Obsidian

Demo of Annotation Extraction Tool, Showing Processed Markdown Files Dropped into Obsidian

Now that we have our two markdown files, open your Obsidian vault and create a folder for the book or document you just processed and drop these two inside.

While there are more complicated ways to search for things in Obsidian, the only elements that we really need to use this method are searching a path and for tags. Paths are simply refining results by how you have organized your folders.

For example, if you have arranged things like the image below:

Snapshot of a basic file structure in Obsidian — basic file structure in Obsidian

By entering “path:” into the search bar on the left side of the screen, you can choose to either see only HIST 502 or HIST 514 and all of their associated texts or individual texts in either the graph or document view. Additionally, if you type “tag:” you will now be able to see the six tags that we’ve generated from the highlighted text by having the python tool insert a hashtag in front of each of these categories, which is how these are denoted in Obsidian.

✺

Review and Detailed Tagging Process

While you can do detailed tagging in either file, I’ve found that this process makes the most sense in the chronological export for me.Whichever one you choose to do detailed tagging on, think of this as your primary notes document moving forward.

Demo Detailed Tagging Process, Including Obsidian Dropdown View of Preexisting Tags

At this point in your research, you’ve read this once and highlighted section based on category, while you are reviewing these notes again take a moment to reassess the initial tags (perhaps an #important passage is actually a #general note or the reverse) and also create new tags. Maybe an #important passage is also indicative of #class-anxieties or #shaping-narratives. Maybe a #quote is indicative of a larger theme around #labor-organization that runs throughout the book and you would like to see all of these excerpts together at a glance? Note that tags need to be connected by dashes or underscores if you want to use multiple words. You can also create sub-tags to create look at different elements under the same umbrella by putting a dash after the tag, such as #author/thesis and #author/methodology.

✺

Tagging is an iterative and subjective process. You may find that throughout the course of your research, the name of the tag may shift as you think about that subject differently. Four or five tags may merge into one as you begin to identify major themes that emerge across the collection. During this process, I find it helpful to expand the panel on the right side of the interface and quickly review tags before reviewing a new work to remind myself of an expanding list of tags and connect them to other work.

Through this review and detailed tagging exercise, I’ve found that it taps into an active and creative engagement in the learning process, adding a layer of comprehension and a bird’s eye view of a complex set of texts. This leads us to the visualization!