Today I’m making good on a promise. A few months ago I said that I would start practising what I preach, and “begin to upload to somewhere freely accessible the transcripts and notes that I use or cite in the work that I publish”. Well, today I begin, kicking off with my transcripts and notes from the travel diaries of Samuel More — secretary for almost thirty years to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, widely considered by his contemporaries to have been one of the leading experts on the inventions and industries of the late eighteenth century.
What a wonderful opportunity to look through these diary entries. Thank you for sharing them. I have been researching British folklore for a few years for a novel and related newsletter I'm working on, but perhaps Samuel More's travel diaries will inspire me with daily life and industry. I was curious how you manage/keep track of all of the research you perform (from a paperwork standpoint)? Do you use a tool like Mendeley Reference Manager, or do you have your own system?
On top of the transparency, notes are so idiosyncratic, and we’re not taught how to take them, so I’m all for sharing what they look like at the very least so we can learn from others’ approaches.
Relatedly, I see you’re using Obsidian. It’s very tempting! Would love to read something about how it works for you to organize information.
I use Scrivener for writing, very happily, and Devonthink and Zotero to keep track of research and notes. But DT is almost too powerful, and Obsidian’s text-based simplicity is appealing. In any case, when historians talk about historical “methods” we usually mean “social history” or “cultural history”, ie methods of analysis, but not the crucial earthy stuff like “how to take and organize your notes”. If you get around to writing about your practices, will look forward to reading them.
Interesting. Really. I feel a little unnerved that I’ve not heard of any of these tools. Old I am these days, but at least I thought I knew what people were using to keep notes. Since it’s Christmas, the end of the year, how about a tale (or two)? These begin in the analogue world.
I used to use cards. Have a mountain of them. Careful notes, often in English and other languages (mostly Chinese and Japanese). And indexes to these cards. That’s what I did for my PhD at ANU and MA at HKU. I also used ProCite, a precursor to EndNote. I was introduced to it in the second half of the 1980s when I was an editor on the Far Eastern Economic Review. Our librarian used it to organize the FEER’s output. I wrote a bit of code that enabled we editors to call it from our primitive consoles (Swords - ran a global correspondent network on a system with a 16kb memory!). And continued to use it until late 1990s.
I also kept notebooks, many notebooks, that have been a lifesaver when stuck for something - a quick flick through some of these from the early 1980s can generate a year or more of fruitful research, some of which was not possible back then.
What do I do these days? A throw back to the dark ages. That’s for sure. I write notes with headings Note author-name year. In Word. I tell myself there has to be a more efficient way. And I’m sure there is, even without reading Anton’s post and your responses. But it’s a bit like statistics software. I was trained on SSPS before it was on a microcomputer (read PC) and though I like the graphics on Stata and the power of R I have so many syntax scripts (DO files for Stata people) that as long as the data set is set up the way I specify I can code Chinese provinces, periods, occupations, etc, in a few minutes however big the file is. When I use Stata I’ll waste a week getting it to square! Path dependency, uh?
So, my learned younger correspondents, any suggested go-to site for the good oil on Obsidian or Scrivener? Thank you for your patience. I really need to get my note taking better organized as these past few months trying to maintain in my head dozens of references in several languages on Southeast Asia, China and the maritime silk roads c.900-1800 has challenged me. And frustrated my usual confidence in handling such a brief.
Hi Anton, have you done any research on liability insurance for professionals or craftspeople or their inventions? If so I'd be interested to know more as it relates to one aspect of my Phd thesis on early reinforced concrete systems, which I hope is nearing completion ...
On your page about unsung materials, you ask at the end "What else should I explore?" How do I reply to this? Can I use this comment window? There does not seem to be a way to do it on the online version of this article. https://www.ageofinvention.xyz/
What a wonderful opportunity to look through these diary entries. Thank you for sharing them. I have been researching British folklore for a few years for a novel and related newsletter I'm working on, but perhaps Samuel More's travel diaries will inspire me with daily life and industry. I was curious how you manage/keep track of all of the research you perform (from a paperwork standpoint)? Do you use a tool like Mendeley Reference Manager, or do you have your own system?
On top of the transparency, notes are so idiosyncratic, and we’re not taught how to take them, so I’m all for sharing what they look like at the very least so we can learn from others’ approaches.
Relatedly, I see you’re using Obsidian. It’s very tempting! Would love to read something about how it works for you to organize information.
I use Scrivener for writing, very happily, and Devonthink and Zotero to keep track of research and notes. But DT is almost too powerful, and Obsidian’s text-based simplicity is appealing. In any case, when historians talk about historical “methods” we usually mean “social history” or “cultural history”, ie methods of analysis, but not the crucial earthy stuff like “how to take and organize your notes”. If you get around to writing about your practices, will look forward to reading them.
Interesting. Really. I feel a little unnerved that I’ve not heard of any of these tools. Old I am these days, but at least I thought I knew what people were using to keep notes. Since it’s Christmas, the end of the year, how about a tale (or two)? These begin in the analogue world.
I used to use cards. Have a mountain of them. Careful notes, often in English and other languages (mostly Chinese and Japanese). And indexes to these cards. That’s what I did for my PhD at ANU and MA at HKU. I also used ProCite, a precursor to EndNote. I was introduced to it in the second half of the 1980s when I was an editor on the Far Eastern Economic Review. Our librarian used it to organize the FEER’s output. I wrote a bit of code that enabled we editors to call it from our primitive consoles (Swords - ran a global correspondent network on a system with a 16kb memory!). And continued to use it until late 1990s.
I also kept notebooks, many notebooks, that have been a lifesaver when stuck for something - a quick flick through some of these from the early 1980s can generate a year or more of fruitful research, some of which was not possible back then.
What do I do these days? A throw back to the dark ages. That’s for sure. I write notes with headings Note author-name year. In Word. I tell myself there has to be a more efficient way. And I’m sure there is, even without reading Anton’s post and your responses. But it’s a bit like statistics software. I was trained on SSPS before it was on a microcomputer (read PC) and though I like the graphics on Stata and the power of R I have so many syntax scripts (DO files for Stata people) that as long as the data set is set up the way I specify I can code Chinese provinces, periods, occupations, etc, in a few minutes however big the file is. When I use Stata I’ll waste a week getting it to square! Path dependency, uh?
So, my learned younger correspondents, any suggested go-to site for the good oil on Obsidian or Scrivener? Thank you for your patience. I really need to get my note taking better organized as these past few months trying to maintain in my head dozens of references in several languages on Southeast Asia, China and the maritime silk roads c.900-1800 has challenged me. And frustrated my usual confidence in handling such a brief.
Hi Anton, have you done any research on liability insurance for professionals or craftspeople or their inventions? If so I'd be interested to know more as it relates to one aspect of my Phd thesis on early reinforced concrete systems, which I hope is nearing completion ...
On your page about unsung materials, you ask at the end "What else should I explore?" How do I reply to this? Can I use this comment window? There does not seem to be a way to do it on the online version of this article. https://www.ageofinvention.xyz/