Notes

How do you take good notes? The teachers at college speak too fast and sometimes don't write anything on the interactive whiteboard sometimes. >_>

Anyone knows how to organise your work for preparation for revision? My course is going to involve a lot of note taking and consolidating huge amounts of information. :skeleton:

Oh the main problem I face when writing notes in the class that I can't read my work later onwards due to writing too quickly.

Any advice on how to overcome this?

It has been many years since I took notes in College. What I learned is that one of the purposes of taking notes is how to learn to sort relevant information from the unneeded rapidly.

You will never be able to keep up with the professor word for word, so don't worry about it. Listen intently to what is being said. Do not waste time in trying to write down material you already know. Concentrate on what is new to you. Listen for phrases you find to be significant in helping you recall that portion of the lecture and write those down.


Notes are a tool to help you remember new material. Keep that in mind and remember your notes should serve the purpose of being tools for you. Do not try to impress anybody with your notes, write what you find useful to you, not what you think the professor wants you to write.

Practice writing fast? I write faster when my handwriting is a little slanted as opposed to being straight. Because that way, I raise my pen from paper less often, saving more time.

lol @ write faster.. N e hu a gud method for me has been NOT writing everything the teacher says but instead putting it into my own words (maybe through bullet points).. i draw pictures too if in a hurry and i know the picture would remind me of whatever the lecturer was saying. Good to note key words too. If the lecturer repeats himself or places emphasis on certain things- you know you have to write it down.

General Principles of Notetaking:

-Be Brief: use keywords/short phrases
-Be focused: ask questions, get answers
-Be organized: titles and headings, visual aids, etc.

Notetaking from Lectures

-key to taking notes during a lecture is to be intent
(average person forgets 80% of what they hear in two weeks)
(" " " 95% in 4 weeks.)

Active Listening-
-think ahead/activate prior knowledge [you think more than you write]

Main Idea Signals
-what info was repeated during class
-words like 'important', 'causes', and 'reasons' etc are essential
-gestures and voice may indicate importance

Recopy: organize through notes
-reorganizing is like 90% studying notes
-review notes within 24 hrs
-go over them weekly

Stream Lining Notes:
-use word beginnings and abbreviations
-don't punctuate
-use symbols (&, #, etc)
-personal shorthand: w/o, b4, etc (chat lingo comes in hand here )
-eliminate vowels: "cn u rd ths?"

key to mastery.. practice :hiding:

and then there are different notetaking templates.

Roman Numeral:



Landmark College two-column notes



Extreme Mapping



Cornell Two-Column Notes



Personally, I like Roman Numeral and Extreme Mapping the best; but you can use whatever you feel most comfortable with.


I actually took a required class on notetaking last semester, and copied down some of my notes on here . I hope it'll be of help inshaAllah. :ermm:

Thanks everyone for the advice.

Mysterious Uk said:

lol @ write faster.. N e hu a gud method for me has been NOT writing everything the teacher says but instead putting it into my own words (maybe through bullet points).. i draw pictures too if in a hurry and i know the picture would remind me of whatever the lecturer was saying. Good to note key words too. If the lecturer repeats himself or places emphasis on certain things- you know you have to write it down.

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I also used to draw pictures. Little cartoon type doodles. They are helpful in jarring the memory when you reread your notes.

Woodrow said:

I also used to draw pictures. Little cartoon type doodles. They are helpful in jarring the memory when you reread your notes.

