Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!prism!russ From: russ@prism.gatech.EDU (Russell Shackelford) Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: Positional note-taking Summary: how about Ready! Message-ID: <1466@hydra.gatech.EDU> Date: 13 Aug 89 21:55:46 GMT References: <1440004@hp-ptp.HP.COM> Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology Lines: 44 In article <1440004@hp-ptp.HP.COM>, garye@hp-ptp.HP.COM (Gary_Ericson) writes: > There is a technique used by many people I know, including me, for taking notes > or jotting down ideas, and it has to do with including positional information > in the text to symbolize relationships between ideas. Two of the mechanisms I > use are indentation, to indicate an outline, and clustering, grouping words and > phrases together physically on the page to indicate their relationship. > > I have always taken this for granted (maybe *everybody* takes notes this way, I > don't know). I have also taken for granted the fact that I just can't do this > on a computer as easily as I can on paper, especially in real-time (e.g., when > taking notes during a phone call). The keyboard channels the user into a > serial stream of input, while note taking like this requires a two-dimensional > approach. > > Has anyone studied this method of recording ideas or information from a > cognitive process point-of-view? Do any computer systems exist that help the > user do this kind of note-taking/thought-organizing in real-time? > > Gary Ericson - Hewlett-Packard, Workstation Systems Division > phone: (408)746-5098 mailstop: 101N email: gary@hpdsla9.hp.com it's an apparently natural (to western minds, at least) way to org things. have you tried Ready! from Symantec (Living Videotext Div, I think). It's mem resident and is a wonderful little outliner. expand amd contract, move things around etc. Grandview is the same idea taken to a further degree: each item in the outline can "hide" and entire document and/or another outline. i am assuming here that an outliner does what you do on paper, with use of CR's to define clusters in space at a given level of indentation. hope an interesting discussion involving many follows. this is a good topic that affects most folks. -- Russell Shackelford School of Information and Computer Science Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332 russ@prism.gatech.edu (404) 834-4759