Based on ideas from [1], [2].

Whenever we consume material that may contain useful knowledge, be it papers, books or videos, we should be taking literature notes.

When taking these notes, it is important to restrict ourselves to ideas that may be useful to us in the future. We’re not trying to write a book report, but to extract ideas.

Literature notes are written in the context of the author’s opinion, i.e. they summarize what the material says, not our own opinion on it. Nevertheless, it is important to write these notes using our own words, instead of just copying, to internalize ideas and make sure we actually understood them. The ultimate goal of literature notes is to help with writing Permanent notes. In that way, literature notes are similar to Fleeting notes.

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