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I used to draw pictures all over my exercise books at school...gosh I got into so much trouble. ;_;

Guestfellow said:

I used to draw pictures all over my exercise books at school...gosh I got into so much trouble. ;_;

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A little trick that worked for me. At the start of each lecture I would do a little cartoon sketch of anything I thought was funny in the room. such as somebodies hat, something on the floor, a bug crawling etc. During the lecture I would watch that object but concentrate on what was being said and I found that later when I saw my cartoon I could actually remember much of what the professor said.

ohhhhhh guys you are not helping him at all:giggling: bring a tape recorder with you at every lecture

cat eyes said:

ohhhhhh guys you are not helping him at all:giggling: bring a tape recorder with you at every lecture

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I believe you intended that as humour. ;D

Lots of people do try that at schools that permit it. But it deprives the student of learning to evaluate information and how to concentrate through active listening. No matter how good of hearing a person has, listening properly has to be taught. Note taking is a very effective method of being taught active listening skills.

Learning the skill of active listening is one of the most important things a college student will ever learn.

Woodrow said:

I believe you intended that as humour. ;D

Lots of people do try that at schools that permit it. But it deprives the student of learning to evaluate information and how to concentrate through active listening. No matter how good of hearing a person has, listening properly has to be taught. Note taking is a very effective method of being taught active listening skills.

Learning the skill of active listening is one of the most important things a college student will ever learn.

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yeah i suppose they will become dependent on it right? but they could use it sometimes not always just to get through there exams i am not a good listener and never have been. i think some people are just born with the talent of listening and picking things up quick.:statisfie i know students who drop out of colege because of the problem the brother has. they were failing there exams, they had no other choice but to go to a much better college and they are geting alot of support there now not none of this fast crap. i hate that. it just because the teacher wants to get home and its not fair. so i would use tape recorder myself when coming up to exams

cat eyes said:

ohhhhhh guys you are not helping him at all:giggling: bring a tape recorder with you at every lecture

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I actually considered taking my laptop o_o...

Guestfellow said:

I actually considered taking my laptop o_o...

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yeah actually you really should be allowed your laptop. you will probably find it easier to type the words then write.

cat eyes said:

yeah actually you really should be allowed your laptop. you will probably find it easier to type the words then write.

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It would be weird if I'm the only one in the class using a laptop...plus I tend to concentrate better when I'm writing on paper than typing.

Guestfellow said:

It would be weird if I'm the only one in the class using a laptop...plus I tend to concentrate better when I'm writing on paper than typing.

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haha why it would be weird.. people in your class never seen a laptop b4?;D

cat eyes said:

yeah i suppose they will become dependent on it right? but they could use it sometimes not always just to get through there exams i am not a good listener and never have been. i think some people are just born with the talent of listening and picking things up quick.:statisfie i know students who drop out of colege because of the problem the brother has. they were failing there exams, they had no other choice but to go to a much better college and they are geting alot of support there now not none of this fast crap. i hate that. it just because the teacher wants to get home and its not fair. so i would use tape recorder myself when coming up to exams

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Just my opinion in reply to this much of your post.

i know students who drop out of colege because of the problem the brother has. they were failing there exams, they had no other choice but to go to a much better college and they are geting alot of support there now not none of this fast crap.

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College is not supposed to be easy. It is or should be a swim or sink experience. Recalling my undergraduate days of something like 50 years ago. I was fortunate to have had the luxury of attending one of the finest Colleges in the world. The classes were small, all of the faculty was Full professors. No classes had over 10 students, in some classes I was the only student.

Yet the lectures were machine gun fast with no repetition and no asking questions. The professor came in at the exact moment the lecture was to begin and left at the exact second it was to end.
Some even bent over backwards to make the lectures as difficult as possible. I had a Sociology professor that wrote his black board notes in Hebrew and Lectured in German.

It was difficult and often I wanted to quit. But, it did prepare me very well for my later post Graduate and post Doctorate work.

Effective note taking while under pressure proved to be the most valuable thing I ever learned.

cat eyes said:

haha why it would be weird.. people in your class never seen a laptop b4?;D

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idk....at college no one uses a laptop. =/

Probably it is just me. ._.

write fast, make bullet points but like brother Woodrow said listen attentively!, no point making posh notes if you don't understand what you've written...

wa/salam

....voice recorder. haha. :]

not sure if it's allowed though.