How to take notes effectively? The guide you need to excel in your academics

 

How to take notes effectively? The way to excel in your academics

As a student, I have improved my grades and understanding of the subjects by taking notes effectively. You want to know how I did it? Let’s move forward to the ensuing paragraphs. In this article we will get to know why it is important to take notes, Approach for how to take notes effectively, The diverse ways of note taking, how to organize your notes and store your notes?

1. Explain the importance of taking notes effectively in the classroom.

   One of the most crucial things you can do to improve your education is to take thorough notes in class. It can be a helpful tool when it comes time to write a paper or conduct research on a subject.

   To begin with, confirm that you are listening to the teacher's directions, if you are taking lectures. If you’re studying a subject, try to read each topic and then write what you understood about those topics in your own words on a paper. This will help you to find out the knowledge gaps and to work on those gaps. Take concise, accurate notes so you can refer to them later. Personally, I used to self-study rather than listen to lectures. I used to do my own research on the topics I didn’t understand from the web and capture the information which I found useful for my notes. In short, following are the benefits of taking notes in a proper way:

   • Memory retention
   • Fast revision
   • Easier navigation through your notes
   • Better conceptual understanding of the topics

2. The diverse ways for how to take notes effectively.

   • Handwritten notes on physical paper or computer with touch screen capabilities

     Handwritten notes help to memorize the content better by writing them repeatedly with your hands. With handwriting the notes, I feel more engaged with the content. I don’t lose concentration from the topic. And thrive to dig into the topic more. With handwriting the notes, I tend to make more logical and smaller summaries for the content because of laziness to write ;)

   • Highlighting directly on the module or pdf or any source you are using

     Whenever I read a topic, I always use highlighter to highlight those lines or words which are of most significance and represent the topic’s gist. Having properly highlighted parts in the content helps the reader in revising the content more quickly and effectively. He tends to spend lessor time on going through the complete topic again, instead he just has to read the highlighted parts only.

   • Attaching small sticky notes directly alongside the topic you are studying

     To be honest, I have used this technique very little. But it is highly effective for those who don’t like to maintain a separate notebook for notes. Just write what you understood about a particular topic and stick it with a sticky note to that topic. This way, the next time you open your module or book, you can recall what you understood back then when you read the topic for the first time.

   • Typing notes on laptop/tablet

     There are many benefits of taking notes digitally. Typing notes is a lot faster than handwriting notes. It’s convenient to type notes as you don’t need pens and paper at all. It’s clean. You can structure it more properly so that your notes look more professional and have a systematic feel to it. Often, typing notes is best for theory subjects where you have a lot of content being lectured by your professor in the class.

     Also, the benefit of going digital is here. Faster searching, no loss of notes, no extra physical space requirement. But when you type out notes there is a high possibility that you are going to focus more typing fast and not pay much attention to understanding the topic. This is the reason many people say that it’s not effective for retaining an understanding of the topic while taking lectures. But if you’re self-studying, then you are good to go with it.

   • Voice notes

     I love this technique. In fact, I have used this a lot for preparing for my theory subject exams. I record by saying whatever I understood about a topic and then I listen to it later when I am working out or taking a walk. It’s like having your own personal podcast for your subjects! Try it and let me know in the comments below how you used it.

3. The approach of how to take notes effectively.

   Many people face the problem that how they should take notes about a topic when everything is written in their textbook? Well, I too faced the same problem. No worries. Let me tell you how I started to take notes effectively! First, read the topic and ask yourself the following questions about it: (taking an example about a topic “Money”)

   • What is money?
   • Where does it come from? Who regulates it?
   • How does money derive its value?
   • What are the ways to make money?

   See? These are the questions you should ask yourself and then write your answers as per the understanding of the topic you gained. Voila! you got an idea of how to take notes effectively!

   The thing is, when you ask yourself those questions you tend to make efforts to find answers for them. And, while searching for those answers you understand the concept that you are never going to forget.

4. Diverse ways to organize and store your notes.

   • Create an index of your notes with page numbers for each topic you studied.
   • Use different color pens for conveying which lines are of significance and require special attention.
   • Use sub-headings to make your points stand out.
   • Make reference to the relevant questions at the end of each topic. This makes it easier for the student to revise when exams are approaching.
   • Keep your notes at an easily accessible place so that at the time of need they can be found.
   • Keep a digital copy of your notes, in case of handwritten notes click or scan it and save it on cloud storage or any device.
   • Digital notes should be kept in properly named folders or sub-folders.
   • In case of notes taken on any app like onenote or notion or any app that has the capabilities for categorizing the notes. Then make complete use of the categorizing capabilities. Use proper tags like question tags for doubts. So that quickly you can find which topics you don’t understand and work on it.

5. Conclusion

   Take notes in the way that you are trying to teach someone the topic you are studying. This way you will approach the note taking process in the best possible way. Let me know in the comment section below about how you take notes effectively and the apps you use to take notes.