<h1 id="what-goes-into-a-note"><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" href="#what-goes-into-a-note"><span class="icon icon-link"></span></a>What Goes into a Note?</h1>
<h3 id="lets-begin"><a aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" href="#lets-begin"><span class="icon icon-link"></span></a>Let's Begin</h3>
<p>This is a broad question, as it depends on your objective. As I noted in the <a href="/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/01%20%20memex%20help/03%20Templater%20Plugin" title="03 Templater Plugin">03 Templater Plugin</a>, I use the Templater plugin to insert customized templates for my notes.  Now, if I open a new note (hotkey command [⌘]+ N), I will get a blank note with ‘Untitled’ as my identifier. However, if I use the hotkey control (^) + A, a new note is populated with my Atomic note template. What content goes into my Atomic Notes? Well, everything. The key is that an Atomic note contains a singular idea. A concise thought that can be articulated in four sentences maximum. Any bigger than this, and you need to consider if the note should be broken into smaller, more concise thoughts. Compared to the Literature note, which contains all my annotations to be processed from a book or article, and its arguments, methods/theory, etc. The four sentences are not a steadfast rule, but rather a guideline I try to adhere to. It really depends on the idea/thought. Many of my notes have quotes from an article or book (usually in a callout block <code>>[! note]</code>, fig. 4), which have inspired the thought/idea for the note. These quotes do not count toward my sentence parameters.</p>
<p>The Atomic note breakdown is quite simple: Fig. 1 YAML/Properties (the metadata of the note), Fig. 2 Tags (I will discuss this in another post),  Key Idea (where I write my thoughts and any direct quotes), and Citation. Fig. 3 Related Links (Other notes in my vault that are related or applicable to the current note) and Linked Mentions (Links to this note from other notes). In the following posts, I will discuss each section in more detail.</p>
<div><blockquote class="callout" style="border-left-color:undefined;">
<div class="callout-title note" style="background-color: undefined1a;"><span style="color:undefined" class="callout-icon"></span><strong><p>A Potential Workflow</p></strong></div>
<div class="callout-content" style=""><p>We'll talk more in virtual class, i.e., Discord, and we will practice this, but for now please follow the below.</p><ol>
<li><a href="/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/01%20%20memex%20help/08%20How%20To%20Read%20An%20Academic%20Article" title="Read Article">Read Article</a> and annotate/extract annotations if necessary</li>
<li>Make a Literature Note (hotkey: control (^) + L, explaining in your own words the major takeaways from the article; include the full citation for the source in this note.</li>
<li>Refactor extracted annotations to make atomic notes. Link atomic notes to the Literature Note describing the original source</li>
<li>Make Atomic Notes when ideas hit you.</li>
<li>Have a gardening phase where you revisit notes to interlink as appropriate, delete as appropriate.</li>
</ol></div>
</blockquote></div>
<p><strong>Fig. 1</strong><br>
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Vault%20Setup/Zettel%20Template.png" priority="1"><br>
<strong>Fig. 2</strong><br>
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Vault%20Setup/Key%20Idea.png"><br>
<strong>Fig. 3</strong><br>
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Vault%20Setup/Related%20Links.png"><br>
<strong>Fig. 4</strong><br>
To make a call out:</p>
<ol>
<li>type <code>>[! Quote]</code> or <code>>[! Note]</code></li>
<li>Hit enter to move to the next line and begin typing.<br>
<img src="https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/resource.mixa.site/cdh2025/Crafting%20Digital%20History/3.%20Tutorials/02%20assets/ObsidianImages/Vault%20Setup/Callout.png"></li>
</ol>

Welcome

1. Course Description

2. Learning Outcomes

3. Course Schedule

4. Evaluation

5. Course Communications

6. Common Regulations

6. Contact the Professor

how the course tech is built; how the course came to be

7. Colophon

8. Reuse

Orientation and Digital Setup

Week 1

Personal Knowledge Management and Linked Thinking

Week 2

Thinking about the “Craft” of Digital History

Week 3

Crusading into the Digital Age of LLMs

Week 4

Consolidation & Check-In Week

Week 5

Digital Excavation

Week 6

Defining Data, 'Dark' Data, & Identifiers

Week 7

Fall Break

Week 8

Seeing the Past?

Week 9

Week 10

Authority and Positionality in Your Digital Research

Week 11

Publicly Crafting a Historical Argument

Week 12

Open-Access Notebook Workshop

Week 13

Exit Ticket

Week 14

1 Setting up your vault

2 Create your first note

3 Templater Plugiin

4 What Goes into a Note?

5 Properties

Hypothesis

The Simplest Online Memex Worfklow

How To Read An Academic Article

FAQ for Common Tech Issues

Where to Find help

Text Formatting

Introduction to your vault

index note

Atomic Note

Literature Note

Process Note

Weekly Journal

Topic Proposal

Weekly Work & Tasks

Consolidation Reflection

Open Access Notebook/Memex

Benchmarking Your Memex

Exit Ticket/Final Project

1 Welcome to Crafting Digital History Transcript

2 Obsidian User Interface (UI) Guide

3 Templater and Hotkeys Setup

4 How to use PDF++

5 Canvas Core Plugin Introductory Tutorial

6 Hypothes.is and Annotating the Web

7 Omnisearch Plugin for Obsidian

8 How to Use Process Notes for Digital Research Projects in Obsidian

9 Properties, Identifiers and Data Management with Obsidian Core Plugin Bases

1 Welcome to Crafting Digital History

2 Some Logistical Updates

3 Welcome to Week Two

4 What is Digital History?

5 Crusading into the Digital Age of LLMs

6 Week Four Exercise Example

7 Using Obsidian for Digital History Research and Note-Making

8 Reflection Feedback Update and Hypothes.is

9 Week Five Update

10 Consolidation Reflection Submission

11 Module Two Wrangling and Critiquing

12 Week 7 Update

13 Week 9 Welcome Back

1. Course Overview

Module 1 Contextualizing

Module 2 Wrangling & Critiquing

Module 3 Arguing & Communicating

2. Schedule

01  memex help

8. Course Files

3. Tutorials

4. Assessment

5. VideoTutorials

Crafting Digital History

News