Note-taking Beyond Passivity

Professor: Erasing notes on projector.

Student: “Oh! I wasn’t finished copying that down!”

Professor: “You need to keep up! I’m not here to wait on you!”

(Latin notebook – Summer Preparation Semester, 2006)

I have always been a note-taker. My notebook and pen come with me everywhere (as does my camera, but that’s for another day). This little digression is a reflection on why I think the pen-notebook combination is important and how it impacts one’s interpersonal interactions and professional relationships.

Marginalia & Beyond

Off and on, I have journaled over the years. Although, this became especially more regular during and since my doctoral dissertation project (2019-present). But, this is not an essay about some dogma regarding the need to journal or keep a diary – you can find that drivel on YouTube.

At least going back to my early high school days, I kept notebooks of my activities and of course, academic work. What I have always had the impulse to do, and perhaps what helped form my tendency to becoming an ethnographer, is the fact that my notes never were just the literal material I was being taught. It was not merely a passive act – of a kind of mental regurgitation. Rather, I have always had the documentary impulse. I needed to write to process the world, to process what was being said around me, what I might wish to say, and what I was seeing. I quickly came to find that my mind was connected, in a sense, to my pen. And, what I took in, in terms of observational data about the world, would finds its way into my various notebooks, whether they be instances of joy or malaise. And, as the above quote mentions, it was at least a form of marginalia, to whatever else I was doing.

Today, I teach at the collegiate level. While I have intentionally gone out of my way to not be as abrasive as my high school Latin professor, I often think about having taught many students, and I increasingly ruminate on some of the wisdom I learned more than a decade ago (indeed, I never mandate anything to my students in terms of their conduct beyond basic standards of decorum – it is up to them, based on the example I set, how they should conduct themselves towards mutual respect, otherwise risk embarrassment in front of their peers, which I find is the most powerful pedagogical tool at my disposal).

Specifically, as another semester comes to a close, I have been (as I always do) going over my notes from my various teaching and research activities (it’s easy because they are on my shelf next to my desk and the notebooks are labeled chronologically), and reflecting on what was successful in terms of my practices and projects, in teaching or research, and what was not. This year, the process led me to a particular kind of revelation about the practice of intellectual activity, that may seem obvious, and/or a repetition from what you may have heard from your middle school history teacher (or in my case, my freshman year Latin teacher), but one which bears repeating: write it down, whatever it is. Use a pen. Find some paper. Any pen. Any paper.

***

So, as a scholar, one impulse of mine is to locate peer-reviewed research on any topic I am interested in at a given time. In this way, even my curiosities are in no way “casual interests.” So, what do we find? Within minutes on google scholar, Jstor, Ebsco, or any other academic search engine, the decades of education research are less clear than we might like to believe. However, what is clear is that the end product – the notes, do have a significant impact on retention. Here’s even an example in Forbes Magazine of all places. There is quite a bit of evidence that “pens beat keyboards” though. And so, this is pointing to the idea that there is real significance in the tactile experience for recall and learning with physically writing things down. That tactile quality might be a keyboard, but I prefer pens and paper. That’s that. So, what then? I think we need to understand this issue as one component of a wider system of how we relate to one another and deal with information today.

From this follow several observations. The first is that, probably like you, I, and my students, as well as various colleagues, are continually bombarded with advertisements from [insert multinational technology corporation of your choosing] pawning off their latest application to “make your team more efficient,” “make note taking easier,” “organize your files better,” “write your sentences without mistakes,” etc. Of course this is a cognate to the endless online productivity advice articles about “action plans” and “agenda setting,” “key results,” and “activity planning” and on and on and on and on… Remember all those “as seen on T.V.” commercials you used to see before the dominance of streaming services – we need to understand that is what this is – garbage for the middle classes to participate in the ritual of consumption and to make them participate in the economy that blinds them to their labor alienation (if you need convincing of this, read renowned anthropologist David Graber’s Bullshit Jobs). And of course, some even boast that you can have AI take notes and write things for you (I unwittingly sat in on a 1.5 hour meeting about this very topic several months ago). But, when you take the position I am suggesting – that notes are not a passive process, why would you want to have some software document all the verbal nonsense people say? And let me tell you, any ethnographer who has actually done their own transcriptions can tell you just how much trash and confused speaking an interview yields at the same time that their do remain important revelations (sometimes) in the process. At any rate, your brain is a powerful thing that has the unique capacity to process and interpret information for you – why, in effect, unplug it? In a society so tied into the idea of individual liberty and exceptionalism, why give over your individual autonomy in such a way?

One reason I have never been interested in these types of things (automated notetaking or even digital notes) is because they are ephemeral in the sense that if the corporation decides to, in essence, pick up and leave, if it goes bankrupt, sells off the company - then what do I do? I need to learn a new application, I guess? But beyond that, I became an intellectual, and a writer, because I wanted to do research and, well, write. I don’t want to spend my time learning applications that offer “new” capabilities for me to manage my projects or whatever else they are claiming to do, like sync up my “goals” with my other team members. In fact, all this stuff is routinely lamented by the very people who desperately want to put their faith in them. With a technology that has been around for centuries – the pens and paper combination - I manage to not miss meetings (at least, ones I want to go to), be on time (I can’t tell you how many texts I have fielded about how the calendar software cancelled one meeting but not another… “sorry,” blah, blah, blah), publish peer reviewed academic articles, write books, teach classes, and even win awards for my work in the process. But of course, this requires an understanding that the technology sector’s tools are in fact, notdesigned to help you be more productive, write better, write more, think more clearly, etc. They are designed to take your time away from being creative, writing more, thinking clearly – and critically – and doing what you want to do, and instead spending it on their software, so that you can contribute to a team, an institution, an organization that will spend more money on that company. These technologies in essence, serve bourgeois society – university professors and researchers (like me), well-funded NGOs, and firms - just because they can pay for them. Despite what my undergraduates sometimes think, basic sociological questions like - who is this technology serving? – do come in handy even in the most seemingly mundane settings: a great segment of one’s everyday activities.

