How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily

Re:How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily by russell on Sunday October 11, 2009 @01:38PM (#874952)

Does anyone have a good tool for jotting down ideas and rearranging them? I find that word processors are not very good for this, because they are more concerned with formatting than manipulating units of text. Simplicity is paramount.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily by dstorrs on Sunday October 11, 2009 @01:47PM (#874965)

http://orgmode.org/

Org-mode in Emacs is brilliant for this. Write things as outlines, shift sub-trees around trivially, fold (hide) and un-fold (reveal) subtrees, embed links within your outline, export to text or HTML when needed.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily by jefffoster on Sunday October 11, 2009 @01:45PM (#874962)

I like emacs org-mode. You can create a hierarchy very easy and shuffle items about between the nodes.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily by omouse on Sunday October 11, 2009 @02:10PM (#874994)

However some things don't fit nicely into a hierarchy. Remember mode helps with that I think

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily by jsrn on Sunday October 11, 2009 @02:39PM (#875038)

how to integrate Remember mode with org-mode:

http://orgmode.org/manual/Setting-up-Remember-for-Org.html#S...

and: > However some things don't fit nicely into a hierarchy.

sometimes the hyperlink feature of org-mode helps with a non-tree-like structure: http://orgmode.org/manual/Hyperlinks.html#Hyperlinks

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily by weaksauce on Sunday October 11, 2009 @01:50PM (#874973)

If you don't know emacs and you already have Word you could use the outline mode of it. I have used it in the past and it works pretty well. I haven't sat down and learned emacs so I have yet to try org-mode but I hear that works well too.

I have yet to find a truly great outlining program yet. (Note: I plan on learning org-mode emacs but I am a vim guy so the initial inertia of learning it is high.)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily by wingo on Monday October 12, 2009 @10:19AM (#876731)

I prefer the old-fashioned way, with an actual notebook. A good quality notebook makes things more pleasant.

I rearrange things by writing them down again (in the new order). This also helps to refresh the memory.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily by ams6110 on Sunday October 11, 2009 @06:15PM (#875385)

If you use a Mac, Omni Outliner (http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/) is pretty good.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily by ScottWhigham on Sunday October 11, 2009 @01:43PM (#874958)

*nix, Mac, or Windows? For Windows, I use OneNote.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily by algorias on Sunday October 11, 2009 @01:44PM (#874960)

A plain text editor works for me. Copy to a word processor (or e-mail, etc) only when you get to the formatting phase.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily by eas on Sunday October 11, 2009 @02:18PM (#875007)

Scrivener (for the Mac) is one you might try. PersonalBrain (multi-platform) might also do the trick.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily by Emore on Sunday October 11, 2009 @02:34PM (#875029)

Apple's iWork Pages has a fairly good outlining mode since version 09.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How to Write Clearly, Think Clearly, and Learn Easily by cpach on Sunday October 11, 2009 @05:34PM (#875320)

How about post-it notes or index cards?

[ Parent | on HN ]