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Note-taking Best Practices

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17 views2 pages

Note-taking Best Practices

Uploaded by

lindquistms
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Note-taking Best Practices

Good notes from your reading can . . .

○​ force you to think critically about what you've read.


○​ help draw your attention to the author's main ideas.
○​ prepare you to participate more fully in class activities or gain more from
the class lecture.
○​ provide a good reference for study or test taking.

The key to reading is to engage the material—that is, think about the material you are
reading. There are lots of ways to do that but the easiest approach, by far, is to just take
notes. The process of taking notes forces you to understand the material while
simultaneously helping you to retain it.

Before we get into some specific guidance about note taking, let's take a moment to
acknowledge some of the most popular strategies students use when reading
textbooks:

●​ Highlighting (or underlining) words or passages in the text


●​ Copying whole passages from the text
●​ Relying on your memory

None of these methods is particularly productive because none of them engage your
brain the way note-taking does. Beyond the act of simply identifying the information
you think is important, the act of highlighting, underlining, and copying text requires no
thought whatsoever. Relying on your memory--if you have a good memory--is a fantastic
ability if you're playing a trivia game, but it similarly fails to engage your brain.

Taking notes, on the other hand (if done well), forces you to think critically about what
you've read, helps draw your attention to the author's main ideas, and helps identify the
gaps in your knowledge or understanding.

The key to effective note-taking is to read first, then take notes.


Read a paragraph or short section and then pause to think about what you just read.
This is the part where your brain is engaged:

●​ What was the author's point?


●​ What information was being conveyed?
●​ How does this information fit into the larger topic?
●​ How does the larger topic relate to the overall chapter?

Write your thoughts on a separate piece of paper. Again, you aren't copying passages
from the text. You are using your own words (paraphrasing). Think of it as a test. If you
can't explain, in your own words, what you've just read, then you don't fully understand it.

Attempting to explain the material is the easiest way to identify what you need to spend
more time on. If you don’t immediately understand something on a first reading, re-read
it. If it still doesn't make sense, then you should identify the problem passage in your
notes and indicate a need to follow up on it. Continue in this manner until you've read
the entire chapter.

Once you've done that, go back and look at the problem passages. Do some additional
research on the topic. Talk to your fellow students. Raise the issue in class and ask for
clarification from the instructor. Remember, if you're having difficulties, chances are that
many of your fellow students are as well.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We all retain and comprehend information differently. If you


purchased a used copy of the textbook filled with a previous reader's margin notes or
highlighted and underlined passages, do your best to ignore these additions. Even if the
person who made them was brilliant, their work will be of little value to you.

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