For
the student, school can be one of the most difficult things to deal with.
Learning how to study and get along with your peers will make the whole
experience that much easier.
Like all exceptionally great students, you must pay
attention. When a teacher is giving a lesson, take notes and if you
don't understand something, raise your hand and ask questions. The more
questions you ask, the smarter you'll get, believe it or not. By passing notes
and talking to friends, you won't learn anything, so pay close attention!
Review
your notes when you have free time.
Whether you want to succeed in school or you want to be on top of your
professional career , effective note-taking is a valuable skill for retaining,
remembering, reciting and recalling information. If you follow these simple
steps and tips you will not only learn how to take notes, you’ll learn how to
take notes that will help you apply knowledge and retain material.
Gather
your note-taking materials. It may sound pretty basic, but it's important to have
all of your note-taking materials organized and ready to go before the start of
any class, meeting or lecture.
- If you're writing with paper
and pens, make sure you have an A4 sized notebook with plenty of blank
pages and two of each color pen. If you're using a laptop, make sure it's
fully charged or that you can sit near a power outlet.
- If you wear glasses, make sure
you have them with you in case the teacher/lecturer writes down any
important information on a black or whiteboard. If you bring your glasses,
make sure to bring a small microfiber cloth so that you are able to clean
them should the need arise. Also remember to position yourself in an area
of the room where you can effectively see and hear the speaker.
Come
prepared.
Before you come to a class, lecture, or meeting, make sure to review your notes
from the last time round. This will bring you fully up to speed and ready to
pick up where you left off.
- If you were advised to do any
background reading to prepare for the class, make sure that you get it
done. This will help you to understand any themes, concepts or ideas that
the teacher/lecturer is likely to present in class. A good idea would be
to outline the section, article, or chapter before hand. Write your
outline on one side o the paper so that you can add your class notes to
the other side.
- Remember the old adage "By
failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail".
Be
an active listener.
When note-taking, many people make the mistake of mindlessly taking down every
word, without really comprehending what is being said.
- This is a mistake. If you don't
make an effort to understand the topic while you're in class, you miss out
on a valuable learning opportunity.
- Therefore, you should try to
absorb the information you're hearing the first time round, then you won't
have as much work to do or risk feeling confused come review time.
Take
notes by hand.
Although taking notes on your laptop is convenient, a study conducted at
Princeton University has shown that note takers actually retain information
better when they take notes by hand.
- It's suspected that this is due
to the fact that laptop users tend to transcribe what they hear
word-for-word, without really processing what's being said.
- Longhand note-takers, on the
other hand, can't write fast enough to copy each word verbatim, so they
are forced to engage with the material a little more in order to pick out
the most important and relevant information.
- As a result, you should try to
take notes by hand whenever possible.
Don't
be afraid to ask questions. When you come across something you don't understand,
don't just jot it down and tell yourself that you'll worry about it later --
ask the teacher/lecturer for clarification.
- Think about it -- if you find
something confusing now, you'll find it twice as confusing during your
note-review later.
- Don't be afraid to ask the
teacher/lecturer to repeat themselves either -- particularly if you feel
that they've said something important.
Focus
on key words and concepts. The most important change you can make to improve
your note-taking skills is to focus solely on taking down key words and
concepts.
- Identify the most relevant
information. Write down individual words or
key phrases that are most relevant to the topic at hand -- things like
dates, names, theories, definitions -- only the most important details
should make the cut. Eliminate all the filler words and secondary details
-- if you wanted those things you could read a textbook.
- Think about what you want
to retain. Why are you taking the class?
Why are you attending the seminar? Why did your employer send you to the
conference? While it may be your first instinct to try and write down what
you hear or see verbatim, you have to remember that you are taking notes
in order to learn something from them -- you're not writing a novella.
- Prioritize any "new"
information. Don't waste time writing down
information that you already know -- this is useless to you and just
wastes time. Focus on writing down any new information that you've never
learned before -- this will give you the most value from your note-taking.
Use
the "question, answer, evidence" method. This is a very effective
method of taking notes, as it forces you to engage with the material as you
write and allows you to describe the topic in your own words. This technique of
paraphrasing information has been proven to help students understand and retain
material much more effectively.
- Instead of copying down line
after line of information, listen carefully to what the speaker is saying
and make an effort to understand the material. Once you've done that,
formulate your notes as a series of questions raised by the material, then
fill in your own answers.
- For example, if the question
was "what is the central theme of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet?",
the answer could be "more than a tragic love story, Romeo and
Juliet is about the consequences of holding grudges".
- Then underneath this answer,
you can provide evidence for your conclusion by pointing to specific
examples from within the text. This strategy allows you to record all of
the relevant information, in a concise, easy-to-read format.
Use
shorthand.
The average student writes 1/3 word per second, while the average speaker
speaks at a rate of 2/3 words per second. Therefore, developing your own system
of shorthand writing can help you to write more efficiently and avoid falling
behind.
- Try writing things like
"wd" for would, "cd" for could and "w/" for
with. Write a plus sign for the word "and". Also try to
abbreviate long words that appear again and again throughout the class or
lecture -- for example, instead of writing "popular sovereignty"
25 times over the course of a history class, write "pop sov".
