How to take better notes

Success in school starts with attending class and paying attention.

It doesn’t take much for school to become a frantic experience.

There is a lot of knowledge to absorb and not too much time to do it. Lectures are usually short and jam-packed with loads of information. Often a lot more than you can get down on paper.

It is not unusual for students’ notes to be disorganized messes. Where there is so much text that was written so quickly that it is impossible to read.

If your notes look anything like this:

don’t panic. We’ve all been there.

Note-taking is where the problems start for a lot of students. If you can’t take decent notes, how are you supposed to study? You need a reliable source to do so, and your notes should be it.

Thankfully taking good notes doesn’t have to be rocket science. In fact, you don’t need to be artistic either.

You just need to be very deliberate on what you write down.

When you attend a lecture, you need to pay attention. I don’t mean just looking up and listening to the lecture, I mean processing and analyzing the information too. You need to write down only what is worth writing down.

Many students struggle to even think about what to write down and what not to. So they opt for writing everything down, or at least trying to. This is a problem because professors often repeat themselves and you really do not need to write the same thing down three times.

By paying attention and reflecting on what is being said, you should have little to no problem knowing when something is being repeated. Knowing this, you can put your pen down for a second and pay extra attention to the examples being given.

Always be ready to resume writing when something new comes up.

There are no hard and fast rules about what you should be writing down, and what to avoid, but here are some suggestions:

There is no hard rules on this, but the advice I can give you is this, only write down the following:

• New terms and their definitions.
• Examples that make that term or definition easier to understand.
• Ways that a new term connects with an old one.
• Anything that expands on what you already wrote down of an old term.

And discard things like:

• Stories the professor tells.
• Anything you already wrote down.
• Examples that do not help you understand the material better.
• Alternate definitions of terms that the professor describes as “old” or similarly.

There might be some things I missed on both lists, but they are both a great place to start.

Following these guidelines you will not only have an easier time taking notes, you will probably have shorter notes too since you are writing less. Making it easier to keep track of everything

There will be times when this still won’t be enough. You will be paying attention and being very deliberate and still find yourself scrambling to get everything relevant on the paper.

So what can you do when this doesn’t work?

You use Shorthand.

Shorthand

Shorthand is a technique used to abbreviate and shorten words, phrases and terms you use constantly. Making them quicker to write.

Every class has these different terms that are used repeatedly. In chemistry there is the periodic table, covalent and ionic bonds, elements, maybe you could shorten them to: per t, cov b, and Io B respectively?

Shorthand can get overwhelming quickly if you do not have a proper system in place, let’s help you set one up.

To start, find these terms and phrases I keep referencing. The ones you use over and over again. Create a key of what you are shortening each of them into. It can be acronyms, symbols, or shortened versions of each word.

To start, edit some notes you already have into ones with shorthand to get used to the feeling and look of notes taken with shorthand.

Next, you can go to YouTube and find a video on one of the subjects you are studying, practice taking notes with shorthand here, where the stakes are low. Only after doing this start doing it in class.

The most effective shorthand system is the one you create and are comfortable with, so get cracking!

Finally, let’s talk about readability. Sometimes we are so frantic with writing words on paper that they can easily become massed together, and mushed in there. Becoming quite literally unreadable.

Whitespace

Being able to read your notes is important. If you go through all the effort to take proper notes and get the relevant information down on paper, then you should also be able to use them for their intended purpose right?

Making your notes clear and easy to read will make studying from them a lot simpler. This is where whitespace comes in.

Use big letters. Do not be afraid to leave a lot of space between paragraphs, lines, and even words. You want to be able to easily read what you write. Big, properly spaced letters are a lot easier to read than smaller, crammed ones.

Getting in the practice of writing a little slower but more clearly will help you use whitespace properly. Yes, write a little slower. This should not be a problem if you are being deliberate and using shorthand.

To get started, go to YouTube again and take notes on a video from there. Practice when the stakes are a little lower.

Start with a big and clear title, followed by a blank line. Use all the space you need to clearly separate terms, definitions, and points. You want to be able to know where one idea starts and another one ends.

Pay close attention to what you are writing. Leave blank lines between paragraphs and try to avoid paragraphs that are longer than 4 lines.

After a couple goes writing with whitespace, compare your previous notes with the new ones. Hopefully they look a lot better.

Putting it all together

Taking good notes starts with paying attention. Reflecting on the information being presented and being deliberate on what you write down. Only taking note of what is new and relevant. You do not want to write the same thing down three times just because you are mindlessly trying to get everything on paper.

Next, you want to use shorthand to make it easier for you to write what you need down by shortening some of the words and terms you use frequently.

Finally, you want to use whitespace, make your notes easier to read, better organized and overall more appealing to the eye.

With these starting points you can be on your way to writing better notes now

What are you waiting for?

Permanent learning focuses on teaching people the academic skills they need to get better grades, have more free time and less stress too.
Taking better notes is just on small step to accomplish these things.
Visit https://permanentlearning.com/studyintro/ to get take the next step.

Happy leanring!