Category Archives: Notes

Custom Academic Searches on iOS

Posted on 2013/03/20 by

As a follow-up to my earlier post on academic searches on the Mac, here’s an easy way to replicate most of those custom searches on iOS. The key app is Drafts, which recently received a massive update. Among many other … Continue reading →

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Byword – an ideal tool for plain text writing on a Mac

Posted on 2012/03/16 by

I often need to write a piece of text between 200 and 2000 words: an abstract of a talk, a blog post or an administrative memo. This is longer and more complicated than an occasional note but much simpler and … Continue reading →

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Note-taking on a Mac revisited

Posted on 2011/08/21 by

David Sparks just explained in Macworld once again why plain text is best. This prompted me to update several entries from April and March on taking notes on a Mac. In this post, I describe some recent software developments and share … Continue reading →

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Note taking software part 2: tango with a twist

Posted on 2011/04/09 by

In this post I focus on the practical side of my note-taking. The main application I use is called Notational Velocity (NV). I started to use NV with Simplenote following MacSparky’s excellent post on Simplenote – NV Tango. After a … Continue reading →

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Note taking software part 1: what works and what does not

Posted on 2011/04/04 by

Academics need to capturing ideas and pieces of knowledge while doing other things: processing emails, sitting in meetings, listening to students’ presentations, reading books or articles, listening to podcasts, surfing the web. This capture process should be on the one … Continue reading →

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Notes: what’s in the name?

Posted on 2011/03/31 by

Naming notes is very important. Inconsistent naming can really contribute to your fears about note taking. Having to think about a name can interrupt your flow. Messy names will greatly complicate organizing and finding your notes. Thus, names of your … Continue reading →

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Note taking: fears and principles

Posted on 2011/03/21 by

I guess all academics have two two basic fears about note taking. The first is: it will interrupt my flow! If you are reading an article, preparing for a course, writing, processing your email, sitting in a meeting, listening to … Continue reading →

Posted in Notes, Writing | 2 Comments