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18 reviews for:
Antinet Zettelkasten: A Knowledge System That Will Turn You Into a Prolific Reader, Researcher and Writer
Scott Scheper
3.48 AVERAGE
18 reviews for:
Antinet Zettelkasten: A Knowledge System That Will Turn You Into a Prolific Reader, Researcher and Writer
Scott Scheper
3.48 AVERAGE
I wanted to like this book so much. I love the premise- I'd learned enough about Zettelkasten prior to this book to be intrigued- but still confused about how it worked. I bought this book hoping for a strong example and primer, but sadly, this book is not it.
The thing that stands out to me about this book is that it is so long- unnecessarily. There is no reason someone should need to read a 500 page book about this topic to understand it. In many ways, I think that the length of this book interferes with reader comprehension. Also, I concede I might be wrong- but I don't find first author descriptions of thought processes, beliefs, or such narratives to be super useful. So much of this book ended up being just that- unnecessary description of the author's thought processes. There is so much of this book that is just filler, unrelated to Zettelkasten, how to implement it, or notetaking in general.
Early on in the book he writes:
"I couldn't care less about ascribing to academic conventions (i.e. aca-demic jargon)." Yet- he also tries to make the case that academics and researchers could benefit from his way teaching the zettlekasten. This always grinds my gears, when someone who has no experience doing something develops a tool, a process, or a framework that they think could have decent application to some field they have no experience in. But aside from that- I am not sure what that is supposed to mean. Because a lot of academics are criticized for using 5 words to describe something that only needs 3 words. Or is he saying that he was going eschew organizing and developing his material so that it could be understood by a reader? Or is he giving himself a pass on trying to write well by saying, "I am not an academic, I am going to write using my own voice," like that is some merit badge. It's not. It's not a flex to barf your thoughts into a document and self-publish it. Moreover, Scheper's insistence on writing in his "own voice" made this book much more difficult to get through. I think this is nearly always the case when someone relies as heavily on the second-person POV as Scheper does in this book.
This book could have strongly benefitted from professional editing. A professional likely would have cut this thing down to a reasonable 250 pages and called it a day. What do I mean? On page 692 of the Kindle version of the book, he gets into a tangent about perception and perspective. He defines and describes the terms and their Latin origins in 5 short, choppy paragraphs. It seems like he decided that reasonable length books are for chumps and that this book was going to be unnecessarily and wastefully long. And took sections like this one and basically had AI write 5 short paragraphs on the difference between the two.
The thing is, that writing well is hard. And succinctly communicating ideas is incredibly hard. It grinds my gears when people think that writing a book is just writing. So much of it is the dull and boring work of revising, reframing, reconsidering the content, and chopping it down.
Grammar/Syntax Errors:
It may be due to what happens when a person puts a digital file on Ebook publishing platforms- but there were so many places that got extra line breaks etc. There are spots where he repeats the same concept or nearly the same line immediately following- so the effect is just sloppy. For example on page 554 of the iPad Kindle version, he says, "The Antinet is constructed in a way that emphasizes the two laws that govern through. The concept that thought is governed by two laws derives from British philosophers John Locke, David Hume, George Berkeley, David Hartley and John Stuart Mill, who suggested that thoughts are governed by two components." Like- its just tedious.
Low Quality Illustrations:
I admit to being influenced by social media in this purchase. I saw the images in the social media ads that are aesthetic and was like, "TAKE MY MONEY". Unfortunately, those images were just for social media. The illustrations and images in his book are not the ones that are in the social media ads. I admit, I am a shallow, shallow person who likes shiny, pretty things. But I was not impressed with his illustrations nor the photos of his cards. I was mostly embarrassed that he thought it was fine to publish cards with his less than ideal handwriting.
I agree that there are parts of this process/topic need graphical explanations or images (of cards), but it grinds my gears to have such low production value for a book. I am also recognizing that my eyes are old- so that may just be a me thing. But I thought they could have been a lot better designed. It seems like many of these could have been easily designed in Canva- but there is probably a reason he chose not to go that route. I think that for $20 (or whatever I spent on the hard copy plus the kindle versions), authors owe it to the reader to put some effort into producing a high quality product.
Style
While I am a strong proponent of plain language and simple, straight-forward construction and syntax, I thought his method of writing in 1 and 2 sentence paragraphs was tedious. TBH, this book reads like something that could have been a 3k-4k word blog post. To me, that is how you know good writing, is when it is effortless and easy to read. This book is unnecessarily tedious. Also, I immediately hate it when, in the first chapter an author says, "It might make sense to start with chapter 11." If that is where you think it should start- that is your chapter 1. Everything from chapters 2-10 are probably not necessary.
He goes into a lot of unnecessary detail for no reason. In fact, I believe that this way of writing and his general organization of the book decreased my comprehension of this area topic. It very much read like, "Luhmann did this, but it was a little different than the thing Ahrens did, but the thing that Ahrens did was shit anyway, so here is something completely different..."
