Darwin book – Richard Carter

Richard Carter

Darwin’s study at Down House

Charles Darwin’s note-making system

An exploration of how Darwin kept track of his various notes, enabling him to produce a huge body of work.

My unplanned archives

Collections of informally documented stuff have become my archives of sorts.

Converting my notes into a chapter

How I used my note-making system to research and write a chapter of my Darwin book.

Nature writing’s ill-defined, thriving ecosystem

There is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to whatever ‘nature writing’ is supposed to be these days. It might not all be to my personal taste, but such diversity has to be a good thing.

Fools and dilettantes

How the problems I’ve been encountering lately are a sign (I hope) that my book is starting to come together.

Newsletter No. 26: ‘Slits for pupils’

Research triage · filing your nuggets · pupil shapes · Amy Liptrot · moths and bats · critical reading · early medieval history · Tim Dee · book reviews

(L) My Obsidian note about the rush to publish Darwin and Wallace’s ‘joint’ 1858 paper on evolution. (R) The corresponding Obsidian graph view, showing how this note links with other related research notes in my vault.

No going back

How was I ever able to organise my thoughts without ‘atomising’ them—breaking them down into smaller and smaller discrete notes—and then linking them together?

Everything I needed was already in my notes!

I’ve known it from the start, but this new way of making notes is perfect for the way I tend to work. It’s what I’ve been looking for all these years.