Why I stopped highlighting PDFs

Highlighting a PDF feels like work. It is filing. A year later I cannot recover the thought, only the yellow.

The method

The method I actually use:

kind: fleeting     → same day, one sentence
kind: literature   → hung off [@vaswani2017attention]
kind: permanent    → true if the PDF vanished

1. Capture a fleeting note the same day, in a sentence I could say aloud.
2. Hang a literature note off the paper — in my words, with one quote in a callout, cited as [@vaswani2017attention].
3. Promote a claim that would still be true if the PDF vanished. Example: Attention is a routing function.

How a paper moves

The arrows are the work. Highlighting never drew one.

Why it stays private

ReadCube keeps the ink. Folio keeps the sentences I would still defend in a seminar.

See Literature notes are not the paper and Publish the garden, keep the compost.