From reading to writing

The idea

Comments written while reading are already the beginnings of a text. What is missing is the passage from scattered remarks to a page that you write. A template gives that page its frame: the comments sit in the middle, and around them the headings you will fill in yourself. The extraction prepares the material; the writing stays yours.

An example from a real reading

After Why we forget what we read, the Reading note gesture creates Notes/Why we forget what we read — note.md. The comments appear under Material, each with its ↩ link to the passage. Below, the empty sections What I keep and What I contest wait. The idea on annotation as dialogue becomes the first paragraph; the comment to verify becomes a sentence once the source is checked.

The setting

Create the template Templates/Reading note.md:

---
status: draft
---
# {{note}}

Read on {{today}}. Source: {{sources}}

## Material

{{comments}}

## What I keep

## What I contest

Then an Extraction gesture named Reading note:

Field	Value
Scope	Current note
Format	List by category
Template note	`Templates/Reading note`
Folder	`Notes`
Note name	`{{note}} — note`
Line template	`{{text}} — “{{quote}}” {{link}}`
If the note already exists	Add only new comments

The template is used once, when the note is created. If you comment further and run the gesture again, the new comments are written at the end of Material, between the invisible hypomnema:start and hypomnema:end markers, and your writing below stays untouched. See Template.

Variants

Table format. For a reading with many quotations, the Table format lays out passage and comment side by side.

Quotations only. Filter on the quote category to build a page of quotations ready to cite.

With Templater. If Templater is enabled, turn on Run Templater under More options and add <% … %> tags to the template, for instance to ask for the author’s name. See Templater.