Sometimes I read a something that resonates. It doesn’t necessarily have an immediate application. The something is not useful. It just speaks to me. And I want to write out the useless reading-thing. As a quote. So I don’t lose it. So it will sit there as a reading-thing that seems to possibly be worth doing some more thinking about. Maybe.

I’m sure you do this too. In fact, we urge doctoral researchers to develop a noting-things-down habit. Even if the reason for choosing the quite or thought is not immediately obvious.

Academics are not alone in writing down apparently not useful but perhaps interesting fragments. Lots of people and professions do the writing-the-reading-thing down. Writing about reading not as organised notes that fit in a predetermined template or a set of questions. Simply making a note of something. A note by itself, of itself, for itself.