Using Hypernomicon: Best Practices/What Works

[Danny Weltman]

Some questions for long-term/heavy users (aka Jason), as I try to figure out my own use of the program.

When you're putting, say, an article or a book on which you're taking detailed notes into Hypernomicon:

1. How detailed is the work record? Particularly vs. argument records that record the various arguments in the article/book? Do you summarize the whole thing (or all the relevant parts) in the work record, and duplicate the relevant parts of the summary in argument records? Or do you just put (say) a summary of an argument in an argument record, and then embed that argument record in the work record? Or do you not even embed the argument records?

2. (For single-authored books:) Do you split up books with multiple chapters into multiple works? Do you have a single work for the entire book, too? What's in the various work records?

3. If a work defends a position and includes (e.g.) a paradigmatic statement of that position, do you put this quote (or a paraphrase of it, or whatever) in the work record, the position record, or both? Ditto for problems/debates. If you only put it in the work record, what (if anything) do you put in the position (or problem/debate) record to indicate that this information is in the work record? (E.g. do you list the work as a key work, etc.) And vice versa if you only put it in the position (or problem/debate) record.

[Danny Weltman]

Actually it seems like I have many answers to my questions in this thread: https://sourceforge.net/p/hypernomicon/discussion/general/thread/8abe49d7e8/

But if anyone else wants to answer, or if Jason has more answers, please feel free.

[Jason Winning]

In answer to question 1, no, I have actually never embedded the argument record in a work record; a lot of times I don't write anything or very little in the description for the work record and rely on attached argument records or the fact that it is the key work for other records. As I said in the other post you linked to, if a work is really important to me, I might have a separate word doc with a detailed outline or something like that and then note that in the work record. If a work is less important to me, but I've at least read it, I'll rely on the fact that the PDF has my highlighting and notes in it. They can easily be seen in the Preview window. I definitely wouldn't argue for this as being a "best practice" or anything; it is just the workflow that has worked for my purposes.

Second question: I do split up books by a single author into multiple works if the chapters were written and published at earlier dates (like Davidson's "Essays on Actions and Events"), as well as a record for the book itself. If it is a book by one author and all the chapters are new material written for that book, then it depends on whether the book was intended as a monograph (where the chapters are not considered fully independent but all contributing to expounding a particular position or cluster of closely related arguments). If it is a collection of independent articles that happen to all be newly published, I'll still create work records for chapters as well as the book itself. Usually for books where I'm creating work records for chapters, I don't do one for every chapter, just the ones I'm interested in and may want to link to argument records, etc. In a few very rare cases, I've created work records for single chapters in a monograph (especially if it's a chapter I use as a reading for a class; it makes it easy to refer to that reading in the note record for the class).

Third question: I definitely put the quotation in the description for the Position record and then perhaps embed that in the work record or elsewhere, or at least make the work a key work for the position. This is probably a reason I don't write as much stuff in the work record; then it is outside of the debate-position-argument hierarchy. I like to navigate/surf around that hierarchy in the tree view and look at notes written in those records in the description part of the tree tab. I also heavily rely on linking position, term, and note records together using those large-font hyperlinks in the middle of the UI (still haven't made a video explaining that yet...) so that is another reason to put information in those records.

[Danny Weltman]

That's helpful, thanks. New question: What does the "Link to Term..." button do exactly? I had never clicked it, but now I clicked it for a Position and chose a Term, and it brought up a window asking me how to merge fields: "Position," "Concept," or "Alternate." I don't understand what it's asking me so I'm afraid to click OK. What's going to happen if I pick "Position?" If I pick "Concept?" What about "Alternate?"

[Jason Winning]

Basically what it does is it causes multiple records to share the same description. Once they are linked, the description text for one will always be synched to the other. That's why it's asking you how to merge multiple descriptions. The idea is to eliminate redundancy. For example, suppose you are doing a bunch of research about Functionalism. Then (for example) you might want to have a position record for "Functionalism" (allows you to keep track of arguments, sub-positions, etc.), a note record for "Functionalism" (so you can attach a folder to it, sub-notes, etc.), and a term record for it (because you might want to keep track of multiple definitions of it). Instead of rewriting the same notes in all 3 places, and having them get out of synch with each other, you can link the 3 records so that they will always be up to date with each other. They will have the same key works, same embedded descriptions, etc. This is one of those functions I created out of a feeling of necessity, and I use it constantly.

[Jason Winning]

In case it helps, what it actually does behind the scenes is create a record of type "hub", and that's where the description lives. The other records no longer have their own description; when you are seeing or editing their descriptions you are really seeing and editing the description for the hub record, but Hypernomicon keeps the hub record itself mostly hidden from the user (it's there in the XML files). The other records are then kind of like "spokes" that link back to the hub.

[Danny Weltman]

Ah, very interesting! I haven't been using Terms very much, nor have I really been using folders, sub-notes, etc. (I don't even know what a folder is!) But if I start using Terms this will be very useful since lots of Positions would be Terms as well.

edit: I found the folders. Since I don't use Notes much I can see why I missed them.

[Jason Winning]

By folder I just mean how you can associate a file system folder with a note record. Go to the note tab and click "Create Folder"; that creates a new file system folder under the Topical subfolder of your database. You can see that it is associated with that record in the File Manager window, and then you can use the file operations in that window to rename the folder, move it somewhere else, etc. while maintaining the association to that note record. I often use note records for writing projects, courses I'm teaching, etc. and then keep associated files in that folder.

[Danny Weltman]

Another question: in the past I've put positions one of which is the negation of the other into Hypernomicon. For instance, there's something known as the toxin puzzle, and the two main positions are "it's rational to intend to drink the toxin" and "it's not rational to intend to drink the toxin." I had those both as Positions under the toxin puzzle Debate but I've realized that every argument for one position is also an argument against the other, and so the two positions mirrored each other with respect to their child arguments, except of course the arguments nested under each had opposite verdicts about the parent positions.

So, I'm thinking here and elsewhere I'll just delete one of the two positions. But deleting things makes me nervous so I'm curious if there's any reason to keep two positions like this. I ask also because I find myself wondering whether to create two positions like this or just one. For instance, I'm entering a paper about promises, and two positions are "if a speech act fails to generate a promissory obligation it can't be a promise," and the negation (it can, sometimes). I'm wondering whether I should enter those as two positions or one. Given the above experience with the toxin puzzle I'm thinking one, but again, I might be missing some reason to have two positions here.

[Jason Winning]

In a case like this where the dialectal space is inherently simple and polarized into 2 opposite positions, so that endorsing one position is automatically rejecting the other, I think it could be perfectly reasonable to just have the one position record. I have definitely done that before, but for whatever reason in the kind of debates I work on, it rarely boils down to a 2-position polarized debate like that.

Some possible reasons for keeping two positions:

1. You will lose the ability to have hyperlinks link back to both records based on their search key fields (probably not an issue in your particular case)
2. You might want to add sub-positions (or now, thanks to you, sub-debates!) under the position you are contemplating deleting at some point in the future
3. You might want to add key works to the position being deleted (this is a common reason why I still have both positions)
4. In the Problems/Debates tab, in the list in the bottom-left, it only shows people who endorse each position. It doesn't show who rejects it. So deleting one of the positions will result in less information being shown there.
5. It might be best to unite the position being deleted with a term, label, or note record

If I think of any others I will add them.