Academics see note-taking as a way to summarize information. But this does not help you learn, as it merely compresses information. Think of a suitcase which “compresses/summarizes” your clothing but is terrible if you need to find a specific item. Instead, you need a system; in other words, you need to unpack the suitcase onto shelves where every piece (of information) is accessible in one intuitive step. After writing over 500,000 words in notes, I present the Source-Topic-Argument system, an easy and powerful way to organise your information.

During the Effortless Literature Review 4.0 webinar, a person in the anonymous feedback commented this:

“The concept of source vs topic vs argument notes. Mind blowing! Wish I had studied this way in school.”

To understand why this was such a revelation to them, I researched what “academic note-taking” means to most people. To my shock, I found almost every university in the world suggesting the same five ways of structuring single notes, missing the crucial point that it is not about how you take your notes but how you organize your note collection. In other words everyone speaks about tactics not about the strategy of note-taking. This quote came to mind:

In this article I want to show you the Source-Topic-Argument strategy of note-taking. You can go ahead and combine it with any note-taking tactic you find online to become a more efficient academic.

Most note-taking methods don’t tell you how to organize

Researching online about note-taking you might have found dozens of university websites proposing the same 5 methods on taking notes:

• The Cornell method: Divide your note into two columns one for detailed notes on the right and one smaller one for key-points on the left.
• The outline method: Uses hierarchical bullet points to write down an argument and follow-up ideas
• The boxing method: Stores notes in separate boxes and uses bold titles to create an overview.
• The charting method: Uses tables to store information
• The mapping method: Uses a mind map to store information

All of these systems have one thing in common: They only describe how to structure a single note, not a collection of notes. In other words, they describe the tactics but not the strategy. Think of organizing your closet. If each piece of clothing is one note, these methods only guide you on how to fold your clothing but not where to put it. Yet, where to put it is much more important if you want to find clothing/information quickly.

Eliminating repetition is key to a note-taking system

Imagine you read five papers one after the other and it takes you one hour to take notes for each separately. This is five hours of work. But in reality, the topics in the papers strongly overlap (as you are learning something about a narrow field). Over time, you can learn almost nothing new from additional papers but still take notes on the entire paper:

Each paper usually brings only one small, incremental new idea and once you have learned your field a bit this is the only thing you need to remember from the paper. Your entire note on the paper collapses to just a few sentences sketching the main idea. This is how you can read papers at light speed. And to do this, you need a note-taking strategy, not a method.

Source – Topic – Argument note-taking strategy

The idea of the source STA system is to first break up the information into topics: small, atomic notes that deal with one very narrow niche. Then, these topic notes can be joined in new ways to create complex arguments that show how topics relate to one another. Lastly, the source notes are used to keep track of where the information comes from, avoiding plagiarism and facilitating easy citation. Here is an overview:

Imagine the source notes being notes on a certain paper. The information inside these sources ends up being broken up into three topic notes on the different topics (in this case geometric shapes). Then, an argument note describes the relation between the topics, making the argument: “There are only two types of shapes (square and round)“. Importantly, the information on “what a square actually is” is contained within the topic notes, not the source notes. The source notes can indeed be mostly empty, containing only a link to where you obtained the original paper. Let’s break it down in some detail.

Topic notes

The topic note gathers everything you know on one specific topic and nothing else. When writing topic notes keep these rules in mind:

• Every piece of information in a topic note needs a link to a source note unless it is your idea. Be religious about adding links to sources so you don’t have to worry about plagiarism.
• If your note grows too long, break it down into multiple notes. Topic notes should aim to be short.
• Be as brief as possible. Make it easy for yourself to re-read your notes.
• Do not copy and paste. This will make your notes longer, instead, you can create links into a PDF if you need a quote (here is how).
• Grow your topic notes over time.

Here is an example of a note on “Specific Leaf Area”:

There is no need to think about structure so much, the most important part is to confine the topic to a narrow niche. The contents can be as simple as just a dump of facts with their sources attached. When learning, I find it useful to add images and a short one-sentence definition as well.

Source Notes

Source notes do not need to contain much information. Instead they are used for accessing the raw source easily. My source notes usually have a range of (optional) elements:

The core elements for source notes are their titles, which should look like a citation (e.g. “Smith 2020”), the DOI (which is an ID used to cite the paper or book) and the paper PDF itself. You can store summaries and ideas on the paper inside this note as-well if they do not fit into a topic note. There are many other optional elements that you can add (see here for example).

Argument notes

Argument notes, as opposed to source and topic notes, are for synthesis and for using your own words and developing your ideas. They are the secret ingredient to making your note collection a creative asset in your research. The format of your argument notes can vary. You can take it as a free writing exercise and make a “scientific brain-dump” of ideas with citation to sources:

However, argument notes can be much simpler than this. Any note that connects topics can be considered an argument note. These can be notes on ideas or questions you have in relation to your work. The key here is to connect the topics in your information vault in a new way and create links between the content.

Note here that these notes are not overly polished but contain links to topic notes. Not only does writing them help you think, but you can also access these links at a later point when looking at the topic notes themselves. You can use more elaborate formats to build connections in Obsidian, here are some ideas:

Academic note-taking app

The best note-taking app for academics is Obsidian, as it is free, flexible, integrates with reference managers, annotates PDFs and stores data offline, making it also fast and private. Its power comes from 1000s of free community plugins, which add almost any imaginable functionality and if popular become integrated into the Obsidian core. You might ask, but why is Word or Google Docs not good enough? Glad you asked, here are 10 reasons why you need a dedicated note-taking app.

If you want to learn Obsidian in-depth, check out my note-taking course which will teach you how to use Obsidian and take notes.

What is the best academic note-taking method and template?

The best way to take notes involves translating the information from the paper/book/lecture into concepts. Consider a note-taking strategy rather than a method or template. Here is an analogy: What is more important in finding your clothes, where you put them or how you fold them? Putting shirts with shirts in a dedicated drawer will always allow you to find a shirt, but folding them neatly only makes it look pretty. Focus on where you put your notes and how you organize them, not how they look. As long as your strategy is solid you will always have a helpful set of notes.

Summary

The source-topic-argument system is a strategy of note-taking that forces you to think about the structure of your note network rather than single notes. It forces you to break down new information into:

• Topics: Notes containing information on single ideas. They are short and always link to the sources from where their content was taken.
• Sources: Store the raw information source like a PDF or a book and are used primarily as anchors to cite the origin of a piece of information, thus preventing plagiarism.
• Arguments: Notes that join multiple source and topics together in a new way and describe their relationship. Can consist of free-writing, ideas, questions or speculations.

This ensures multiple advantages:

1. You do not repeat yourself as all information resides in topic notes that do not overlap.
2. You grow your knowledge through slowly evolving your topic notes
3. You create a knowledge network that over time sparks creativity by showing connections between topics
4. As everything is part of one system it is easy to globally search this system.
5. Information and project management can merge together.

You can learn more in this note-taking course.