Simran Week Six: Taking Notes
How many of you have to take notes for classes? Most of you, at some point in your lives, have probably asked yourself if the time you are spending on taking notes is a good use of time. According to the article, “Why Take Notes?” taking notes is beneficial for multiple reasons. It forces you to focus on the material and helps prevent you from becoming distracted. This is something that I can relate to because taking notes in physics has helped me focus on what the teacher is saying. Taking notes also helps you remember the information. Studies have shown that actively listening and then summarizing what you have learned improves your memory of the content. Another benefit of taking notes is that it speeds up the process of studying before tests since you don’t have to read an entire chapter in a textbook and then identify the important information. For me personally, studying from notes is more motivating than studying from a textbook because when I see how long the chapter is in the textbook, I sometimes gets discouraged. Another thing I like about notes is that it allows you to identify the challenging and confusing concepts. When I take notes in chemistry, I star the questions I was confused on or got wrong when first doing them. That way, when I study for a test, I can remember to focus on those questions.
So now that you know the benefits of taking notes, what are some ways that can you take notes? One way is the Cornell notes, in which there is a column on the left for the headings of information and a separate column for information. At the end of the Cornell notes, there is a summary of the information in the notes. Another way of taking notes is Mind Maps. This form of notes connects ideas using arrows. For people who like colorful notes, this might be the style you want to use. While I find that it breaks down information well, I personally find it hard to put as much information in the Mind Maps. An additional way is simply taking bullet point notes, which is the method I like best. Two strategies that people often rely on while taking notes is highlighting key ideas or indenting information in order to separate the details from the main concept. I mainly rely on indenting the information because it allows me to see the breakdown of information, which helps a lot when trying to remember the information or understand the concepts. What type of notes do you typically take and what kind of strategies do you use?
Comments
I don't really take notes for my classes. I used to do it in the past, but I was always too lazy to read my messy handwriting or even look at my typed notes. I prefer studying by doing practice problems, rather than looking at notes so I guess that is why. I feel like mind maps may work well for me, because I know that contextualization and connecting ideas is important. Since this school year is almost already over, I want to take some different types of notes and try different studying techniques to find out which one helps me remember things the best.
AP exam season is fast approaching so I appreciate you writing about this topic! I indeed have to write notes for a majority of my classes. Their helpfulness really depends on how engaged you are when taking notes. There are times where I’m just aimlessly writing down sentences from a textbook without fully understanding what I’m writing. Other times, I’m actively processing information, making diagrams, and whatnot. On that note, I do think that diagrams like the mind maps you mentioned help me process information easier. And for that, I don’t particularly enjoy doing Cornell notes. They just aren’t as fun to do.
-Angel Susantin
Notes are always a hit or miss for me. I find myself sometimes mindlessly writing them only to go back to the notes to read them. However, writing notes do help me retain the content better than typing it out. I do notice that I can conceptualize and connect material better if I use personal anecdotes or experiences/examples than noting down what the book gives as an example.
Before chemistry last year, I always thought that notes are useless because I would never look back at them and were just a waste of energy. During first semester sophomore year, I found myself struggling in Liu’s class because I didn’t copy everything she wrote down. This made me miss some of the important concepts she talked about and I started writing down everything in second semester and it was much easier. Now, during APENG, notes are a crucial part of the course.
Sincerely,
Mrinmayee
As useful as note taking is, I also despise doing it. I especially hate it the more tedious the process is. Cornell notes are one type of notes that I especially hate. My psychology teacher in particular has a very interesting method of taking notes that she makes us use; for our notes, she makes us draw 4 half inch lines from the margin. Furthermore, she has these specific rules regarding these lines. I, for one, absolutely HATE the way she makes us take notes. I think that teachers should not enforce one specific way to take notes. What method do you use to take notes?
In general I despise notes as I am pretty bad at taking them, rarely take any good information in and write really slow even when I try to write fast. This is not a good thing as then I lack in providing good evidence and analysis when it comes to essays. In general I have been finding that drawing pictures helps me more as I tend to get better grades when preparing for chinese writing tests. sigh... if only i can take in information and write quicker.
I usually take notes by including titles and bullet points to organize them. I actually used to take Cornell notes, and although they were aesthetically pleasing to the eye, I felt confined within the Cornell notes format. Now I take notes with different colors and highlighters to better remember the information. I also found out that having color in my notes motivates me to do notes, since it’s bright and it stands out from the basic black pen. I also detest rereading the textbook before a test, it’s just way too much information! I decided to scan over my notes instead and it helps me a lot before a test.
Sincerely,
Faith Tong