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In this post get some top tips for taking notes whether you’re learning online or offline.
Taking notes is usually fundamental when you’re learning something new, whether you’re a student at school or uni, learning for your career, or just learning for fun. Good notes give you a foundation to build on and guidance to refer back to. Here’s a few tricks we’ve learnt for taking great notes.
Find the the right tools
The first step to taking great notes is using tools that suit you: maybe you love scribbling away with a biro and a small notebook, maybe you prefer bright colours and lots of blank paper, or maybe you want to sit with your laptop or tablet and type out your notes straight into an app. Try out different tools, and find the ones that make note-taking not just easy, but enjoyable. That way you’re far more likely to keep going.
Don’t just transcribe
Whether you’re sat watching a video, or in a lecture hall, it’s easy to just frantically try and scribble down everything the speaker is saying. The result is usually smudged, nonsensical notes and a sore hand. You end up focusing on transcribing instead of learning. Try and filter what the speaker is saying, listen for key points, or jot down things to research further. If you really do need to take down a lot of what they’re saying, try and use abbreviations and simplify sentences, it will help ensure you’re actually understanding what’s being said.
Filter and highlight
Once you’ve finished writing your notes don’t abandon them – now is the time to have a proper sift through. You might highlight the most important parts, or highlight the parts to research further, or highlight key people to remember – the choice is yours. If you find yourself accidentally highlighting entire paragraphs try setting yourself a limit: if you’ve taken 5 pages of notes limit yourself to highlighting 2 lines per page, that gives you 10 key things to remember.
Create your own summaries
The process of turning notes into knowledge is a bit like distillation. You start out with raw material, you sift through it choosing the most important parts and finally you condense those parts into something usable. This last part is key, it’s here you have the chance to turn your notes into something uniquely useful to you. For instance you might summarise a set of notes in 6 notecards, writing one keyword to jog your memory about an important concept, formula or figure. But that keyword might be something that only you find amusing, or memorable, about the subject, or it might be something entirely random.
Extra tips
Ready to put this advice into practice? Find a course and start learning.
P.S. If you have some great advice for taking notes, let us know in the comments.
The post How to take great notes appeared first on FutureLearn.
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Taking notes is usually fundamental when you’re learning something new, whether you’re a student at school or uni, learning for your career, or just learning for fun. Good notes give you a foundation to build on and guidance to refer back to. Here’s a few tricks we’ve learnt for taking great notes.
Find the the right tools
The first step to taking great notes is using tools that suit you: maybe you love scribbling away with a biro and a small notebook, maybe you prefer bright colours and lots of blank paper, or maybe you want to sit with your laptop or tablet and type out your notes straight into an app. Try out different tools, and find the ones that make note-taking not just easy, but enjoyable. That way you’re far more likely to keep going.
Don’t just transcribe
Whether you’re sat watching a video, or in a lecture hall, it’s easy to just frantically try and scribble down everything the speaker is saying. The result is usually smudged, nonsensical notes and a sore hand. You end up focusing on transcribing instead of learning. Try and filter what the speaker is saying, listen for key points, or jot down things to research further. If you really do need to take down a lot of what they’re saying, try and use abbreviations and simplify sentences, it will help ensure you’re actually understanding what’s being said.
Filter and highlight
Once you’ve finished writing your notes don’t abandon them – now is the time to have a proper sift through. You might highlight the most important parts, or highlight the parts to research further, or highlight key people to remember – the choice is yours. If you find yourself accidentally highlighting entire paragraphs try setting yourself a limit: if you’ve taken 5 pages of notes limit yourself to highlighting 2 lines per page, that gives you 10 key things to remember.
Create your own summaries
The process of turning notes into knowledge is a bit like distillation. You start out with raw material, you sift through it choosing the most important parts and finally you condense those parts into something usable. This last part is key, it’s here you have the chance to turn your notes into something uniquely useful to you. For instance you might summarise a set of notes in 6 notecards, writing one keyword to jog your memory about an important concept, formula or figure. But that keyword might be something that only you find amusing, or memorable, about the subject, or it might be something entirely random.
Extra tips
- Get organised – having great notes is useless if you can’t find them. Try and organise your notes in a system you can easily use, whether on the computer or in folders.
- Play to your strengths – prefer learning by listening? Record yourself reading your notes. Prefer visual learning? Get artistic and draw out concepts and illustrations. There’s no one way to take good notes, it’s about what suits you.
- Write down any questions – even if your questions are tangential you can use these to expand your knowledge, or to test yourself later.
Ready to put this advice into practice? Find a course and start learning.
P.S. If you have some great advice for taking notes, let us know in the comments.
The post How to take great notes appeared first on FutureLearn.
Continue reading...