Weird Beef:
In Chapter 13, Scheper has these "guidelines" about source selection that are just bizarre, for a book on taking notes. Basically, he refers to a lot of what is published and consumed in traditional spaces as being "horse shit". This section ends up being a rant that reads like a person who was convinced that this was going to be the next "4 Work Week" but publishers were not convinced of this idea.
He also shits on Ahrens' book (How to Take Smart Notes) a lot.
I get the ick when I see someone profusely cite like he does. First, most of the authors he cites are white dudes. I am immediately suspicious of writers and researchers whose advice is all by white dudes. That made sense 100 years ago. In 2024, there is no reason a person's reference list should be so homogenous- it says a lot about his process. Also, I am suspicious of people who talk about the valuable things to be learned from the book "Atlas Shrugged".
TBH, it feels like is a tech bro came across Ahrens' book and added, "Write a better Zettelkasten book" on his "bucket list" written on a whiteboard. And when he had a period where he was not employed in regular 9 to 5 work and convinced himself that he would just "be a writer" and "coach". He then wrote a 4,000 word stream of conscious draft in a fever dream, decided that that wouldn't be long enough for a book, then spent the next 8 months using AI to write large sections of his manuscript, and create images for his public social media feed.
I am annoyed I bought this book.
The thing that stands out to me about this book is that it is so long- unnecessarily. There is no reason someone should need to read a 500 page book about this topic to understand it. In many ways, I think that the length of this book interferes with reader comprehension. Also, I concede I might be wrong- but I don't find first author descriptions of thought processes, beliefs, or such narratives to be super useful. So much of this book ended up being just that- unnecessary description of the author's thought processes. There is so much of this book that is just filler, unrelated to Zettelkasten, how to implement it, or notetaking in general.
Early on in the book he writes:
"I couldn't care less about ascribing to academic conventions (i.e. aca-demic jargon)." Yet- he also tries to make the case that academics and researchers could benefit from his way teaching the zettlekasten. This always grinds my gears, when someone who has no experience doing something develops a tool, a process, or a framework that they think could have decent application to some field they have no experience in. But aside from that- I am not sure what that is supposed to mean. Because a lot of academics are criticized for using 5 words to describe something that only needs 3 words. Or is he saying that he was going eschew organizing and developing his material so that it could be understood by a reader? Or is he giving himself a pass on trying to write well by saying, "I am not an academic, I am going to write using my own voice," like that is some merit badge. It's not. It's not a flex to barf your thoughts into a document and self-publish it. Moreover, Scheper's insistence on writing in his "own voice" made this book much more difficult to get through. I think this is nearly always the case when someone relies as heavily on the second-person POV as Scheper does in this book.
This book could have strongly benefitted from professional editing. A professional likely would have cut this thing down to a reasonable 250 pages and called it a day. What do I mean? On page 692 of the Kindle version of the book, he gets into a tangent about perception and perspective. He defines and describes the terms and their Latin origins in 5 short, choppy paragraphs. It seems like he decided that reasonable length books are for chumps and that this book was going to be unnecessarily and wastefully long. And took sections like this one and basically had AI write 5 short paragraphs on the difference between the two.
The thing is, that writing well is hard. And succinctly communicating ideas is incredibly hard. It grinds my gears when people think that writing a book is just writing. So much of it is the dull and boring work of revising, reframing, reconsidering the content, and chopping it down.
Grammar/Syntax Errors:
It may be due to what happens when a person puts a digital file on Ebook publishing platforms- but there were so many places that got extra line breaks etc. There are spots where he repeats the same concept or nearly the same line immediately following- so the effect is just sloppy. For example on page 554 of the iPad Kindle version, he says, "The Antinet is constructed in a way that emphasizes the two laws that govern through. The concept that thought is governed by two laws derives from British philosophers John Locke, David Hume, George Berkeley, David Hartley and John Stuart Mill, who suggested that thoughts are governed by two components." Like- its just tedious.
Low Quality Illustrations:
I admit to being influenced by social media in this purchase. I saw the images in the social media ads that are aesthetic and was like, "TAKE MY MONEY". Unfortunately, those images were just for social media. The illustrations and images in his book are not the ones that are in the social media ads. I admit, I am a shallow, shallow person who likes shiny, pretty things. But I was not impressed with his illustrations nor the photos of his cards. I was mostly embarrassed that he thought it was fine to publish cards with his less than ideal handwriting.
I agree that there are parts of this process/topic need graphical explanations or images (of cards), but it grinds my gears to have such low production value for a book. I am also recognizing that my eyes are old- so that may just be a me thing. But I thought they could have been a lot better designed. It seems like many of these could have been easily designed in Canva- but there is probably a reason he chose not to go that route. I think that for $20 (or whatever I spent on the hard copy plus the kindle versions), authors owe it to the reader to put some effort into producing a high quality product.
