How to Structure a Brain Dump

I think it's a really good idea to make kind of a brain dump and start with, okay, what do I already know? Because I'm not starting from scratch. And then when you decide to read a book or an article, you already have some kind of filter and you can be more explicit about the filter. So being flexible, depending on the source, I think it shows skill. Being too strict and rigorous is maybe helpful in the beginning, but it's not necessarily a good recommendation to treat every text the same.