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Learning Tool Review: Roam Research
Wade Anderson
September 20, 2024
Today, I’m going to give you a deep dive review of a favorite tool: Roam Research.
Roam Research, is one of the best tools for note taking I’ve ever used. It has a certain process and approach that takes some getting used to, but once you catch on, it can be quite liberating.
As Roam’s founders describe in their white paper, the liberation comes from a different paradigm of organizing notes. Instead of file cabinet trees (the common default), Roam is organized to mimmic the organization of our brains:
If current tools resemble filing cabinets, Roam is more akin to the nodal networks in telecommunications, or the neurons in the human brain. Rather than existing in a vacuum, each note or file becomes a node in an interconnected graph of ideas. A single node may simultaneously hold positions in several different sequences, hierarchies or file paths, and can ‘talk’ to other nodes, communicating information back and forth about the nature of each relationship. The network is dynamic, so updates and revisions are populated across the entire graph simultaneously. Individual nodes or branches within the network can be forked as required, allowing a new pathway to deviate without changing the original meaning.
At the simplest level, Roam’s structure makes it inherently easier to store, recall, and cross-reference ideas. This is the primary proposition for students, writers, self-directed learners, and users of existing note-taking apps.
The Basics of Roam Research
My review is not meant to be a thorough usability guide. For that I’d recommend checking out numerous YouTube video walk throughs. That said, I do want to give you a run down of the basics so you understand how this tool differs from other note taking applications.
Every page in Roam is organized as a series of bullets. Each bullet is ab lock. Blocks can contain references to other blocks and pages by using brackets or parentheses notations (the former for page reference and the later for block reference).
The linking of pages and blocks to each other is what gives Roam its unique power in the world of note taking applications. Select a topic you’ve been studying and see all of the notes for that topic. It’s like a tagging system on steroids!
The Ultimate Creativity Tool
One of my mentors growing up was a professor at MIT. He was well known for coming up with breakthroughs in his field of material science. One of his common approaches to be more creative is he would study the breakthroughs in other tangential fields like biology or medicine. He would regularly read papers and make connections to his own field. Doing so inspired him to think more creatively.
Roam Research is a tool for inspiring creativity in a similar process. The associative linking allows you to make connections between tangential topics. Seeing the common view of linked and unlinked references can inspire connections you didn’t see on the first run through.
Roam presents a way to interact with your notes in a way that isn’t throwing them into the abyss. Your notes are live and interactive with each other. Old notes you took months ago can show up again when you link something new to them.
This is a really cool paradigm. One I’m excited to keep investing in more as I go on my learning journey.
When to Use Roam and When Not To
Roam is a brilliant tool for its purpose: research. I find myself grabbing for it when I’m going deep on a topic. I want to curate all my notes in a similar spot.
Roam hasn’t struck me as the best tool for my day to day learning journal needs. It is lacking some of the learning features I’m looking for in a vision for a learning journal (namely a way for the notes I’m taking to come back to me as quizzes).
#HappyLearning
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