changelog @ tengrrl.com:

I think that I used notecards for my papers and whatnot as a student as a physical arrangement tool more than anything else. Especially for larger documents like my master’s thesis, I was able to write out quotations and such on cards and then physically move them about—one pile for the historical background, another for the description of the manuscript, another for literary influences, etc. I even used different sizes and colors. I think the bib citations were all on 3 by 5 cards, maybe 4 by 6. My notes were all on bigger cards (8 by something?).

The cards gave me the opportunity to move ideas around and sort them easily, and as I’m typing this, I'm wondering if things would have been different if I had grown up knowing that it was easy to move ideas around and sort them digitally. Then it might not have been such a big deal to be able to arrange and stack notecards.

I’m sure it’s a sign of something horrible to say that also there’s just something intriguing about a pile of notecards for me. It feels like an accomplishment to have a large pile of cards. Hmm. It also occurs to me that when I took programming classes originally, it was back in the era of punchcards. Even then I was arranging and sorting cards.

Maybe this is why I feel so confused and lost now. In my practice, long papers are written by sorting things out on cards. The writing that I do with sources now is, I’m guessing, 99% very focused. No need to sort anything around or about. Hmm. Maybe I am getting somewhere. At least I know why I feel so confused about notecards and working without them. Part of the problem for me now is that because of carpal tunnel issues, I’d never survive handwriting notecards. Maybe it’s time to figure out how to send notecards through the printer :)

Tuesday, June 22, 2004