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Discover the importance of note-taking and learn helpful strategies to stay focused, retain information, and prepare for exams. This guide provides essential tips, materials needed, different note-taking styles, and useful websites to enhance your note-taking skills.
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NOTE-TAKING STRATEGIES By Lora Williams
Why is it important to take notes? • Helps keep you focused. • Improves retention of material. • Helps pinpoint what will be on exams. • Serves as a study guide for exams and papers.
5 most important rules: • Attend class regularly and arrive on time. • Keep up with reading assignments. • Have materials organized ahead of time. • Come mentally prepared. • Keep notes organized.
Materials needed to take good notes: • Notebook • Pencils / pens • Eraser / White out • Highlighters • Flash cards • Stapler • If possible, recording device
Tips for effectively pulling out information • Don’t write down everything you hear. • Use key words, short sentences and abbreviations. • Stay consistent. • If you miss a point leave a blank space for it and look it up or ask later. • Always write down unfamiliar vocabulary or concepts. • Listen and look for patterns in lecturer/textbook. • Ask yourself questions (ex. “What is Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?”) then look for the answers.
Different styles of note taking: • Outline • Highlight • Cluster • T-notes • Visual Taken from: http://www.englishcompanion.com/Tools/notemaking.html
OUTLINING Image taken from: http://www.taft.cc.ca.us/newtc/Academic/INCO48/images/outline2.gif
HIGHLIGHTING Image taken from: www.lib.uchicago.edu
CLUSTER Image taken from: http://www.fife-education.org.uk/Inspiration/Images/Inspirationviews/inspacrosscurr.gif
VISUAL Image taken from: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/csnotes/spring03/notes-for-exam.gif
What’s worked for me: • Math: Writing out problems step-by-step, summarizing instructions. • History: Highlighting in my text and t-notes. • Sociology: Outlining and clustering. • English/Speech: T-notes and outlining. • Biology: Outlining and visual notes.
Useful Websites: • http://www.accd.edu/sac/history/keller/ACCDitg/SSnote.htm • http://www.englishcompanion.com/Tools/notemaking.html • http://extend.unb.ca/wss/notetext.htm