Note-Taking Advice For Nervous Note-Less Students From a Student Who Never Took Notes.

Winston Yeo
Sep 2, 2018 · 7 min read

“Hey Winston, do you make notes? How do you make your notes?”

uh… I don’t, sorry.

I think we can all agree that at some point in our lives, we’ve all taken notes of some form, whether it is to remember something at a later date, summarize, or learn.

We feel like if we don’t write it down, snap a picture, or record a video, all of it will be lost. After all if no one saw, heard, wrote about it, did it really happen?

Fortunately, there is a way out of the madness.

Culture of note-taking obsession.

The dialog in the article’s opening was not made up.

Over the course of my student life, I’ve been asked many variations of the same question in part thanks to my above average grade and nerd status. (I’m writing an article for goodness sake)

And they seem to be coming in more and more frequently.

In fact, a query on the popularity of “how to take notes” in google trend shows that there has been a general upwards trend for that search term for the past ten years.

Interest for the search term spikes September of each year (Green) likely due to the fact that it’s the start of the new school year in the United States and Canada. The smaller spike every January (Red) likely correspond to the start of the new school year in Singapore and Australia. (These four countries are the top four countries where the search term had the highest search volumes)

Our increasingly note-taking obsessed culture has spawned note sharing sites like tick.ninja.

But wait, that’s not all.

More recently, a whole new subset of the note-taking community -bullet journaling. Bullet journaling probably blew up like it did because of this video released in May 2015.

It blew up so hard that the search term “bullet journal” eventually blew “how to take notes” out of the water.

Search Volume of “bullet journal” (blue) and “how to take notes” (orange) Before the video came out (above) Search Volume of “bullet journal” (blue) and “how to take notes” (orange) After the video came out (below)

Question time: Where do aesthetic things end up?

That’s right, Instagram.

With the rise of bullet jounarling and their aesthetic styles, they inevitably end up on Instagram, leading to the coinage of the term “studygram”, which refers to posting study related photos on Instagram.

For the most parts, it seems like such trend is having a having a positive impact. Many students that I talked too echoed similar sentiment to this student, noting that: “Starting a studygram is one of the best things I have done in my college career… The studygram community is very welcoming and encouraging!”

Example of a studygram account. Look at comments for instances of the student sentiments above echoed.

The bullet journaling, and more recently, the studygram community are what I would like to argue as a by-product of our increasingly note-taking obsessed culture.

At the same time, I understand arguments coming from the other end. Perhaps such communities are a sign of the changing times. Perhaps bullet journaling and studygramming always had huge communities but were just unnamed. Perhaps their activities were just not reported.

Whatever the case, I think a notion here is that there has been a shift towards taking notes for note-taking’s sake.

The main goal of note-taking has been forgotten, especially in the case of students, leading to a certain frenzy to be without notes.

The Main Goal(s) of note-taking.

As a student, note-taking mainly serves two purpose:

  1. To take down things said by the teacher not found anywhere else for review later.
  2. To learn.

Recording for later

To the first point, I say forget it.

There is an increasing digital availability of course resources for students (e.g. lecture slides). This makes it redundant, unwise even, to try and copy down what the teacher is saying, save for jotting down that few extra pointers outside of the lecture slides.

In fact, there is research to back up the fact that trying to transcribe what the lecturer says verbatim is detrimental to learning.

So as times change and lecture content becomes more readily available, it might make sense to focus on what the lecturer is saying instead. Only when you notice a stray point outside of the material provided do you then quickly jot it down and go back to listening.

Notes as a means of learning

For this second point, there is no denying that note-taking as a means of learning is effective.

The research in this field has found that note-taking mainly helps us in two ways.

The first is through the encoding hypothesis which suggest that the processing that occurs while taking notes improves learning and retention.

The second is through the external storage hypothesis, which, like the name implies, provides you with the ability to review notes (even those by others) at a later time.

The external storage is an obvious non-contender when it comes to helping us in our learning as the notes function like a textbook. The encoding hypothesis however, faces mixed responses with some studies showing a positive effect while others, not so much. (check out this research for review)

So notes do help, but I think we are missing the forest for the trees.

While note-taking can help in learning and understanding of new material, it is not the only way. Other methods of learning such as mixing up your practice, spacing your practice sessions, and using retrieval practice are effective low cost strategies that have been shown to aid learning too.

In fact, using retrieval practice have been shown by research to be more effective than note-taking.

Finally, as a word to those who want to get notes for that with-notes-I-am-safe feeling, having notes in of themselves really doesn’t help you. Research has shown that compared to testing yourself and creating summaries, reviewing notes comes in dead last.

When all is said and done, notes still have their place, so…

For those that really want to take notes

before we dive into the practicalities, here are some best practices that we can glimpse from the research in this area:

  • From earlier, we noted that recording lecture explanations verbatim is detrimental.

So what’s better?

Engage in generative note-taking. This can take the form of summarizing, paraphrasing, concept maps, charts etc.

Basically anything that requires you to explain whatever was being taught in your won words. While the verdict on the encoding theory of note-taking is still out, there is evidence to suggest that the greater the processing of information during note-taking, the greater the encoding benefits.

  • Do not use note-taking strategies in isolation.

There are multiple other ways go about studying a material so do not let the lack of notes scare you away from learning.

With that, let’s look at how to take good notes.

How to Take good notes

The remainder of this article were pointers which I got from Cal Newport’s (guy behind Study Hacks) How to become a Straight-A student which heavily echoed the way I take notes (if I did) given what we’ve covered

For non -technical courses:

Use a Question, Elaboration, and Conclusion format to structure your notes.

Here’s Cal Newport in How to become a Straight-A Student:

Most big ideas in nontechnical courses are presented in this structure. Why? Professional academics think in terms of questions. This is how they see the world.

Some pointers to note when using this format of note-taking:

  • Don’t be afraid to leave question blank and tackle the evidence part first. (since evidence are probably the most obvious and the ones that the lecturer spends most time talking about)
  • Use the lulls in lectures to clean up your notes and make them readable to you.
  • For any confusing argument or parts you don’t understand, jot the question down
  • Clarify them either during lessons, after lectures, during tutorials, or office hours. If somehow all those did not work, ask a friend or go prepared to a exam review session!

At the end of the lecture, take five minutes to clean up your note and make sure everything you write makes sense. I recommend taking this time to create a summary (at the bottom, top, wherever) and note down key points (through highlighting or at the side like in the Cornell note-taking system)

Source: https://www.tes.com/lessons/dY4BT7JtiyVH2g/cornell-note-taking

For technical courses:

Life is really much easier here. The key thing that has to be managed here is to get as much practice as possible.

The content is in the application of the techniques.

So for note-taking, what we really want is to record as many sample problems as possible together with answers.

Of course, we need some help to boot, so record all the steps of sample problems too.

Annotate those steps if possible so we know the thought process taken to approach the problem.

Again, a reminder and a bonus tip:

  • Question confusing parts. and remember to clarify them through whatever avenue you are most comfortable using!
  • Don’t do technical reading, bring them to class instead and follow along with the professor department.

In future articles, I’ll take a look at how we will approach using these notes for review during exam time.

Winston Yeo

Written by

Student at heart, always learning. Always trying to do more. Find out more @ www.justjeffing.com

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