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Taking Notes

There are two main reasons to take notes:

Notes help you learn
- They provide a record of information you have read or heard, which can help you review and remember it later
- They can help you identify the information you need to focus on when studying
The process of taking notes helps you learn
- You need to pay attention to what you’re reading or listening to/viewing, so taking notes helps you focus
- They are an opportunity for you to identify key information, put it in your own words, and organize it. In other words, taking notes encourages deep processing, which leads to more effective learning.

Reading

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Studying

How to Take Effective Notes

It’s impossible, not to mention a waste of your time and energy, to write down everything that you hear or read, so you need to make decisions about what to record in your notes and what to leave.

If you write down too much, you risk focusing on replicating a lecture or reading rather than understanding it. If you write down too little, you may not understand your notes when you go back to review. In order to strike the right balance, there are a few things you can do.

Note Taking 101

Handout - Oregon State University Academic Success Center

Note-Taking Strategies

Online course - Cornell University

1. Prepare

In order to better understand something that you’re taking notes on, it helps to know what to expect going in. Instead of spending all of your energy just trying to understand what’s going on, you will be able to be a bit more conscious of what you write [expand for more].

When you’re reading, preview the chapter, article, etc. Pay attention to how the reading is organized, and look for any new concepts or terminology that you’ll be learning.
Do. The. Assigned. Readings. Before!!! The. Lecture. Your instructor assigned them because they are connected to the lecture, so reading them beforehand helps you know what to pay attention for (and what you can leave out because it’s already covered in the readings). Even if you don’t understand the readings completely, it’s far easier to go back and reread confusing sections after the lecture than it is to rewatch a lecture (and when classes are in person, rewatching a lecture isn’t even an option).

2. Prioritize Unique Information

You have limited time and energy to record notes, so use that time and energy for information that you can’t get somewhere else. In other words, don’t duplicate things that you already have access to [expand for more].

Rather than copying definitions from a textbook or a lecture slide, for example, write down your understanding of them so that you have a record of your own thought processes
Save more detailed notes for new concepts and terms, and make very brief references to familiar terms (if you write them down at all)
Save a copy of the lecture slides and connect them to your notes instead of copying what’s on them
Focus on the information that your instructor provides that’s not in the assigned readings (which is why you should do them before class): examples, personal stories, and different ways of explaining concepts all help you understand the material (including the readings) better

3. Keep it Short

Skip unnecessary words, shorten longer words, and develop a set of abbreviations and symbols for words that come up often. Some ways to cut down on what you write include:

Only write the first few letters of a word
Remove vowels
Use an apostrophe to cut down suffixes

4. Use Structure to Your Advantage

You can use structure to identify what you need to write down, and you can add structure to your notes to give them more meaning [expand for more].

Use the headings and subheadings in your readings to create an outline of your notes
Listen for cues in your lectures to identify important information and changes in topic
Label your notes with the date and course so that you can organize them later, and use colour coding or other ways to visually structure your notes
Use a consistent note-taking format, as discussed below

Recognizing Lecture Structure

Webpage - Using English for Academic PurposesFor Students in Higher Education

Note-taking - During the Lecture

Video - University of Toronto Mississauga

How to Take Notes from a Textbook Effectively

Video - Ways to Grow

5. Review

Reviewing is an opportunity to make sure you’ve recorded everything you need to, and to flesh out your notes with extra information [expand for more].

Readings: go back in a day or two and make sure your notes make sense; if the readings are for class, go back in a week or two and see if there is anything you understand better now so that you can clarify your notes
Lectures: the day of the lecture, review your notes to make sure you have everything you need and that you understand what you wrote; fill in any gaps and clarify anything confusing while the lecture itself is still fresh in your memory

Reviewing Notes After Class

Webpage - Texas A&M University

Common Note-Taking Formats

There are a variety of ways to format your notes, like outlining, the Cornell method, mind mapping, and flow. The resources below describe some of the more common formats. If you're not sure which one would be best for your courses, the resource from the University of Tennessee Chattanooga describes when it would be best to use each one.

How to Take Notes in Class: The 5 Best Methods

Video - Thomas Frank

Common Note-Taking Methods

Webpage - University of Tennessee Chattanooga

Seven Kinds of Note Taking - Samples

Handout - University of Oregon Academic Success Center

Typing vs Writing Your Notes

Just like reading from paper vs a screen, many people have very strong opinions about typing notes or writing them by hand. Handwriting is more flexible because you can draw arrows and diagrams as you go, but it’s also harder to go back and add information that you missed. And if your handwriting is really bad, taking notes by hand can lead to a lot of confusion when you go to review.

Write or Type? What is the Best Way to Take Notes?

Video - Charles Duhigg / windmillbooks

Just like with reading, students who take notes on paper tend to remember the material better than students who type it, and there are a couple of reasons for that:

Taking notes on a laptop or computer introduces a wealth of distractions in terms of notifications and time-wasting programs and sites.
Most people can type far faster than they can write.
- This might seem like a bonus because it allows you to record more information in the same amount of time, but in order to type at top speed you would need to focus entirely on copying what the instructor or reading says, which means you can’t focus on meaning.
- Typing therefore lends itself to passive note taking that just records words rather than meanings, so you’re less likely to remember it a few days, or even a few hours, later.

Organizing Your Notes

By the end of term, students have accumulated a lot of notes. Keeping all of them organized throughout the term can make reviewing them go a lot smoother. Visit the page on organization for resources on managing your notes.

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