Note Taking as an Art of Transmission

Abstract

Note taking constitutes a central but often hidden phase in the transmission of knowledge. Notes recorded from reading or experience typically contribute to one’s conversation and compositions, fromwhich others can draw in turn in their own thinking and writing, thus perpetuating a cycle of transmission and transformation of knowledge, ideas, and experiences. The transmission served by personal notes most often operates within one individual’s experience—from a moment of reading and note taking to a later moment when the notes are read and sometimes rearranged and used in articulating a thought. But personal notes can also be sharedwith others, on a limited scale with family and friends and on a wider scale through publication, notably in genres that compile useful reading notes for others. A history of note taking has significance beyond the study of individual sets of extant notes by shedding light on aspects of note taking that were widely shared, notably through being taught in schools or used in particular professional contexts. Notes can take many forms—oral, written, or electronic. At its deepest level, whatever the medium, note taking involves variations on and combinations of a few basic maneuvers, which I propose to identify as the four Ss: storing, sorting, summarizing, and selecting. Human memory is the storage medium with the longest history, and it remains crucial today despite our reliance on other devices, from ink on paper to computers. The range of storage media operative in different historical contexts includes the marked stone token, the clay tablet, the knotted cord or quipu, the pa-