White Paper Journey

Field workbench

Reading lab

Paste a passage, mark what it is doing, and let the lab turn your marks into notes. Select text with the mouse, a finger or the keyboard, tag it as a claim, an assumption, a definition, a piece of evidence or a question, and build a summary you can export. Your text and your notes are stored only in this browser.

  1. 1 Paste
  2. 2 Mark
  3. 3 Summarise and export

Paste your passage

A short name such as the topic or the section you are in. It heads your exported notes.

Plain text works best. Paragraph breaks are kept. Up to 30,000 characters. Only paste text you have the right to use.

Mark the passage

Nothing selected yet. Select a passage in the text below, or focus the text and use the arrow keys.

The reader is empty. Paste a passage above and choose “Open in the reader”, or load the sample passage to try the tags first.

Mouse or touch: select any stretch of text, then choose a tag. Keyboard: focus the text, press Down or Up to move by sentence, hold Shift to extend, then press 1 to 5 for Claim, Assumption, Definition, Evidence or Question. Escape clears the selection.

Build your summary

Write it in your own words, without looking back. If you cannot, that is useful to know.

Include in the summary

Preview

Field notes on the tool

How it works, and where it stops

The five tags

Claim
Something the author wants you to accept: a finding, a prediction, a recommendation.
Assumption
Something the argument needs to be true but may not prove, stated or not.
Definition
A term pinned to a meaning. Collect them; they make a glossary.
Evidence
Data, examples, citations or reasoning offered in support of a claim.
Question
Anything you do not understand or do not yet believe. Questions are results.

Assumptions and edge cases

  • Passages may overlap. A sentence can be a claim and also hold a definition; tag it twice. The newest tag is drawn on top, and every tag appears in the list.
  • Sentences are split at full stops, question marks and exclamation marks followed by a space. Abbreviations such as “e.g.” can cause an early split; use the mouse to select across them.
  • Plain text only. Formatting, images, tables and equations do not survive pasting. Describe them in a note instead.
  • If you edit the text after tagging, your tags are cleared, because they point at positions in the old text. The lab asks first.
  • Notes are saved in this browser’s local storage. If storage is blocked or you are in a private window, the lab still works but forgets everything when you close the tab. Download a backup if the notes matter.
  • Exports are generated on your device. Nothing is uploaded.

Using it well

  • Do not tag everything. If more than a third of the text is highlighted, you have stopped choosing.
  • Tag a claim, then look for its evidence. The gap check beside your list will point out claims that have nothing marked beneath them.
  • Use the sample passage first. It is invented, short, and contains all five kinds of sentence.
  • Pair this with the 30 questions: save a few, then use them as the Question notes.