Originally written in French. Translated by AI — the meaning has been preserved, not the prose.
Short definition
The gesture by which a source or a fragment is kept at the moment you meet it, without any decision being taken about what it will become.
Full definition
In the tradition of knowledge-management methods, capture is the first step of a chain — setting an article aside, keeping a tab, sending yourself a link, noting a sentence on your phone.
In the articles on this blog, the word keeps that sense and receives a bound: capture is a placing in waiting, never a validation. It doesn't say the source is good, it says it looks promising for a project in hand. What it produces isn't knowledge, it is a possibility — and that possibility has a review date.
Two regimes live under the same word. Documentary capture keeps a complete external source, to preserve traceability. The personal log receives a question, a hunch, a remark of the day, in chronological order. The first awaits distillation, the second a rereading.
Usage in the field
Used to designate the entrance of a knowledge setup, and to separate it from what follows — what a system captures says nothing about what it produces.
Synonyms and variants
"to capture", "to keep to hand", "to set aside". "To collect" when the emphasis falls on volume rather than on the gesture.
Not to be confused with
- Distillation — the work of picking something up again that turns a kept source into a reformulated and connected idea. Capture keeps, distillation transforms.
- Persistence — the gesture of designation in the middle of an exchange with an assistant, which gets a fragment out of the tool. Its value lies in the choice, where capture stays deliberately unselective.
- Atomic note — a unit of thought, reformulated, self-standing and connected, carrying a single conceptual centre of gravity. A capture stays attached to its original context; a note begins when you reformulate.
Examples
An To read folder on the desktop, a tab open for three weeks, a screenshot on the phone: three captures, no knowledge.
Ambiguities / debates
The word carries an ambiguity of ordinary usage: "I captured that article" suggests you have acquired it. The distinction between capturing and capitalizing exists precisely to correct that impression.