At the beginning of high school, I developed my own color-coding system of note-taking, using the three colored pens that were available to me at the time: Red for the core notes ('Rules' of thumb and explanations), Blue for Other Important Information™, and Green for definitions. These note-types form the basic structure for the content of this project. Full explanations can be read below.
Color Coding System.
# Rules
All numbered notes (which I call Rules) are red, and cover the core concept and basis for understanding a topic. To make the concept more approachable and understandable, Rules tend to include examples, analogies, and metaphors. The Rule numberings are sequential within each parent category: For example, Algebra II ends with Rule 77, while Precalculus begins with Rule 78, continuing through Single-Variable Calculus and Multivariable Calculus and all of mathematics.
Each Parent Category has a designated prefix abbreviation for the Rule Numberings: Physics has rules prefixed with "P. Rule", Astronomy has "A. Rule", and Cryptography has "C. Rule". Mathematics, being the original Rules created under my system, has no such abbreviation. In other subjects, math Rules are simply referred to as "math Rule x".
# Other Important Information
Blue sections hold "Other Important Information™", such as large-scale drawings that are better visualized than explained. Examples of what content these sections may entail can be seen here and here.
Blue sections are more of an art than a science, with some content just not quite befitting a Rule, nor of a definition, such as introductions and memorization tools. Occasionally, I will use blue sections to emphasize a particular point I want to make, such as in meta discussions of how a concept will be taught.
I use ascii line drawings sparingly - If I can convey information or a graph using an image online, I will do so and will give attribution to the original source.
# Definitions
Definitions are written in green. Much of the time, definitions for a concept will be placed directly prior to the Rules and Other Imp. explanations for it, so that the terms used in those explanations can be referred to without any confusion.
# WoO: Unnumbered Rules
Notes that begin with WoO "X". Y: [descriptor]. instead of the regular rule format are indeed rules, just those created after the fact, thus unnumbered.
In my work to make this website an all-inclusive library of knowledge, I have added this unique note-type for new additions to old sections. Since adding new rules would require moving all following rules up a number (an extremely tedious process), I have created WoO Rules, which are denoted only by their placement in relation to the Rules, Other Imp.'s, and Definitions before them (representing 'X' in the given formula). Example.
In order to make this website more encyclopedic, accessible, and organized, all WoO notes will eventually become fully-fledged rules, or other types of notes, upon my ability to undergo a full-scale revisal of a particular section. I have previously undergone several Physics section revisals in which I created and removed several Rules, in doing so updating the Rule numberings. As such, WoO notes are inherently temporary.
Either way, I intend to undergo full studies of my existing notes over time to make elaborations and general improvements, making the Human Knowledge project into a more accurate and fully-fledged curated library of scientific and mathematical knowledge. This would, inevitably, lead to both the removal (as I put the section under revisal) and creation (as I add more material to a section not under revisal) of more WoO rules.
The name "WoO" is in reference to the compositional cataloging system used for composers like Beethoven and Brahms, literally meaning "Without Opus Number" in German.
