Taking Lecture Notes Made Easy !

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