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Tutorial of MarginNote for Mind Maps and Studying
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Tutorial of MarginNote for Mind Maps and Studying

Overview of Margin Note App

Introduction to the Review

  • Laura Hammock introduces herself and the purpose of the video, which is a review of the Margin Note app.
  • The review compares Margin Note with GoodReader, her primary app for reading and highlighting PDFs.

Key Insights on Functionality

  • Margin Note is not a direct replacement for GoodReader; it serves more as a mind mapping and studying tool that helps synthesize information from various sources.
  • The app lacks comprehensive documentation, requiring users to explore its features independently. A mind map provided by the developer has limitations in teaching others effectively.

Understanding Mind Mapping

Conceptual Framework

  • Mind mapping involves categorizing and connecting disparate pieces of information to create coherent narratives.
  • It aids in understanding complex topics by visually organizing thoughts rather than serving as an end product.

Features of Margin Note

Document Management

  • Margin Note allows users to import various file types, primarily PDFs, from different sources including URLs and videos.
  • Users can add documents via share sheets from other apps, although some integrations may not work seamlessly (e.g., Evernote).

Annotation Tools

  • The app provides tools for excerpting text (similar to highlighting), which are essential for creating notes within the app's notebook feature.
  • Users can annotate documents but must remember that these annotations do not transfer into their notebooks unless they are part of an excerpted portion.

Navigating Notebooks and Exports

Notebook Functionality

  • Excerpted content is stored in a default notebook; however, document-specific edits remain visible only within the document itself.
  • Export options are limited to PDF or Word formats; Laura expresses a preference for text format exports.

Study Features

  • The terminology used in the app can be confusing since "notebook" refers both to lists of excerpts and primary documents for mind maps.
  • Additional navigation tools include search functions and thumbnail views that assist with large documents.

Mind Mapping Capabilities

Creating Mind Maps

Margin Note App Overview

Document Management and Mind Mapping

  • The app allows users to add multiple documents for excerpts, but the lack of organization by file folder can lead to a chaotic workspace as more documents are added.
  • Upon adding a document, users are prompted to decide whether to display notes in the mind map or keep them hidden; opting for visibility integrates them into the workspace.
  • The mind map area is split into two sections: the document area (for managing sources) and the mind map/workspace area (for organizing highlights and comments).
  • Users can manage their documents directly from the screen, allowing for easy excerpting and annotations without switching between different areas of the app.
  • The mind map workspace gathers all highlights and comments in individual boxes, enabling users to organize thoughts visually through titles, colors, tags, and grouping.

Organizing Research Topics

  • Users can categorize comments related to specific topics (e.g., psychodynamic therapy vs. behavioral therapy), facilitating structured research organization.
  • Highlights can be grouped based on themes such as definitions, techniques, or theories behind therapies by dragging and dropping them into hierarchical structures.
  • Creating a tree structure allows users to visualize relationships between concepts; each highlight can become a parent or child node within this hierarchy.
  • An outline view provides a linear representation of organized thoughts which is particularly useful when preparing papers with quotes already aligned for writing.
  • Each excerpt maintains a link back to its original document source, enhancing traceability of information during research.

Review Features

  • The review screen offers flashcard functionality that aids memorization; users select notes they want to convert into flashcards for study purposes.
  • Flashcards allow tagging based on difficulty levels (hard/good/easy), enabling focused review sessions later on by filtering cards accordingly.
  • Sorting options enhance usability; users can sort flashcards by various criteria including creation date or randomly for diverse review experiences.
  • Text-to-speech support enhances learning through auditory reinforcement while reviewing flashcards—particularly beneficial for auditory learners.
  • Overall impressions indicate that despite some technical issues with app stability, Margin Note's features provide significant utility in organizing complex ideas effectively.

Conclusion

Video description

In this video, I will give you a quick review on the MarginNote app. Please subscribe and leave comments below! **** A full transcript can be found at www.marblejar.net. **** Hi, everyone. This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today’s video, I will give you a quick review on the MarginNote app. A while ago, I was asked by some viewers to compare a couple of apps to GoodReader. One of these was MarginNote. GoodReader is my primary app for reading and highlighting PDFs and managing PDF files. I use another app, Notability, or for handwritten notes. After diving into MarginNote, I’ve come to the conclusion that it would not be a good replacement for GoodReader. Instead, it is more of a mind mapping and studying app to help you to understand information from multiple sources. This video lays down my initial thoughts, but I plan to use the app more, and I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it after some practice use. Unfortunately, there’s not a ton of good documentation on how to use MarginNote. You just have to kind of dive in. The developer provides a MarginNote “mind map “as a form of documentation, but the limitations of this format for teaching others becomes clear almost immediately. If you don’t know much about mind mapping, I have a video about this concept. Essentially, it is a way to categorize and group information so that you can understand it better or write about it coherently. It is a deconstructive process, meaning that you are taking disparate pieces of information and then making connections between them to form them into a different but coherent narrative. In other words, mind maps helps with the process of thinking something through, so that, in the end, you can present it in a more coherent way. They are not end products – they show the journey. Having to learn from somebody else’s mind map is like diving into someone else’s mind — it’s confusing and easy to get lost. That said, MarginNote is a really cool tool for pulling together pieces of information from different sources. It is available on iOS and Mac devices and syncs between devices. It costs $13, but they offer a two week free trial period. Let me show you how it works. There are three screens in MarginNote: Document, Study, and Review. Let’s go through each one. First, Document This is the area where you pull in all of the files that you will be using as source material. MarginNote deals primarily with PDF files. You can add PDFs from your files, from your computer, you can create files from webpages by URL, or add videos from your camera roll. I was excited about the option to add documents from Evernote, but I could not get it to work with my account. Maybe others have had more success. I also was able to successfully add PDFs using the share sheet from other programs. I have found this process to be broken on many apps, so I was happy that it worked well. I found myself wanting to be able to add different kinds of documents to this area like photos from my camera roll and text documents. Perhaps later versions will have this ability. Once you import your document, you have these options indicated by icons on the top. The pencil icon allows you to Excerpt and Annotate, which is what you will be doing most frequently with your documents. Again, this is confusing since there is very little documentation, but what I have determined is that you use the excerpt function to add portions of document to your notebook. OK, so in other PDF annotation apps, excerpting is like like highlighting and your notebook is like the list of highlights. In order to use those portions of the document in a mind map, you will need to excerpt them. MarginNote gives you a couple of different ways to do this. You can highlight the text using these two text selection tools and choose from a variety of color options. These tools also allow you to add a comment. Or, if you are not selecting text, you can use one of these two icons to select an image in the shape of a rectangle or in a freeform shape. This is a really nice option for PDFs without text recognition. So, anything you excerpt will be added to a default notebook for the document. Annotation simply allows you to mark up the text, but those edits and markings are not available in your notebook – they are just visible in the document. So you can draw, highlight, erase, but remember, unless they are on an excerpted portion, those edits or notes won’t be available in your notebook AND you won’t be able to pull them into a mind map. You can just see them on the document. Hope that makes sense. . .