Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/152

148 covers most of the page, leave the next page blank. If, in your hurry, you have written too much on a page, or have mixed two subjects in one note, take early opportunity to separate item from item, placing each on a page by itself. In making these adjustments and transfers, use scissors, write as little as possible, and make no fuss or parade of nicety. The entire operation of writing and registering notes—we can not too much emphasize this—should be as simple, informal and rapid as possible, lest the labor of it and the time consumed by it should disgust you with the plan.

Some day, after your notes have become a little voluminous, it will interest you to glance them over. You will be surprised at their richness, and nearly every item will appeal to you with greater zest than when you placed it there. Each that was more or less original at first will now sweep your thought further on, while nearly every mere registry of some one else's idea will now compel your mind to bring up ideas out of its own depths. Before you are aware you will whip out your fountain pen and begin to make additions. Your thought treasures will swell as you count the precious metal they contain; and this result will recur each time you take account of stock. You will often need to insert new pages. Just pin them in or paste them slightly at the edge, making the mechanical exertion of the process from first to last as simple and little tiresome as can be.

Later, you will some time be called on for an essay or a paper on some topic of which you are known to be fond. Turning through your notes you will find most that you wish to say all ready to your hand, needing only that you detach the proper leaves, bring them together in order, slightly amplified, it may be, and write neat bridges between them. Spurts of fresh and original cogitation will almost inevitably accompany this recension process, and these, of course, will not be rejected.