Don't record everything - just the most important bits!

Write in your own words.

Don't write in full sentences!

Use abbreviations and symbols to speed up your note taking.

Use subheadings, numbered lists or bullet points to organise your notes and make them easier to read over later.

Underlining or circling to indicate particularly important information can help later when you read over your notes.

Find a method of note-taking that suits you AND fits the situation.  Some possible methods of note-taking are mind maps, tables, spider diagrams, lists or flow charts.

If you are taking notes in a lesson, consider which resources you will have access to later.  If you will have the presentation or a handout of key points to look back on, you might not need to write notes.  Instead you may be able to annotate what you have been given.  You could record your own reflections and questions instead of taking notes.

Keep your notes organised!  You might want a file or folder for each course, and then have file dividers or subfolders for each topic.  You may also find it useful to colour code your notes.

Don't forget to note down where the information is from.  E.g. Book title, author, date of publication, date of lesson, web address etc.