Note taking

3 Top Tips

  • Don't write facts, write conclusions
  • Make connections-use colour
  • Review your notes

How to take efficient and neat notes

Colour is everything!!!!!!!

Cornell note-taking

Take notes that help you to learn and revise!!

These work for any subject and are invaluable come exam time. See below for some ideas of how to use and evaluate your Cornell notes.......

A Sample note page

Use a set style or your own creation! As long as you have the three different sections

Step-by-step guide

Notes first, then review by adding questions and finally use those summarising skills

Criteria to follow

Important points to follow if you or your teacher want to evaluate your note-taking skills

Mind mapping

As a lifelong learner with 4 degrees and a PhD. in mathematics, Hazel Wagner has spent her life learning how to learn. Hazel shares her work on mind mapping and what it can do for understanding, memorization, and retention.

How to mind map...

...and how to use them to revise

Summary Notes

An essential skill for effective learning

Summary Notes....

..are your own super condensed notes that only focus on what matters. The main point of summary notes is to have a convenient easy to access file that contains all your most relevant and important notes for a class. With these notes, you cut out all the fillers from your class notes and power-points, and you are left with a sort of super note that has only the things that matters.

Keep your notes organised

This helps you find things easier when you are using the notes for studying and to understand how all the concepts are related and where they fit together.

Copy important info from your class notes + Resources

Go through your PowerPoints/class notes and just extract all of the important information from it. Important information typically are definitions, formulas, concepts and anything your teacher said you should know.

Keep up with your class

You don’t want to start making summary notes near the end of the topic or term. You want to make your notes in the same pace with your class.

Add in your own extra notes

This is to make them even more personalized and useful for you and essentially you want to add in additional notes that help you understand hard topics. Include little annotations that explain things or give tips on understanding something.

“At the end of the day, everyone has their own way to take notes.” TRUE. In this book, you may be surprised to learn that I don’t make any references to different types of note-taking systems like those that other books do. The reason is that it’s the practices behind the note taking that matter most. I encourage students to use the Cornell note-taking system because it utilizes most of the principles of effective note taking. No matter which note-taking system you decide to follow, the cognitive effort you will have to expend is equally high.

  • How to leverage the 5 most popular note-taking systems
  • How to deploy memory hacks to your advantage
  • How to tailor your notes to your specific learning style
  • How to properly execute pre-note preparation strategies
  • How to actually put that pen to paper and knock out some great notes
  • How to review your notes and what exactly to look for when you do
  • How to use your notes to ace exams
  • How to use your notes to write killer papers
  • And more!

This book is the ultimate resource on the topic of mind maps with more innovative uses, examples, and illustrations than any other book. In addition to enhancing your note taking skills, it will improve your skills in studying, writing, presenting, brainstorming, creativity, and more.

Which of your subjects could benefit from more effective note-taking?

Do your different subjects need different types of note-taking?

How could you use note-taking to help you with your preps and your revision?