When Graph View isn't enough: Intersections

If you’ve used an app with graph view then you’ve used a networked note-taking app. You connect from Note A to Note B to demonstrate that A and B are connected somehow and you can see this connection in a graph. It’s really cool.

But sometimes, I find that the simple line between the two notes is not enough because the connection itself is missing information. All it is is a line between two notes, there’s no explanation for why they are connected, just that they are.

Last year, I found myself wanting to annotate that connection, so I decided to create an object type (a group of notes) called ‘intersections’ which would allow me to do just this.

In this post, I’ll explain the problem with not having intersections, and then show you how they work since I added them!

We’ll start with the basics: graph view visualises the connections between your notes. Most of the time it’s just lines between nodes.

Capacities actually labels the connection if the link was in the properties. If you connect to note B from the properties of note A, the name of the property in which you created that link becomes the label on that line.

But I realised that for some links, I need to do more than just visualise it, I need to annotate the link in question. Essentially I needed another note, in which I write about the specific connection between the notes.

This first came up when I read Trust, which featured New York in the Roaring 20s, and again when I read New York by Edward Rutherford, which had a chapter set then too. How could I write in my notes that both books feature New York in the Roaring 20s? Not just “New York”, or the “Roaring 20s”, but “New-York-in-the-Roaring-20s”.

“Intersections” were my answer. Some other examples are

• British Imperialism

• French Imperialism

• Self Development & Agency

• Industrial Revolution in America

I have notes on the individual parts of all these intersections, but I want to say something specific about their connection. How did British Imperialism differ to French Imperialism? How did the industrial revolution differ in America or the UK?

To answer this, I need to collect sources that tell me things about it, in the same way that both Trust and New York had portrayals of New York in the Roaring 20s. Other books will comment specifically on British Imperialism, others on French Imperialism. When I spot things like this in my reading, I just link my book notes to these intersections.

Let me show you how this makes a tangible difference for me compared to just linking to individual notes.

An Example

Below, I have a quote from ‘New York’ by Edward Rutherford that mentions both France and Britain, two countries whose history I am very interested in, and that I have notes about. I could link to those mentions. The graph view then shows me that the New York book is related to both of them. 👇️ 

But I don’t like to link mentions alone; I want to be more precise about my linking. So I must look deeper.

What is this quote actually talking about? It discusses the “old rivalry” between the two countries. So what I did was open the Britain note and added what this quote taught me: Britain and France are historic rivals. Now the graph shows me that Britain and France are connected on the graph too, and both notes are still related to New York.

But, with the aforementioned links in the properties, I can make this link a bit more useful. By creating a property in my country notes called ‘Historic Rival of’ and linking to France from there, the link in the graph between the two countries is labelled.

But in reality, that’s just it, it’s a label. For a lot of content, that’s all I need. But what we’re discussing here is a huge topic, one there are whole books about! So really I’d like somewhere to take notes on that very rivalry, on the thing that connects France and Britain in this way. I need a note to interrupt that link between France and Britain all about Anglo-French relations.

This is when I can use the intersection notes.

I created an intersection called Anglo-French relations. I needed to connect it to my existing notes so it’s contextualised, so I created properties for the countries. This will show up in every intersection note I create now, meaning I can remove the ‘historic rival’ property from the Country notes. This way is much more precise– it’s not just a property, it’s now a whole note I can write in. After all, I’m not going to write about Anglo-French relations on the France note, I’m going to write about it in the Anglo-French Relations note!

But remember why we’re here, the original quote in my book notes!

Remember how I said I don’t like to link mentions, but I like to link precise things? Well in the quote, I replaced the links to France and Britain, and instead linked “the old rivalry between France and Britain” to Anglo-French relations.

Now look at the graph. It’s more precise: New York by Edward Rutherford talks about Anglo-French relations. This note essentially interrupts the line in the graph between France and Britain. So I can still see New York is connected to them, but the “annotation” of this is just a new note. If I want to find out more about the connection between France, Britain and New York in this context, I can read about the history of Anglo-French relations in its dedicated note.

And of course, my backlinks are more useful this way too. I wrote a lot about that here if you want to read more.

Summary

Intersections have really unlocked a new way of note-taking for me.

They help me make sense of my notes because it’s a step between the individual notes I collect and the big picture (e.g. a map of content). If graph view visualises how I’ve connected the dots in my notes, intersections help me make sense of why I connected those dots, and it gives me something specific to look out for in future reading.

Will you give intersections a try?