Notes should have sentence-like titles

This helps show they express a single idea.

✅ Indexing as a practice ❌ writing

Notes should have sentence-like subheadings

Think of notes as a nesting structure. Each note can have sub-sections that are similar to notes. If a subsection grows large enough, it can become it's own note.

Prefer paragraphs over bullets

As a holdover from Roam, lots of notes are bulleted, short single sentences. Bullets are fine for lists, but shouldn't be the default.

Prefer numbered lists over bulleted lists

Numbered lists are easier to reference certain points.

Link generously

Be mindful of including links, both to other notes and to external sources. Adding links increases navigation and adds value. see linking in information architecture. Links should be inline, and part of descriptive text, and without showing the full URL

✅ this article about learning to exercise agency ❌ learn to exercise agency: link ❌ this article about learning to exercise agency.

Include MLA formatted citations

An idea I got from Andy Matushack's notebook, I am softer on this one, but I like the idea of it: adding citations give you an air of academic rigor.

Headers are in hierarchal order and no more than 3 levels deep

H1s for the page title, H2s for sections titles, H3s for sub-sections if needed. If you need more than three subsections, consider revising the note or breaking it up into smaller notes so it isn't needed.

Note titles are lowercase unless they contain a proper noun

explanatory

General proofreading

Even though notes are supposed to be 'rough drafts', you should still use correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Grammatically correct notes are easier to share and repurpose into other content.

Avoid fluff words

These tend to be fluff, cutting them makes your writing more clear.

• just
• that
• very
• really
• literally
• actually
• certainly
• probably
• basically

Use 'Further reading' for link sections at the bottom of notes

instead of "links" or "appendix"