Four Effective Ways to Write Notes: Tips for Students
You can’t do without outlining while studying. This skill is ideally acquired in high school. In college and university, it is required from the very first day. After all, a student needs to:
- Quickly write down huge amounts of information in lectures.
- To structure information to remember it better.
- Prepare for tests and exams, and with notes, it is much easier.
- Sometimes teachers allow you to use your notes during tests.
- Many teachers require you to bring them notes for review and without it, they do not give a grade.
If you know how to take notes, you won’t be lost. Do not be lazy to use this skill or if not, use college paper help or ask friends to help you with it.Do not know how? Then study! That’s what a student is for.
By the way, do you know all the ways to write notes? Read about the most popular and effective ones in our article.
Extract the main idea and write it down
This method is especially good for taking notes on academic literature. Open the book (brochure, pamphlet), and with one to three or five paragraphs looking for the essence of the text. It and write it down.
At the same time sharpening the skill of extracting the really necessary information from large volumes.
Supreme pilots – to use a similar method of outlining right during the lecture. It won’t be easy at first, you will start writing down everything the teacher says for fear of missing something important. But if you listen to the teacher’s words, instead of mechanically fixing them, you will quickly learn to grasp the basics, the main idea.
A bonus is a better understanding of the lectures.
Try to write notes in legible handwriting. You can thank yourself later. Otherwise, you won’t understand a thing in your scrawl when you’re preparing for a test or exam. Of course, the teacher has no right to criticize the handwriting, but also will not approve, if you hand over your notes, which cannot be read.
The method of indexes – the more schemes, the better.
Concludes in the active use of tables, graphs, drawings, underlining key concepts.
The method of indexes:
- on the one hand – self-sufficient, with its help you can schematically layout the entire lecture or paragraph from the textbook;
- On the other hand, it is an excellent addition to the classic outline.
Cornell’s method for large amounts of information
Take a larger sheet of paper, preferably A4, and, leaving space at the top and bottom, divide it into two parts with a vertical line (the left is narrower, the right is wider).
At the top write the title: the date of the lecture, the subject, the name of the teacher, the main topic.
On the right side, you record the main points of the lecture.
On the left side, you write additional information about each topic: dates, names, formulas, etc.
At the end of the lesson, or better sometime later, e.g. the next day, you return to the “raw” lecture notes and write a summary of the entire lecture in the bottom free field.
This way of writing notes was recommended to his students back in the middle of the 20th century by a professor at Cornell University, hence the name Cornell Method. As practice shows, it helps not only to identify and record the most important information but also to memorize it quickly because the student then returns to what has been written, analyzes, and supplements it.
Mental maps – hard to learn, easy to pass
You write the main idea in the center of the sheet, and from it (or, conversely, to it) with arrows, as in a game-quest, lead to particularities:
- dates from the oldest to the one you are looking for;
- cause-and-effect connections;
- your thoughts about it;
- short explanations, opinions of different experts, etc.
This way of taking notes seems complicated, but once you start, it’s simple, understandable, and very useful. Mental maps help to quickly make sense of a long, confusing lecture overloaded with theory.
A disadvantage that cannot be helped is that teachers often demand more traditional notes, long notes taken during lectures, and textbook readings. But nothing prevents you from making mental maps just for yourself, as to cheat sheets.
Of course, these are not the only ways to take notes. But they are the most universal. Suitable for most subjects. They help to structure and assimilate almost any information. And for better results – assimilation of material, successful preparation for a seminar, test, or exam – they can be combined.