Taking Good Notes: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Learning to take notes effectively will help you improve your study and work habits and to remember important information. Often, students are deceived into thinking that because they understand everything that is said in class, they will therefore remember it. As you take lecture notes and make notes from your textbook, you will develop the skills of selecting important material and discarding unimportant material. The main secret to developing these skills is practice. Check your results constantly. Strive to improve. Notes help you to retain important facts and data and to develop an accurate means of recording and arranging necessary information. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here are some hints on note making: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 01. Dont write down everything you read or hear. Be alert and attentive to the main points. Concentrate on the meat of the subject and forget the trimmings. 02. Notes should consist of key words or very short sentences. As a speaker gets sidetracked, it is often possible to go back and add further information. 03. Take accurate notes. You should use your own words, but try not to change the meaning. If you quote directly from the author, quote correctly. 04. Think a minute about the material before you start making notes. Dont take notes just to be taking notes! Take notes that will be of real value to you when you review them at a later date. 05. Have a uniform system for punctuation and abbreviation that will make sense to you. Use a skeleton outline that shows importance by indenting. Leave lots of white space for later additions. 06. Omit descriptions and full explanations. Keep your notes short and to the point. Condense your materials so you can grasp the main points rapidly. 07. Dont worry about missing a point. Leave space and pick up the material you missed at a later date, either through reading, questioning, common sense, or looking at a classmates notes. 08. Dont keep notes on oddly shaped pieces of paper. Keep notes in order and in one place. A three-ringed or spiral notebook is preferred. 09. Shortly after taking your lecture notes or making textbook notes, go back and edit (not copy) your notes by adding extra points, spelling out unclear items, etc. Remember, we forget rapidly. Budget time for this vital step just as you do for the class itself. 10. Review your notes periodically; three types of review are daily, weekly, and a major review just before a test. This is the only way to achieve lasting memory.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 04:30:00 +0000
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