Beyond this though, I have recently had a work-related experience that have given me pause and made me clarify my position on this subject:

I found myself mentoring a new undergraduate in an independent study course. To my surprise, immediately upon sitting down with this student, a battered spiral bound notebook was opened, and a blue Bic pen was uncapped. I never asked my new collaborator how they stayed organized. I listened to them and observed them take notes of what we would be working on for the coming months. And, I would confirm our activities at the end of our very occasional meetings. The person wrote down what their brain filtered as important. No rules were set in stone. We just focused on the work to be done and the problems and complications inherent to the writing project in which I was engaging my new protégé. We are likely to continue working together and have established professional respect and rapport (n.b., this is the second such relationship with a student I have had – the first resulted in a publication in the McGill Journal of Medicine, a leading undergraduate peer-reviewed journal).

So, what to do? I have been a part of my teams and universities and organizations. Despite the use of several digital calendars and goal-setting software, word processing applications, and more, I consistently find that despite systems of constant communication, it’s not uncommon that teams heavily relying on systems outside themselves were consistently late in submitting work products, submitted sub-par work when it was submitted at all, and has resulted in no formal intellectual products (published articles or reports), all despite consistent meetings and diligent digital documentation. However, the flip side is the example of my students. These are people with whom I had no prior engagements, and the students had little to no prior experience in the article research and writing process, yet my students who are diligent handwritten notetakers and calendar keepers produce the most capable work, that was always on time, and generated professional dialogue that allowed us to recently submit our work to a reputable journals.

Now, I am in no way ascribing to some kind of digital luddism. I make daily use of word processors, imaging software, data and file sharing software, etc. These can be helpful, of course, but only when one evaluates their use in the context of actual benefits, not just de facto, unthinking modes of organization.

What are the takeaways?

First, my observation is that, frankly, many of our digital-technical professional tools are for the overextended. They are for the professional who has more work than they have time for, in whatever field of endeavor that may be, and whose lives look more like a series of endless “side-hustles” than any type of profession. Furthermore, what is especially egregious about this situation is that the technology is contributing to being ever more overextended, because it holds a tendency to function as a substitute for considerate preparation (having a list of notes, talking points, topics prepared, knowing what was said, and what you thought about what was being said from prior meetings – see below on why notes should not be shared). There is to a great extent, a lot of “face-work,” to use Erving Goffman’s concept, happening here. In this way, the technology is helping people “look pro,” but overly technological forms can in fact be a kind of crutch for professionalism, and we need to be aware and diligent in our attention to this.

Second, taking handwritten notes demands a specific kind of detailed attention and imprints necessary tasks and ideas in one’s mind so that they actually can be worked through and completed, not, in effect, “disappear” into another digital folder.

Based on experience, here are some further benefits of handwritten notetaking:

1)     To my aforementioned point, notes should not be shared. Notes are personal and this is very significant for the progress of individual and teamwork. Your notebook is where you are free to write your impressions and thoughts reacting to what you are observing. This has been crucial for me on any number of projects: I listen to what people say, I realize and can actively unpack their position on a topic. This helps me to formulate new questions and concepts to use later, or to bring up issues in a meeting. Without such a record, this is impossible. When we are engaged in the group note dynamic, (here’s an interesting, although adjacent post about the “note-taking industrial complex”) we are participating in a dance of face-work that depends on the group dynamic and does not promote free, democratic discourse and thought (the issue of “bullshit” is a serious one in this regard that implies on power dynamics, and we need to understand it’s distinction from lying -  see Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit).

2)     Notes should further be personal because, well, nobody wants to read your garbage. Notes can be a space of active formulation of thought. The notebook page can usefully serve as a filter, furthermore. And, it’s a space to be reflexive!

3)     Notes are a life-long pedagogical tool not dependent on any wage-labor relation. A notebook teaches you how you think. Reveals your tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses that you can improve and adjust with time.

4)     The mental physical connection is palpable. You learn how your mind and hand are connected, contributing to positive neuroplasticity.

5)     You learn how you organize information (chronologically, thematically, etc.) and in so doing, how you can better translate that information to other people in way that has your own flair. God forbid one would develop a distinct writing and presentation style(ehemm, book publishers and professional journals).

6)     You learn about yourself – how you process complex information and multiple tasks, and then of course how to deal with those pressures.

7)     There are innumerable benefits that we might list, but some others would include:

a.      learning to write in a way that is, at least legible to you – yes, this is a skill you can always develop! It can an enjoyable process!

b.      If you are feeling especially ambitious, you can gain a certain cultural value in terms of learning a shorthand, or at least, a personal method of note keeping.

c.      You might find yourself journaling or jotting in other spaces and places, which has again, been shown to increase neuroplasticity, bring mental health benefits, and physical-mental wellness and clarity.

d.      Stop wasting your time, or having it sucked away!