- Of course, it's essential that
you're able to decipher your own shorthand later on -- if you think you
might have difficulty, try writing out a key on the inside cover of your
copy.You could also go back and fill in the full length version of the
words after class.
- If the speaker is still going
too fast for you despite your shorthand, consider bringing a recording
device to your next class -- this will allow you to listen a second time
and fill in any gaps in your notes.
Make
your notes visually appealing. You will be reluctant to go back and study
your notes if they are messy, disorganized and difficult to read, so it's
important that they look nice! Here are some tips on how to create more
visually appealing notes:
- Always start on a fresh page. You'll find your notes much easier to read if you
start on a fresh, blank page for each new class or topic. Put the date in
the top right hand corner and only write on one side of each page,
especially if you're writing with very inky pens.
- Make sure your writing is
legible. Taking notes will be a
complete waste of time if you can't read them afterwards! No matter how
fast you write, make sure you're writing is small, neat and legible, and
avoid using cursive handwriting if possible.
- Use wide margins. Line each page with a pen and ruler, giving yourself
a wide margin on the left hand side. This will prevent the page from
becoming too overcrowded and will leave you space to write in any
additional information once you review your notes.
- Use symbols and diagrams. Things like arrows, dots and boxes, diagrams, charts,
and other visual aids are often great ways to associate and remember key
concepts, especially if you're a visual learner.
Color-code
your notes.
Many people find that adding a splash of color to their notes helps to make the
information more readable and easier to retain.
- This is due to the fact that
color stimulates the creative side of your brain, making your notes more
interesting and therefore easier to retain. Color-coding helps you to link
color with memory, allowing you to remember the contents of your notes
with relatively little effort.
- Try using different colored
pens for different parts of your notes -- for example, you could write
questions in red, definitions in blue and conclusions in green.
- You could also use a
highlighter pen to highlight key words, dates and definitions. Don't go
overboard though -- you shouldn't mistake highlighting your notes for
actual study.
Take
notes from your textbook. After a class or lecture, you may want to supplement
your notes with information from a textbook. Taking notes from a textbook is
another skill worth mastering.
- Preview the material: Before you jump straight in to reading a text, preview
the material to get a sense of what it's about. Read any introductions and
conclusions, headers and sub-headers, and the first and last line of every
paragraph. Also glance over any charts, illustrations or diagrams.
- Actively read the text: Now go back to the beginning of the text and read it
thoroughly from start to finish. Once you have finished a paragraph, go
back and highlight any key words, facts, concepts or important quotes.
Look for visual cues in the text book itself -- things like bold or
italicized words and the use of color or bullet points are often used to highlight
significant points.
- Take notes: Once you've thoroughly read the text, go back and make
notes from the information you highlighted. Try not to copy full sentences
from the text -- this simply wastes time -- and paraphrase using your own
words where possible.
Review
your notes later in the day. Reviewing your notes after class, or later
the same day will help you to retain the information much more effectively. You
don't need to study them intensely -- just spend 15 to 20 minutes going back
over them each night.
- Fill in any blanks. Use your
review time to fill in any additional information that you remember from
the class or lecture.
- Write a summary. Another
effective tool for committing your notes to memory is to summarize the
information contained in your notes at the bottom of the page.
Test
yourself.
Test yourself on your understanding of the material by covering up your notes
and trying to explain the topic to yourself -- out loud or in your head.
- See how many of the important
details you can remember, then read the notes again to recap on any
information you might have missed.
- Explain the material to a
friend. Teaching or explaining the material to a friend is a good way to
test whether you've fully understood the topic, and whether your notes
deal with the topic comprehensively.
Memorize
your notes.
You'll really see the benefit of having good notes when it comes to exam time
and you have to memorize all of the material. If you have been consistently
reviewing your notes for 20 to 30 minutes each night, you'll find the
memorization process much easier. Here are some popular memorization techniques
you can try:
- Line-by-line method: If you have to memorize a chunk of text, one good
technique is is to read the first line a couple of times, then try to
repeat it out loud without looking at the page. Read the second line a
couple of times, then try to repeat the first and second line out loud,
without looking at the page. Keep going in this fashion until you can
repeat the entire chunk of text without looking at the page.
- Story method: This method involves turning the information you have
to memorize into a simple story that's easy to remember. For example, if
you wanted to remember the first three elements in Group one of the
periodic table (hydrogen, helium, and lithium) you could use the following
story "(H)arriet and (He)nry went to the (Li)brary". The story
doesn't need to make sense -- in fact, the sillier it is, the better.
- Mnemonic devices: Using mnemonic devices is a good way to remember lists
of words in a particular order. To make a mnemonic, simply take the first
letter of each word you wish to remember and come up with a short sentence
where each word starts with those letters. For example, to remember the
lines on a musical staff EGBDF you could use the mnemonic "Every Good
Boy Does Fine".
Take some time to write some problems up, or you could
ask someone to write them for you. Just remember, it doesn't hurt to go over
what you have learned.