Mastering the Art of Note Taking
Note taking is an extremely important skill in the academic world. It’s fundamental to one’s learning and absorption of a course. But note taking isn’t always about how many notes you take, but rather how to maximize the effectiveness of the notes you take. This skill is one that can take a long time to perfect.
While there is always room for improvement, I’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t, and while what works for me may not work for everyone, I have found that the people who adopt my advice regarding note taking have only positive feedback.
So let’s get started! Here are 3 simple tips and tricks to help you make the most out of your note taking.
Handwrite your notes
1. I know, I know. Everyone is tired of hearing the age old piece of advice that almost every professor will give you. But I’m going to say it one more time—handwrite your notes, don’t type them. As annoying as it is to hear it again, there is a considerable amount of truth in this advice. Handwriting notes (although requiring slightly more effort) is better for memorization, semantic processing, and encoding! Simply put, handwriting notes help the note taker process the information at a higher level. Putting in that small amount of effort to switch from typing to handwriting can save you a lot of time later when exams come around. Having already processed and encoded the information more thoroughly, you will need less time to memorize information by scratch, and you can focus more on overall review. Whether on paper or on a tablet, handwriting makes your note taking far more effective.
2. Simplify, Simplify, Simplify!!
There is absolutely no reason for you to be writing full sentences in your notes. Your notes are meant to be bullet points for a reason! Simplify them into main topics and ideas, vocabulary words and definitions, diagrams, and short explanations. The more longer you make your notes, the harder it is to find the important information when you are trying to review. Having to review pages and pages of long notes can also be far more intimidating and tiring, making you burnout faster during your study session.
3. Make them skimable
Similar to the last point, you want to make sure that you can go over your notes quickly and be able to hone in on the most important information. Personally, I do this by setting a color coding system for my notes. Have headers/unit #’s/Lecture #’s in one color, main topics and vocabulary words in another, regular notes, explanations, and definitions in another, and example problems from class in another. This way you can go through your vocabulary words in a breeze, or collect all the class problems for extra practice in the blink of an eye! Ive attached a picture of how I do my notes below:
4. Pull up the slides during class.
While this only works if you have a tablet or computer, if your teacher posts the slides before class, have them open on a device during class. This way, even if your teacher moves really fast, you wont miss anything!
With these tips and tricks, you are now equipped for your journey to become a master note taker!!
I will say that different things work for every person, and these aren’t the only ways you can organize and maximize the benefits of your notes. While these are a good place to start, I encourage you to continue to find what helps you! In the end, what is most important is that your notes make sense to you.
For realistic examples and inspiration I have added pictures of notes that I have taken in different classes below.
