🚀 go-pugleaf

There is a technique used by many people I know, including me, for taking notes
or jotting down ideas, and it has to do with including positional information
in the text to symbolize relationships between ideas.  Two of the mechanisms I 
use are indentation, to indicate an outline, and clustering, grouping words and
phrases together physically on the page to indicate their relationship.

I have always taken this for granted (maybe *everybody* takes notes this way, I
don't know).  I have also taken for granted the fact that I just can't do this 
on a computer as easily as I can on paper, especially in real-time (e.g., when 
taking notes during a phone call).  The keyboard channels the user into a 
serial stream of input, while note taking like this requires a two-dimensional
approach.

Has anyone studied this method of recording ideas or information from a 
cognitive process point-of-view?  Do any computer systems exist that help the 
user do this kind of note-taking/thought-organizing in real-time?  

Gary Ericson - Hewlett-Packard, Workstation Systems Division
               phone: (408)746-5098  mailstop: 101N  email: gary@hpdsla9.hp.com