March 06, 2023

Zettelkasten Questionnaire

Please select a random Zettel from your analog slip box and answer the following 80+ questions.

1 Shape of card
- Is the paper lined (e.g. lined, blank, squared)?
- What color is the paper (e.g. white, blue, light red)?
- How thick is the paper (e.g normal index card 180gsm, thin paper 80gsm)?
- In which condition is the card (e.g. excellent, worn down, damaged by fire)?
- What abnormalities are there (e.g. paperclip on top, glue on back, extra postit notes)?
- Has the card holes on the left for a personal organizer (e.g. ISO 838, 6 ring binder)?

1a Longhand Scripture
- Was the text written in longhand (e.g. longhand, typewriter, PC printer)?
- If longhand, what sort of pen was used (e.g. pencil, fountain pen, roller ball)?
- if typewriter, which sort of typewriter was used (e.g. mechanical, electrical)?
- if PC, which sort of PC printer was used (e.g. inkjet, laser, dotmatrix)?
- What is the color of the ink (e.g. blue, black)?
- Is it readable for others (e.g. very good, medium, poor)?
- Are the characters connected which makes it harder for OCR recognition (e.g. yes, no)?
- Is the ink visible well (e.g. high contrast, fade writing)?

1b Layout
- What is the direction of the writing (e.g. portrait, landscape)?
- Are the lines written in two column mode (e.g. one column, two column)?
- Was a highlighter used for some words (e.g. no, yes in yellow)?

1c Size of card
- What is the size (e.g. DIN A6, A7, 3x5”)?
- How was the paper cut (e.g. pre-cut paper, by scissor, knife at ruler, paper cutting machine)?
- If a cutting machine was used, which type exactly (e.g. safety rotary, guillotine)?
- How many sheets of paper were cut at the same time (e.g. 0, 1, 2, 3)?
- is the card folded like DIN A5 folded to A6 (e.g. no, yes)?

2 Content
- How many words are written down (e.g. 50)?
- Does the Zettel has a picture (e.g. none, diagram, pencil drawing, mindmap, abstract drawing, photorealistic artwork)?
- Is there a table in the body (e.g. no, yes)?
- Is there a writing on the backside too (e.g. no, a bit, very much)?
- What is written on the backside (e.g. bibliographic reference, normal note, direct quote)?
- What is the language of the card (e.g. German, English, Lingua Latīna)?
- Is it a hub note or a normal note (e.g. normal_note, hub_note, bib_note, register_card)?

2a Reason for creation
- At which place was the card created (e.g. in the library, at home, at work)?
- Was the Zettel used for writing a new book (e.g. new book, new novel, none)?
- What is the purpose (e.g. recipe collection, excerpt notes, lecture notes, plotting a story)?
- How many people have seen the card (e.g. only me, one other, many)?
- Was the card used during a presentation in front of an audience (e.g. no, yes)?
- Has the content a practical nature (e.g. practical, theoretical)?

2b Format of Bibliographic reference
- Are there bibliographic references (e.g. 0, 1, 2)?
- What is the citation style of the reference (e.g. [AuthorYear], [1], (a))?
- is the page number written near the reference (e.g. no, yes)?
- Where is the Author-Title-year information located (e.g. on the backside, at bib card, in external database)?
- is the reference stored in a digital database too (e.g. zotero, bibtex, none)?

2b1 Content of bibliographic references
- What sort of reference is it (e.g. a paper, a book, a podcast)?
- Who is the author of the reference (e.g. Mark Twain)?
- Is the reference publicly available (e.g. in the internet, only in printed format)?
- Is there a direct quote from a reference on the card (e.g. no, yes)?
- Is the Zettel judging with a negative connotation about the bibliographic reference (e.g. negative, neutral, positive)?
- What is the language of the bibliographic references (e.g German, English, Lingua Latīna)?

2c Time
- When was the Zettel created (e.g. January 2023)?
- Does the Zettel contains of a written date (e.g. no, yes)?
- If there is a date, how was it created (e.g. manual pen, rubber date stamp)?
- If there is a bibliographic reference, from which year is it (e.g. 2014)?
- Were information added later (e.g. no, with 1 day delay, with 1 week delay)?
- How long does it take to write the Zettel in longhand (e.g. 5 minutes, 10 minutes)?
- How many minutes would it take to type in the Zettel into a computer keyboard (e.g. 4, 6)?
- Dropping the Cettel from 1 meter, how long does it take until it hits ground (e.g. 0.5 seconds, 1 second)?

2d Links
- Are there are outgoing links to other cards (e.g. 0, 1, 2)?
- Are there are incoming links from other cards (e.g. 0, 1, 2)?

2e Named entity recognition
- Does the note contains of person names (e.g. no, yes)?
- If yes, is he male (e.g. male, female)?
- Are locations like a city mentioned in the note (e.g. no, yes)?
- if yes, which continent is it (e.g. Europe, America, Asia, Africa)?
- Are dates available like a year or a certain time (e.g. no, yes)?
- if yes, which century is it (e.g. 21th, 20th, 19th)?
- Are product names mentioned (e.g. no, yes)?
- if yes, what is the price range (e.g. below 100 US$, more than 100 US)?
- Does the Zettel contain of measurement units like kilogram or meter (e.g. no, yes)?
- If yes, what purpose is it (e.g. measure biology, measure physics, social indicators)?

2e1 Part of speech tagging
- Does a sentence contains of a question mark to label a misunderstood subject (e.g. no, yes)?
- How many nouns are on the card (e.g. 10)?
- Is there a personal comment on the Zettel (e.g. no, yes)?

3 Indexing
- Was the card indexed with a tag for faster recall (e.g. no, yes)?
- Are some words underlined (e.g. 0, 1, 2)?
- Has the card a colored tab (e.g. no, yes)?
- What is the general subject (e.g. Math, Art, Business, Sociology)?
- Give two keywords which are describing the Zettel (e.g. Euclidean geometry)
- How important is the Zettel to understand the general subject (e.g. low, medium, high)?
- What is the word count of the title (e.g. 2, 4, 6)?

3a Machine readable
- Was the card scanned for backup reasons (e.g. no, as jpeg file, including OCR)?
- if the card was scanned, what is the dpi resolution (e.g. 150dpi, 300dpi)?
- Is there a barcode or similar identification system (e.g. none, barcode, qr-code, rfid)?
- Has the edge some holes (e.g. edge-notched card, none)?
- Is the information on the card the same as in a digital PKM software (e.g. no unique, yes a copy)?
- Was carbon paper used for write through on a second card for backup reasons (e.g. no, yes)?

3b Luhmann ID
- What is the position of the Luhmann ID on the card (e.g. top left, top right)?
- What is the format (e.g. alphanumeric, IP number like, with slash after first digit)?
- If the ID is nested, how deep is it (e.g. 3 levels, 6 levels)?
- What is the classification system (e.g. self created, Dewey decimal classification)?
- Has the card a fixed position in a stack (e.g. no, yes a juxtaposition)?
- Does the ID contains of a minus - sign to sort the card before the parent card (e.g. no, yes)?