Wheather 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 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 more effectively which will help you apply knowledge and retain material.
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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. Instead, make an effort to understand the topic while you're in class. Focus on what's really being said, then ask questions if you don't understand.
4. Take notes by hand. Although taking notes on your laptop is convenient, research shows note takers actually retain information better when they take notes by hand. This may be because people typing on a laptop tend to transcribe every word without understanding the meaning, while people writing by hand are forced to pick out relevant information in order to keep up.
5. 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
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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 your 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
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. 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 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".
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