, your 'In work' 'author' 'writes' technique calls to mind triple stores and semantic web tech like RDF and ontology frameworks like OWL. If you know a programmer, you may be able to enhance searching if that summary note system using a SPARQL query system. Not sure any of that is worth your time though.

[@morganeua]

I know some programmers, so it's worth an ask at least!

[@thegreatdream8427]

@@morganeua I think the Dataview plugin for Obsidian can already be used for stuff like this. It really would just be a searchable table with columns "in work", "author", and "what they write", in this case. I'm not sure exactly how - I don't make much use of Dataview yet - but that seems like a place worth looking.

[@morganeua]

@@thegreatdream8427 and I have already attempted dataview a little bit. Although, currently if I want to see what an author wrote, I just go to my source note for their book where I've linked all notes with their direct quotes and also backlinked indirect stuff related to them.

[@ChrisAldrich1]

More toward the notes in the video themselves (I'm more in media studies and far less conversant in theater studies): from my own zettelkasten on the live nature/immediacy of performance subject, I've seen how some older cultures (ancient Greeks and all sorts of Indigenous peoples, including modern Australian indigenous) use(d) their associative memories in ways we don't generally today, and as such would have been able to "re-live" performances which have occurred in the past without modern recording tools. Perhaps it's been explored previously, but if it's of interest to you and your current work or perhaps post-Ph.D., Lynne Kelly's Knowledge & Power in Prehistoric Societies: Orality, Memory and the Transmission of Culture (Cambridge, 2015) may be helpful along with the supporting works of Milman Parry, Albert Lord, and Walter J. Ong (esp. Orality and Literacy; Methuen, 1982). If you really want to spelunk this area, there are some additional explorations of these in the overlap of Frances Yates' (1966) discussion of memory theaters in Western culture. Robert Kanigel's "Hearing Homer's Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry (Knopf, 2021), may provide a quick/fun (audiobook available) non-technical introduction into Milman's work on Homer for those who haven't come across it before and are interested in early performance techniques. It provides an intriguing and entertaining detective story on multiple fronts. As ever, thanks for sharing your notes and the fascinating references within them... 🗃❤

[@morganeua]

Ah, wonderful, thank you for these recommendations! Schneider's book does touch on this a bit because she focuses on re-enactors, some of whom really do feel like they are re-living the past they never experienced through their bodies. And Diana Taylor's "Archive and the Repertoire" also discusses alternative methods of 'recording' to the archive, although it's been a while since I read that book.

[@phoebel5526]

I'm currently in the early stages of my undergrad dissertation and my obsidian is already so disorganised it makes it kind of difficult to work from. Do you have any suggestions on how to make everything easier to find and connect or ways to maybe organise folders?

[@MB.A]

Thanks for this video My question is how do gather all your atomic note in one in order to make your dissertation. I mean is there a way to make a final structured document by using just atomic note without rewritting them. I know it's possible to figure out part of note by making the follow markdow syntax: ![[Note to display]] but my concern is how we can get text easily without copy and paste from atomic note to our final structured draft of dissertation?

[@morganeua]

That's a great option. I'm sure there is some kind of export option, but I don't know it. Personally, I go through the whole laborious copy/paste process. But that's also not bad for me, because I often want to format my outlines in unique ways or only copy part of the note, etc.

[@DocteurSAS]

Thank you so much for this very interesting video! I've tried a bunch of methods for my note-taking. I notice you try to create as many links as possible between your notes, often on specific words (like « performance », « liveness », etc). I'm genuinely curious about this. My approach leans towards having links that point directly to atomic notes to ensure clarity. How do you manage to keep track and maintain clarity with those links?

[@morganeua]

So, I use those words in the same way that someone else might use tags. They are categories of ideas. Inside those notes, there is usually no writing. It's just a space to hold backlinks to ideas related to the concept. So, it's almost literally a tag. I find this very useful because then I can see a graph view of all my ideas about a specific concept. Does that answer your question..?

[@DocteurSAS]

@@morganeua Yes, thank you for taking the time to explain your approach, I truly appreciate it! I understand your perspective and see the value in it. As I continue to refine my process, I'm exploring various methods, including yours and some aspects inspired by Andrew Matushak. Still on the journey to refine my process! 😊

[@FCEjunkie]

Hey, thank you for your amazing content which is very relatable for me (migration studies PhD candidate speaking :D). Just a quick question about conventions: Why do you use hyphens in your note titles? Thank you!

[@morganeua]

I made a whole video about this topic specifically! kzbin.info/www/bejne/fJylZnmjnLqMZ6ssi=kEZwJNWOyS4bEDH_ But some short answers: - future-proofing the names of notes because they are also file names on the computer - it makes them stand out AS notes, not just more writing

[@FCEjunkie]

@@morganeua Thank you very much! 😇

[@royfrady8219]

I use both Zotero and Obsidian. Good walkthrough. I have used Zotero for years in the pursuit of my own doctoral process. How do you read and highlight in Zotero?

[@morganeua]

I actually have a video on that! It's called '3 tools for students to build knowledge on a topic'; this one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jZWnhp-Kp9SVb68si=USCaU-BHWpXVyTRc I'm going to make another zotero-specific video soon, though, because I've gotten better with it since then!

[@Arin306]

One thing I worry about with starting my zk is that I will make a note about a quote or something in a book and then I'll only associate that quote or idea with my first interrpretation of it instead of allowing the meaning to change and shift. Hopefully that clear. Do you think that is an issue with zk? And, is that something you have a way to deal with?

[@morganeua]

Hi! I actually found that zk SOLVED that problem for me! Because instead of making notes about my interpretation of a quote (for a particular paper I'm writing or something), I am instead trying to distill each idea down to it's bare minimum. So, each idea is so small that it doesn't have multiple interpretations. Interpretations of ideas come when I connect more than one note together! I hope that makes sense, it has been a skill that came with time for me! These types of notes are called "atomic" because they are the most basic building blocks of thought. Someone suggested I make a video about how I know when a note is "atomic," so maybe I will try to make that video one day!

[@Caroline_Creative]

If there is a quote and you do already have a note, will you just add it and not make a new note?

[@morganeua]

Yep! Like, if there's a quote and it actually contributes to something already in my system, I'll just add it there. Because I want to keep the ideas together.

[@lynnmoore6304]

When you have gutted the main note into lots of smaller atomic notes do you delete out the main annotations note to tidy up your system? Would this affect any content in the new atomic notes? Thank you

[@morganeua]

Yes, anything I feel like I have sufficiently captured in atomic notes, I removed from the source note to de-clutter! If I think I still need the full quote in the source note for any reason (like context for the atomic note), then I'll leave it in there just in case.

[@maloreally]

This s might be an obvious question and I am exposing my ignorance here, but is there a benefit to hyphenating between every word in your titles?

[@maloreally]

I found your video on it! So disregard me. XD

[@morganeua]

Yay! This is exactly why I made that other video! :P Glad you found it :)

[@lajourdanne]

👑👑👑

[@morganeua]

❤😊

[@donaldp3467]

When ever I need some comedy relief I listen to one of your videos for 10 or 15 minutes. I laugh and laugh

[@ghiles343435]

Do you have any social media like instagram? I am a big fan of your note taking and learning methodology!! and i use the dashes on my notes, I am Chilean in my last semester of my career, thanks for making these videos!!

[@morganeua]

I don't currently have instagram or other social media, no! I'm considering starting a Patreon at some point to share my life/thoughts with a smaller, more dedicated group, but I don't know when that'll be. Congrats on being in your last semester!