In this blog, I use S/I UNIT structure of notetaking. I also use this structure in my Obsidian notes. The reason why I don’t just publish my Obsidian notes is that it’s sometimes in Korean, and I want to reach as wide of an audience as possible.
At first, I used SI UNITS format:
Summary
Implication
Underlying context – Background behind
Notions – Key ideas
Insight – Novel, applicable concepts
Trajectory – Where I’m headed now
Source – Citation
However, after some usage, I recognized a problem with this format: the two I’s almost always say the same thing with each other.
So I switched into SI UNIT format:
Summary
Implication
Underlying context – Background behind
Notions – Key ideas
Index – Sources
Trajectory – Where I’m headed now
This went acceptably for about 14 chapters of my first book, but then I faced a critical problem: the S – summary part took way too much time. A chapter that took me 10 minutes to read would take hours to summarize in the level of detail that I thought was acceptable. This made me want to remove it from SI UNIT. To achieve that while still somewhat maintaining the acronym, I made it into S/I UNIT:
S/I : Summary/Implication
Underlying context – Background behind
Notions – Key ideas
Index – Sources
Trajectory – Where I’m headed now
This is what I’m using now.
How I use S/I UNIT
Because this blog is a bookclub, I’ll mainly focus on using SI UNIT for taking notes on books.
First, you set up a template containing all components of SI UNIT. Then, when you’re starting to take a note, you apply the template to the note you just created.
You, then, go through the book, and write down the N – notions that come up as you go. Those can be new vocabularies, new concepts, and such.
After finishing the chapter, you write down the S/I – summary/implication of the chapter from what you remember, possibly assisted by what you put down on N – notions. This ensures that you avoid putting down impertinent details that aren’t important enough to register into your working memory. If you find that your recall isn’t good enough to give a comprehensive summary, you may go back and flip through the pages. This often happens when the book lays down a list of things.
And then you write down the T – trajectory: what you think you should do next after finishing the chapter. I found that sometimes, I can’t think of what to do after finishing a chapter. In those cases, I put ‘none’ there.
Finally, you think of the parts in the chapter that a complete stranger to the topic might need additional clarifications on, of which are inferably assumed to be known to the reader, and put those in U – underlying context. This will help the reader get up to speed with what’s in the note.
You can do I – index anytime you want. I usually do it last for no reason at all, but you can, for instance, do it before starting to read the chapter. No one will arrest you or anything if you set out to always do it after reading the 37th word of the chapter.
As you can see, when I write, I don’t follow the order in which the acronym is arranged. This is to keep the acronym an acronym. After all, the blog is called S/I UNIT Bookclub, and it wouldn’t be S/I UNIT Bookclub if its posts aren’t arranged in S/I UNIT.
Advantages of S/I UNIT
Can just read the summary/implication when I’m busy, instead of reading the whole chapter
One problem I noticed with smart people around me is that their writings tend to be very long. This makes me doubt as to whether I’ll be able to understand what they’re saying, and it’s generally demotivating to see long-winded texts.
With S/I UNIT, you can just read the S/I – summary/implication, and you’ll essentially get the crux of the source material. Of course, you can read the whole book if you want to, if you, for instance, want to see the logic behind the argument presented.
Can get the background information quickly
Sometimes, things require knowing the context in order to fully appreciate the information. S/I UNIT has a section dedicated for underlying context, which lets you access the background information related to the main point.
Can easily see the main concepts presented
Let’s face it, one of the reasons you read books is to sound smart. That’s going to be fairly hard to achieve if you forgot the key concepts of the book. If you have an assortment of key concepts presented in the book, you’ll have a comparatively easier time remembering the key concepts of the book, and thus you’ll have a comparatively easier time sounding smart.
Can find the original text easily when even the summary isn’t enough
For everyone:
Sometimes, the summary might not be enough, and you might need to read the original source material. If there’s an index, you can easily find the original source material.
For the readers of this blog:
Sometimes, you might want to develop your own ideas from reading the original source material. You need to read the original source material to do that, and index helps you find the original source material.
For the writer:
It’s ethical to cite your sources.
For these reasors, you need the I – index.
Can concretize what I want to do with the knowledge / what I am going to do after reading the source material
T – trajectory is purely for the writer. It’s a way to concretize what I’m going to do after reading what I just read. This forces me to think what I’m going to do. It also lets me know what I was thinking after reading the source material when I’m re-reading the note.
Conclusion
I recommend that you use my S/I UNIT framework as well, for the benefits listed above.