We have now reached that point in the semester when desks are covered in coffee rings, our phone calenders prodimently feature office hours and exams are two or three times a week. The piles of notes and sticky notes are….terrifying. In this mid-semester bustle, intriguing or inspiring ideas and quotes can get lost between the notes on our phone, the sticky notes on our desk and the notebooks in our backpack.
Collecting quotes and other meaningful information has been a centuries old concern that has often been addressed by a commonplace book.
Commonplace books are a central place, often a notebook, to collect information such as quotes in order to be able to look back on them. They were called topos koinos in Greek, locus communis in Latin and referred to as zibaldone during the Italian Renaissance when Petrarch used them. Commonplace books were popular as an educational tool in 1600s England at the college level and continued to be a study tool among 20th century writers such as Mark Twain. In the 21st century, they have continued to be used by a few such as authors Ryan Holiday and Robert Greene, as well as home-schoolers following the Charlotte Mason philosophy.
Today, making a commonplace book continues to offer a plethora of benefits. It can be a fun boredom-busting activity as well as a creative way to reflect. As Ryan Holiday, a huge proponent of commonplace books mentions, it can also be a great way to organize research and notes from books. Instead of having notes in the books themselves, or on a computer, they can all be in one central location: the commonplace book. This allows easy access. Amy Landino, a content creator and YouTuber, noted that as a creator, a commonplace book can be a lifesaver when there is a deadline approaching, and she is not feeling inspired. Flipping back through a commonplace book, and reading quotes or ideas that inspired her, can jumpstart her creativity. Other benefits of a commonplace book include idea synthesis. Seemingly disparate ideas and quotes often appear next to each other in a commonplace book, and this can spur new lines of critical thinking. Commonplace books can also inform further reading and exploration by providing a record of read books. Anyone can make a commonplace book or a book of quotes with Her Campus UFL’s simple steps below.
- Decide on a format
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Three common choices are index cards organized into a storage box with dividers, notebooks or digital formats. Landino uses the index card method by putting the quote or idea on an index card with the author’s name and source and then filing it in a storage box. YouTuber Dearly Frances favors a notebook where she writes her ideas and quotes down with different colored pens and includes drawings and stickers. David Fernández argues in an article for Medium, that the most important part of a commonplace book is that it serves its purpose of helping you collect important quotes, ideas and maybe tweets so that you can reflect, research or share. If the first two formats don’t seem like they would work for you but a digital version does, Fernández encourages opting for a digital version.
- Start reading, listening and absorbing
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A commonplace book or a book of quotes needs material. As a college student, one place to start might be going back through lecture notes to see if there was a quote that stood out to you. or go through your screenshots to see if there was an idea you could copy into your commonplace book for easy access and reflection. Don’t be afraid to record song lyrics, Instagram post captions and Twitter messages as well if they contain information that you want to record.
- Consider organization
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As your commonplace book (or index card box) grows, it is time to consider organization. Using the notebook method, headings can be added and a few pages left blank before the next header to enable more quotes to be added later. Using the index card method, dividers or index card boxes can be used within the larger storage box to divide index cards of quotes and ideas into categories. Landino gives a thorough explanation of how to do this.
- Keep going
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The best commonplace books will have ideas, quotes and witty sayings from years of collection and curious exploration. Keep it with you so that when you come across a quote you love or a passage that speaks to you, you can include it in your commonplace book.
- Use it
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The point of a commonplace book is to get your favorite quotes out of books, off of 100s of screenshots and away from yellow sticky notes. Reread your commonplace book. Consult it when you need inspiration, or when you don’t know what to write about for an essay in class.
Each commonplace book should be different. Make yours your own, unique book of quotes.