Taking lecture notes is a major part of studying, so it is important that your notes
are thorough and accurate. In addition, taking notes and staying engaged in
class will keep you from feeling BORED or FALLING ASLEEP. Get the most out of a lecture and have an amazing set of
notes to show for it!
PREPARATION BEFORE THE
LECTURE
1. Complete the assigned reading for that day.
Your lecturer’s lecture will most
likely expand off of the material assigned in the reading. If you don’t do the
reading, you lack the necessary background information to fully grasp the
lecture and to meaningfully contribute during class.
2. Check online for course materials and lecture outlines offered by your lecturer.
Your lecturer may have announced the
topic or key ideas in the upcoming lecture, and it’s important that you are
aware of this structure going into the lecture. Doing so will ensure that you
will be more likely to predict its organization and understand the material
well.
Convert the provided key terms/major
concepts/etc. into questions that you know you should focus on as you listen to
the lecture. Structure your notebook according to headings provided in the
outline.
If no outline is given, try to structure
the presentation yourself when you revisit the notes later.
3. Sit as close to the front of the room as possible to eliminate
distractions.
You may even want to come five or ten
minutes early to get a good seat and have time to set up your pen and notebook
or laptop. You want to make sure you can hear the lecturer clearly, see
everything written on the board, and feel comfortable asking questions or
making comments when appropriate.
4. Decide how you want to take notes and be prepared with the necessary supplies.
Bring laptop if you type faster than
you write and prefer to take notes on it. Otherwise, have extra lead for
mechanical pencils and/or pens. Make sure you have a supply of extra sheets of
binder paper as well.
5. If you decide to take notes with a laptop, consider one of the following
programs to help you organize and enhance your note-taking.
If you take notes on a laptop or type
up your notes into study guides, check your Microsoft Word project gallery for
something called a “notebook layout”. This document mimics the appearance of a
notebook, and allows you to insert tabs for creating sections, title pages for
easy reference, draw supplement diagrams, and record audio notes. It’s built
especially for note-taking, so bullets are easy to use and organize. Better
yet, it’s already included in most versions of Microsoft Word.
If you have an internet access on
your laptop, you can use the collaborative note-taking platform Unishared. It will allow you to team up with
some of your friends in the classroom to write collaborative notes on the same
document in live. It will allow you to stay focused on the course and have rich
notes in the same time.
· PerfectNotes
(www.perfectnotes.com) software records your lecture while
you take notes. At any time, you can bookmark important points. Later, you can
quickly go back and hear what you missed by clicking on your bookmarks. Or, if
part of your notes and the audio will be available for you to browse through.
In just seconds you can hear the exact part that was unclear.
· Live
Scribe Smart Pen (www.livescribe.com)
is a great tool for those who
don’t want to take a notebook to class. Take notes using the Smart Pen on
special paper. Whenever you want to hear something again, just click on the
notes that are unclear and hear them again.
· Microsoft
OneNote (www.microsoft.com) effectively organizes various
documents (web pages, PDFs, charts, graphs, emails, class notes, etc.) in one
place. It lets you record voice only, or with video and save it in the OneNote
document.
DURING THE LECTURE
1. Listen carefully to the introduction of the lecture.
Copy what’s written on the whiteboard
or overhead projector. Every lecturer organizes each lecture into some sort of
outline, even if it’s implicit and loosely followed. By knowing this outline,
you will better be prepared to anticipate what notes you will need to take.
2. Take notes in outline format.
Underneath section headings, write
down ideas in bullet form and supplementary ideas with indented sub-bullets.
This is much better than just writing down everything as a new point.
Lecturers are not always organized
about following main points with subpoints, so keep in mind that you may have
to re-organize your notes after the lecture. This is why it may be advantageous
to take note with a laptop, as editing becomes seamless.
Your first priority should be
grasping the lecture content and writing it down – never let organization
compromise your information acquisition.
3. Use abbreviations and skip unimportant words to take notes efficiently.
Only record the important words that
you need to get the idea of the point made. Skip words like “the” and “a” that
do not convey additional meaning to the lecture content. Create abbreviations
to help you write things down quickly, such as drawing arrows for
increase/decrease or to show causation, and especially for terms used over and
over again. (e.g., IR for international relations)
Remember: your goal is to understand
what the lecturer is saying not to try to record exactly everything he or she
says.
4. Recognize main ideas by signal words that indicate something important is
to follow.
Your instructor is not going to send
up a rocket when he/she states an important new idea or gives an example, but
she will use will use signals to telegraph what she is doing. Every good
speaker does it, and you should expect to receive these signals.
5. Jot down details or examples that support the main ideas.
Take down examples and sketches which
the lecturer presents. Indicate examples with “e.g.” or “ex.”. Give special
attention to details not covered in the textbook, as these will likely earn you
points on the exam.
Draw diagrams for concepts you can’t remember
easily or don’t understand.
6. If there is a summary at the end of the lecture, pay close attention to
it.
You can use it to check the organization
of your notes. If your notes seem disorganized, copy down the main points that
are covered in the summary. It will help in revising your notes later.
7. At the end of the lecture, ask questions about points that you did not
understand.
When students ask questions, write
down the questions and the lecturer’s answer. This additional information might
answer questions you have as well.
source: dailyexpress,local voice, education
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