Real cases

Two of the ideas you practise, meeting in one real situation. Choose, see what actually happens, then reflect.

A case · you decide

Verso and Corda keep an idea properly

Verso & Corda — a 16-year-old starting a commonplace book for her history class

The idea in play: you keep an idea only by restating it in your own words, and it becomes useful when you connect it with a because.

Zoe reads that "the printing press made it cheap to copy ideas, so arguments spread faster than authorities could stop them." She wants to keep it.

Verso: restate it in your own words. Pasting it keeps the words, not the idea.

Corda: connect it to something already in your book, with a because.

What should Zoe write?

Keep an idea →

A case · you decide

Reven and Quire bring three ideas together

Quire & Reven — a 17-year-old with a commonplace book full of kept ideas and an essay due

The idea in play: ideas that come back to you over time can be gathered into a synthesis — and you write it, not an app.

Over a term, three of Sam's kept ideas keep resurfacing in review: cheap printing, the spread of rumours, and why people trust sources. His essay asks how new media change what people believe.

Reven: spaced review brings ideas back, with no streak and no guilt; the ones that return are the ones you keep.

Quire: a kept idea earns its place when it changes what you think, not when it is copied out again.

How should Sam start the essay?

Keep an idea →