Whether you want to excel in your studies or reach the pinnacle of your career, taking notes effectively is a valuable skill for storing, remembering, recalling, and retrieving information. If you follow the simple steps and tips below, you will not only learn how to take notes, but also how to write notes that will help you apply your knowledge and save the processed material.
Get ready
Prepare all the materials you need to take notes. Sounds pretty simple, but for effective note-taking it is really important that before a lesson, meeting or lecture, all the necessary supplies are prepared and put in their places.
If you use paper and pens, make sure you have a notebook with enough blank sheets and two pens of each color. If you are using a laptop, make sure it is fully charged or that you can sit near a power outlet.
If you wear glasses, make sure you remember to bring them. They will be needed if the teacher or lecturer decides to write down some important information on the board. Have a microfiber cloth with you to clean your glasses if necessary. Also, make sure you have a seat in the room where you can see and hear the speaker clearly.
Come prepared. Before you go to a class, lecture, or meeting, be sure to review your notes from the previous time. So you can easily and quickly pick up the further course of the lecture from the place where it ended.
If you have been advised to read something on a topic as preparation for a class, be sure to do so and also write annotations. This will help you understand topics on https://writingassignment.net/college-homework-helper/ concepts, or ideas that the instructor is likely to talk about in class. It's a good idea to outline a chapter or article in advance. Do this on one side of the paper to complete your notes during class.
Be an active listener. When taking notes, many people make the mistake of mechanically, mindlessly taking notes without actually trying to figure out what is being said. Make an effort and understand topics during class, not after. Focus on the teacher's words, and if something is not clear, ask questions.
When the instructor finishes explaining a topic or pauses, raise your hand and ask questions that interest you. He will certainly appreciate that you listened to him carefully and want to understand what is unclear to you.
If you understand the topic being studied during class, you will have to put in less effort at home.
Take notes by hand. Although note-taking on a laptop is more convenient, recent studies have shown that those who take notes by hand remember information better. This is probably because laptop users simply translate what they hear into text, word for word, omitting the moment of processing what was said.
If you do take notes using a laptop, do not do it word for word. Try to understand what the teacher is saying.
Conclusion: You should take notes by hand whenever possible.
Don't be afraid to ask questions. When you come across information you don't understand, don't tell yourself you'll solve the problem later, and after a quick note, move on - ask your teacher or lecturer a follow-up question.
Judge for yourself: if it is not clear to you now, then it will be doubly incomprehensible to you when you yourself review the records later.
Don't be afraid to ask the teacher or lecturer to repeat, especially if you feel he has said something important.
Take notes as best you can
Focus on keywords and concepts. The most important change you can make to improve your note-taking skills is to focus solely on writing down key words and concepts.
Determine the most important information. Write down single words or key phrases that most reflect the topic of the lecture - dates, names, theories, definitions - only the most important details that define the essence. Eliminate all padding, ties and minor details - if you need this information, you will read the textbook.
Think about what you want to keep and remember. Why are you taking this class? Why did you come to this seminar? Why did your employer send you to this conference? While your first impulse may be to simply write down everything you see or hear, word for word, you should remember that you are taking notes to learn from, not writing a story.
First of all, pay attention to new information. Don't waste your time writing down what you already know: it's a waste of time. Concentrate on picking out what has been said and writing down any new information for assignment help that you don't already know - this is the main value of note-taking and it will bring you the most benefit.
Use the question, answer, proof method. This is a very effective note-taking method because it forces us to get to the heart of the material as we take notes and allows us to describe the topic in our own words. This technique of paraphrasing information has proven its effectiveness - with its help, students are much more effective in both understanding and remembering the material worked out.
Instead of mindlessly transcribing line after line onto paper, listen carefully to the speaker and try to understand the material. Once you've done this, take notes as a series of questions based on the material, and then write down your own answers.
Use shorthand. The average student writes down 1/3 of a word per second, while the average speaker speaks at 2/3 of a word per second. Developing your own shorthand system will help you take notes more efficiently and keep up.
If the lecturer is still speaking faster than you can record and the transcript is not helping, you can bring a recording device to class - this will give you the opportunity to listen to the lecture a second time and fill in the gaps in your notes.
