commonplace book
Personal excerpt journal
A commonplace book is a personal notebook for recording passages, quotations, ideas, and observations worth preserving.
Unlike a diary, which records daily events, a commonplace book collects material from reading and thinking—memorable phrases, useful facts, striking thoughts.
The practice dates to the Renaissance but persists among writers and scholars: She kept a commonplace book of poetry excerpts and overheard conversations.
Selected passages from texts
- quotationsRepeated words with attribution
- passagesSegments or thoroughfares
- clippingsPieces cut off
- annotationsExplanatory additions to documents
anthology · miscellany · marginalia · gleanings · extracts · selections · snippets · transcriptions
Leisurely contemplative thoughts
- meditationsFocused contemplative practice
- contemplationsSustained thoughtful considerations
- observationsNoted perceptions
- insightsPenetrating understandings gained
ruminations · self-examination · introspection · moral reflections · spiritual reflections · life lessons
Directing attention elsewhere
- compendiumCondensed reference collection
- repositoryPlace for storing things
- treasuryStored organizational funds
- storehouseBuilding for stored goods
learning tool · study aid · memory aid · self-education · autodidact · Renaissance humanism · classical education · liberal arts
Era prioritizing reason over dogma
- John LockeEnglish empiricist philosopher
- Marcus AureliusStoic emperor of Rome
- EmersonAnglo surname, various namesakes
- Thomas JeffersonThird American president
Francis Bacon · Virginia Woolf · classical education · literary tradition
excerpts
Selected passages from texts
- quotationsRepeated words with attribution
- passagesSegments or thoroughfares
- clippingsPieces cut off
annotations · anthology · miscellany · marginalia · gleanings · extracts · selections · snippets · transcriptions · aphorisms
musings
Leisurely contemplative thoughts
- meditationsFocused contemplative practice
- contemplationsSustained thoughtful considerations
- observationsNoted perceptions
insights · ruminations · self-examination · introspection · moral reflections · spiritual reflections · life lessons
reference
Directing attention elsewhere
- compendiumCondensed reference collection
- repositoryPlace for storing things
- treasuryStored organizational funds
storehouse · learning tool · study aid · memory aid · self-education · autodidact · Renaissance humanism · classical education · liberal arts · lifelong learning
Enlightenment
Era prioritizing reason over dogma
- John LockeEnglish empiricist philosopher
- Marcus AureliusStoic emperor of Rome
- EmersonAnglo surname, various namesakes
Francis Bacon · Thomas Jefferson · Virginia Woolf · classical education · literary tradition
journal
Record of daily events
- personal writingdiary, journal, autobiographical essay, memoir, memoirs
- early literatureessay, novel, pamphlet, early novels, treatise
- printing historyprinting press, Gutenberg, typographers, Gutenberg press, block printing
- collected writingsanthology, compilations, compilation, collections, excerpts
- manuscriptscodex, codices, folio, folios, papyri
- collectionscollection, collections, anthology, anthologies, compilation
commonplace bookdiary
Personal daily record
personal journal · memoir · autobiography · journal · confessional
commonplace bookcreative work
Original artistic production
novel · treatise · essay collection · monograph · thesis
book, books, notebook, textbook, bookish, commonplace, handbook, booklet, guidebook