Style
While I am a strong proponent of plain language and simple, straight-forward construction and syntax, I thought his method of writing in 1 and 2 sentence paragraphs was tedious. TBH, this book reads like something that could have been a 3k-4k word blog post. To me, that is how you know good writing, is when it is effortless and easy to read. This book is unnecessarily tedious. Also, I immediately hate it when, in the first chapter an author says, "It might make sense to start with chapter 11." If that is where you think it should start- that is your chapter 1. Everything from chapters 2-10 are probably not necessary.
He goes into a lot of unnecessary detail for no reason. In fact, I believe that this way of writing and his general organization of the book decreased my comprehension of this area topic. It very much read like, "Luhmann did this, but it was a little different than the thing Ahrens did, but the thing that Ahrens did was shit anyway, so here is something completely different..."
Weird Beef:
In Chapter 13, Scheper has these "guidelines" about source selection that are just bizarre, for a book on taking notes. Basically, he refers to a lot of what is published and consumed in traditional spaces as being "horse shit". This section ends up being a rant that reads like a person who was convinced that this was going to be the next "4 Work Week" but publishers were not convinced of this idea.
He also shits on Ahrens' book (How to Take Smart Notes) a lot.
I get the ick when I see someone profusely cite like he does. First, most of the authors he cites are white dudes. I am immediately suspicious of writers and researchers whose advice is all by white dudes. That made sense 100 years ago. In 2024, there is no reason a person's reference list should be so homogenous- it says a lot about his process. Also, I am suspicious of people who talk about the valuable things to be learned from the book "Atlas Shrugged".
TBH, it feels like is a tech bro came across Ahrens' book and added, "Write a better Zettelkasten book" on his "bucket list" written on a whiteboard. And when he had a period where he was not employed in regular 9 to 5 work and convinced himself that he would just "be a writer" and "coach". He then wrote a 4,000 word stream of conscious draft in a fever dream, decided that that wouldn't be long enough for a book, then spent the next 8 months using AI to write large sections of his manuscript, and create images for his public social media feed.
I am annoyed I bought this book.
informative
slow-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Ideas are great but I found reading the book a bit tedious. There is too much text and the author doesn’t get to point soon enough. The book could have been edited out and condensed to 200 pages, instead of a 500 pg behemoth.
Still the author succeeded in convincing me that Antinet is better than digital zettelkasten. I think I am going to give the analog version a try soon.
Still the author succeeded in convincing me that Antinet is better than digital zettelkasten. I think I am going to give the analog version a try soon.
informative
slow-paced
Ideas are solid, but this book is extremely bloated and is in bad need of strict editing. There were a number of mistakes in the book and the author was extremely judgemental
challenging
informative
slow-paced
This book is intense. Scott P. Scheper takes you through the entire history of Zettelkasten, Luhmann a conscripted member of the nazi party turned sociologist and prolific author and doesn’t mind skipping around. While I enjoyed the book, it seemed the author wanted to argue and pitch buying the book to the reader for more than half the book.
Other than this. I have many key takeaways on building an Antinet and starting a proper communication partner out of analog notecards.
Other than this. I have many key takeaways on building an Antinet and starting a proper communication partner out of analog notecards.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
A long (and sometimes windy) tour through the hows and whys behind the analogue card-based note-making system known as zettelkasten. Scheper is passionate about his topic and his energy is one of the best things driving you through the book. It's almost 600 pages long and there's lots in here. Most importantly, the book is eminently practical and you learn how to get yourself set up and started with lots of photos and useful (hard-won) advice.
Some caveats: the book is probably a little too long for my tastes; it feels a little like there are 4 or 5 separate books packed in here. That said, I'm holding out for the possibility that this book's value will repay itself over the long term as the potential for use as a reference and reflection tool is high. Also, too many pages were spent in debunk mode, where Ahrens and a few other authors are taken to task for their misrepresentations of the method. Their inaccuracies and sloppiness may be a reality but it detracted a bit from the mood to have to read about why they're all wrong and why Obsidian is the worst etc etc. I get why this stuff is in there; I just wish there wasn't so much of it.
Some caveats: the book is probably a little too long for my tastes; it feels a little like there are 4 or 5 separate books packed in here. That said, I'm holding out for the possibility that this book's value will repay itself over the long term as the potential for use as a reference and reflection tool is high. Also, too many pages were spent in debunk mode, where Ahrens and a few other authors are taken to task for their misrepresentations of the method. Their inaccuracies and sloppiness may be a reality but it detracted a bit from the mood to have to read about why they're all wrong and why Obsidian is the worst etc etc. I get why this stuff is in there; I just wish there wasn't so much of it.