Keep the outline in such a way that it has an attractive appearance. You won't want to go back and sort through your notes if your notes are messy, disorganized, and hard to read. Accordingly, it is very important that everything is beautiful! Here are a few tips to help you make your outline look attractive:
Always start on a new page. It will be easier for you to read if each topic or lesson starts on a blank page. Put the date in the upper right corner and write on only one side of the sheet, especially if you are writing with a pen with thick ink showing through the paper.
Be sure to write legibly. Taking notes is a waste of time if you can't figure it out later! No matter how fast you write, make sure your handwriting is small, neat, and legible, and lines don't overlap.
Use wide margins. Draw wide margins on the outside of each page with a pen and ruler. With them, the outline will not seem crowded, and you will have the opportunity to make notes for later when you reread.
Use symbols and diagrams. Things like arrows, boxes, charts, tables, graphs, and other visual aids are often great helpers in making connections and remembering key concepts, especially if you're better at visualizing information.
Use color coding in your abstract. Many people find that information is easier to read and remember if different colors are used when taking notes.
This is because color stimulates the creative areas of the brain, making notes more interesting and therefore easier to remember and retain. Color coding helps to associate color with information, when you ask dissertation help, making note material easy to remember with relatively little effort.
Try using different colored pens for different parts of your outline. For example, you can write questions in red, definitions in blue, conclusions in green.
You can also use the marker to highlight keywords, dates, and definitions. However, do not overdo it - you should not replace real study with coloring notes.
Make a textbook outline. After the lecture, you can supplement your notes with information from the textbook. Textbook note-taking is another skill worth learning.
Preview of the material: before you start reading the text directly, preview the material in order to understand what it is about. Read the introduction and conclusion, headings, subheadings, first and last sentences of each paragraph. See also diagrams, illustrations and diagrams.
Active reading of the text: now go back to the beginning and carefully read the entire text from the first to the last word. After each paragraph, highlight key words, facts, concepts, and quotations. Use visual cues in the textbook itself - places in bold or italic, color or list are usually key.
Note-taking: after you have carefully read the text, go back to the beginning and take notes on all the information you have highlighted. Try not to rewrite entire sentences (this is a waste of time), but rephrase them in your own words where possible.
Reread your abstract
Review your notes later in the day. If you review your notes after the lecture or a little later on the same day, the information will be stored and remembered much better. There is no need to spend a lot of time and effort on this - 15-20 minutes every evening will be enough.
Fill the gaps. Use replay to fill in additional information you remember from the lesson or lecture.
Write a summary. Another effective tool for getting the information from the abstract to stick in your memory is to summarize the summary at the bottom of the page.
Test yourself. Check how much you have learned the material: close the summary and try to explain the topic to yourself (out loud or to yourself).
See how many important details you can remember. Then read your notes again and summarize the information you missed.
Explain the material to a friend. Explaining material to a friend is a great way to check that you fully understand a topic and that your summary covers it comprehensively.
Learn the abstract. You'll really appreciate the value of a good note when it's exam time and you have to memorize all the material. If you followed the advice and reviewed your notes every night for 20-30 minutes, you will find that the information is much easier to memorize. Here are some popular memory techniques you can try:
Line by line: If you need to memorize a piece of text, here's a good technique. You read the first line several times and then try to repeat it out loud without looking at the textbook. Then read the second line, again several times, and try to repeat without looking at the book. Continue in this way until you can repeat the entire passage of text without the help of a textbook.
Making up a story: This method is about turning the information you need to remember into a simple, memorable story.
Mnemonic Techniques: Using mnemonic techniques is a great way to remember words in a specific order. To make a mnemonic, simply take the first letter of each word you want to remember and make a short sentence out of those letters.
Write down the most important things you need to know.
Don't forget to keep a separate notebook for each subject and don't forget to sign the notebook.
You don't have to write down every word you hear.
Write down information by paraphrasing it - this helps to better convey what you hear to consciousness.
If you are reading a book for a literature class, keep a piece of note paper handy at all times - you are unlikely to be allowed to write in the book itself.
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