Objection and verification
The idea
Section titled “The idea”Two reactions come back in almost every critical reading: “I disagree” and “I need to check this”. Each deserves its own gesture, because each calls for a different follow-up. An objection is an argument to develop; a verification is a task to close. Giving them a hotkey makes the reaction cheap enough to be written down on the spot instead of postponed.
An example from a real reading
Section titled “An example from a real reading”In Why we forget what we read, the article claims that most of what we read is forgotten within the hour. To verify asks “Verify what?”, the answer is “the source of the forgetting curve figures”, and the comment reads “Verify the source of the forgetting curve figures”. A few paragraphs later, the claim that annotating is enough to remember gets an Objection: “Objection: annotating is not rereading.”
The setting
Section titled “The setting”Create two Annotation gestures in Settings → Hypomnema → Gestures, and turn on Command for both.
| Name | Category | Starting text |
|---|---|---|
| Objection | #objection |
Objection: {{cursor}} |
| To verify | #to-verify |
Verify {{VALUE:what?}} |
The objection and to-verify categories must exist in the Categories section. Then give each command a hotkey in Settings → Hotkeys, for instance Ctrl+Alt+O and Ctrl+Alt+V.
Variants
Section titled “Variants”A verification list. An Extraction with scope Whole vault, the category filter to-verify and the Kanban format gives a single board of everything left to check.
Ask for the category. A single gesture with category Ask each time ("ask") and an empty Starting text replaces several gestures when you prefer to choose at each comment.
Answering the objection. Reply to the objection in its thread when you have the answer, instead of editing the comment: the thread keeps the trace of both moments of the reading.