Should you take literature notes in a single note

The simplest answer is NO. Ideas have to be freed from their context to be used widely. When you keep your literature notes inside a single page, it becomes contextual to the book only. In roam even if you were to use a single literature note, each block of text will act like it’s on individual blocks. Roam doesn’t do that Also, if a source-based literature note is very essential, you could collect all literature notes from a single book into a single mega lit note and call it an index note for that book. This can be used as an outline to write a book summary from it.

Problems? Practical concerns: Making multiple literature notes seems to take more time as reference note has to be made again and again. (If we were to create a completely separate reference note, it can be embedded into each lit note and it might be what Luhmann was using. This contradicts how most youtube people are using zettlekasten).

What if the answer is Yes? The case where I see a yes answer is when you are reading using a kindle and exporting the highlights. Highlights can be used as a reference note and from there you are sourcing the literature notes. And you can then free the literature notes from the context of the book by making it an atomic permanent note.

Where does the conflict come from? It usually comes when we have trouble differentiating between a Permanent Note and a Literature Note

How is a single page literature note useful ? When you wanna revisit a book later down the road you only have to refer to a single literature note.

Return to Zettelkasten