Taking Effective Notes

Research shows that of all forms of memory, memory for what we have heard (as opposed to having seen or read) is least effective. We tend to forget what we have heard easily, and quickly. For this reason, it is essential to take notes in your classes so as to capture what you'd otherwise forget.

Good note taking depends on good listening skills. To be a good listener in the classroom:

1. Come to class prepared. Review your syllabus and notes so that you know what's planned.
2. Prepare to be interested, and concentrate. Boredom isn't a feature of classroom material; it is a feature of the student's attitude. Interest yourself in the material your professor is presenting. Involve yourself in what is being said.
3. Keep an open mind. Listen critically (that is, evaluate the merits of what is being said), but don't listen emotionally or dismissively. Try to take in everything whether you find it palatable or not; later, if you wish to take issue with what your professor or another student has said in a paper or on a test, you will have an objective record of it. If you are rejecting as you listen, you won't retain the details for a later rebuttal.
4. Attend to what is being said, not to how it's being said. Don't allow the professor's voice or mannerisms distract you from the point of his or her presentation or argument.
5. Fight distractions. Don't allow what is going on around you, or outside that window, to draw your attention away.
6. Listen actively. Sit up, lean forward, and engage the professor intellectually. You can think at about 4 times the rate he or she can speak, so use that advantage to hear nuances, weigh arguments, consider other points of view, assess conclusions. The more actively you listen, the more you'll take away from class.

If you have good listening skills, good note taking skills should follow. Here are a few tips:

1. Follow a recognizable pattern to organize your notes.
   • You might use an outline pattern, with indents, to show the relative importance and relationships between ideas.
   • Or you might use a chronological pattern (in a history class, for example), organizing material in an order of time.
   • Or you might use an enumeration pattern, organizing things on the basis of "three main points" of a lecturer's presentation, for example.
   Your choice will hinge both on how the material is organized as it is presented to you and on how it is easiest to record, but the important thing is to make sure you record it for your own use in an orderly way.
2. Write legibly. You want to be able to read your own notes fluidly. Make sure that what you have after class is intelligible.
3. Use a personal shorthand. There are a # of ways to speed up note taking. Rmv vowels from most words and you'll still recognize them. Use mathematical symbols to = words. If you practice, you'll be good @ making comprehensible notes in your own shorthand.
4. If it's on the chalkboard or whiteboard, it should be in your notes. Lecturers will give you several keys to the important material they are presenting. The unmistakable one is writing material on the chalkboard/whiteboard or projecting it on an overhead. Another is repetition. If you hear a word or phrase twice or more in the course of a lecture, it's probably worth recording. A third is emphasis. If the lecturer leans on a word or phrase heavily, it means he or she wants you to really hear it. Note all obvious keys of emphasis in selecting what to include in your notes.
5. Circle, star, or underline key points in your notes. Make sure the lecturer's emphases are so noted, somehow.
6. Leave room for expansion or clarification. You'll often want to fill in detail or clarification after class, when you're not trying to keep up with what's being said. Leave room to do that.
7. Listen attentively. It takes energy to stay with a lecture and take notes for an entire class. But it will pay off when you are reviewing for a test.
8. Capture ideas as well as facts, and record the lecturer's examples to support them. Make sure you have the overall sense of the lecture and enough of the lecturer's own words and examples to reconstruct his or her argument later.