How to Take Notes from a Textbook
As I touched on in my previous blog post, How to Annotate, active reading is an important tool to have in your academic arsenal. I prefer writing notes over annotating texts, below are some of my most hopeful tips for effective notetaking.
Tip 1: Understand Your 3 Options: Outlining as You go, Summarizing Each Section, or Summarizing After You Finish the Chapter/Reading.
I, personally, prefer to outline as I read. The benefits of this strategy are that you don’t forget anything important, and this method can help people with focus and concentration. I recommend this method for anyone with ADD/ADHD or other learning differences (stay tuned for an upcoming blog post on managing ADD/ADHD in college).
Outlining after each section or even (immediately) after you finish the entire chapter is faster and helps you distill the information down to what is most important. It also helps with general synthesis. However, this is not an ideal method for people who struggle to remember details or focus on important information.
Tip 2: Decide Whether To Take Handwritten or Typed Notes
Once again there are advantages and disadvantages to both. Typing is better if you have handwriting problems, or need to take more extensive notes as it can be faster, but the notes may be harder to format. There is also some science to show that the act of handwriting helps the information stick in your memory better. Taking notes on the computer, however, makes them hard to store.
Tip 3: Read the Text Before Class, Take Notes, and Bring Those Notes to Class
When I started college, I was constantly confused by what date you were supposed to have read the texts by. Often syllabuses are written as “Week 1: Read Chapters 1-3″ but what does that mean? By the beginning of the week? The end? The lecture? The discussion? In general, it is a good idea to have read (and taken notes on!) any assigned readings before the first class meeting each week. Bring these notes to class to reference in discussion and impress all of your professors.
Tip 4: Highlight or Star Important Details in Your Notes!
This is especially important for people who take notes as they read. Highlighting is an excellent opportunity to review your notes and summarize what is important.
Tip 5: Use the Margins or Sticky Notes to Note Questions You Have About The Reading or Concepts You Are Still Not Understanding.
If these questions aren’t addressed in lecture, raise your hand and ask! (but if you’re feeling shy you can go to office hours too!)
I hope you found these tips useful! Don’t forget to follow for future blog posts with more note taking and tips for academic success.
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