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Note-Taking Strategies and Styles

The document provides guidance on effective note-taking strategies and styles for college courses. It recommends coming to class prepared with the proper supplies, focusing on listening skills, and developing a personalized note-taking method. Suggested methods include the Cornell note-taking system which divides notes into keywords and details, creating an outline with bullet points, and mind mapping with a visual layout. Notes should capture main ideas, definitions, examples, and concepts to review and study after class.

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43 views

Note-Taking Strategies and Styles

The document provides guidance on effective note-taking strategies and styles for college courses. It recommends coming to class prepared with the proper supplies, focusing on listening skills, and developing a personalized note-taking method. Suggested methods include the Cornell note-taking system which divides notes into keywords and details, creating an outline with bullet points, and mind mapping with a visual layout. Notes should capture main ideas, definitions, examples, and concepts to review and study after class.

Uploaded by

funny04
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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COUNSELING AND ADVISING

NOTE-TAKING STRATEGIES AND STYLES


1. Go to class prepared
 3-ring binder instead of spiral notebook for easy access
 Have highlighters
 Read assigned material and previous class notes
2. Improve your listening skills
 Enter class with a positive attitude
 Make a conscious effort to pay attention
 Be adaptable
 Remove all distractions (phone off and out of reach)
3. Develop a note-taking method that works for you
 Start each new lecture on a new page, date
 Write on one side of the paper only for easier reviewing
 Leave blank spaces for your comments/questions
 Make your notes as brief as possible
 Develop a system of abbreviations
 Note all unfamiliar vocabulary or concepts you don’t understand
4. Pay close attention to content
 Focus on details, or explanations that expand or explain the main points
 Definitions, write word for word
 Numbered or lists of things discussed
 Anything written by the instructor
 Information that is repeated or spelled
 Information the instructor seems excited about
5. Only write down main points
 Anytime the professor says, “You need to know this,” or “This will be on the test”
 Anytime the professor repeats himself
 Anything the professor writes on the board or includes in a PowerPoint
 Anything the professor repeats very slowly so that it can be taken down word for word
 Write down examples or hypotheticals the instructor uses during class
 Watch for language that shows relationships between ideas. These sorts of points are
often where professors get their exam questions from:
• first, second, third
• especially, most significant, most important
• however, on the other hand
• because, so, therefore, consequently
COUNSELING AND ADVISING

6. Review and edit your notes


 Important: review your notes within 24 hrs.
 Edit for words or phrases that are illegible
 Fill in key words and questions in the left column
 Note anything you don’t understand to ask the instructor
 Compare your notes with the textbook reading and fill in
 Details in the blank spaced
 Consider re-writing or typing up your notes

NOTE-TAKING STYLES

1. Cornell Method
 Divide your page into two columns. Label the left-hand column “Keywords” and the right-hand
column “Notes.” Beneath those two columns, mark off a section and label it “Summary.”
 During the lecture, write your notes in the “Notes” column. Write notes as you normally would.
Again, the goal is to capture meaningful facts and the main points of the lecture.
 After the lecture, write keywords in the “Keywords” column. Immediately after the lecture,
review your notes in the “Notes” column. Try to reduce each line or segment of notes into one
keyword. Write down that keyword in the left-hand “Keyword” column. For example, if you
had an entire paragraph of notes in the “Note” column about the 1961 Civil Rights Act, next to
the section and in the left-hand “Keyword” column, you would write “1961 Civil Rights Act.”

Keywords Notes

Summary
COUNSELING AND ADVISING

2. Rough Outline Method


 Create a rough outline of the lecture using bullet points
 If there’s a sub-point, just hit “tab” and create a nested list.
 Bold or underline important points.
 This format makes organizing your notes later into a final outline much easier

3. Mind Mapping Method


 Mind mapping is a visual form of note-taking Instead of typing or writing sentences in a
linear format, with mind mapping you draw your notes.
 Advocates of mind mapping argue that the non-linear, visual format of mind maps allow
students to find connections they’d otherwise miss when using traditional note-taking
strategies.
 Because mind mapping is a somewhat creative activity, by engaging both the left and right
spheres of your brain, learning retention is supposed to improve (a claim that some brain
researchers dispute).
 To mind map a lecture, you simply write the main topic of the day’s lecture at the center of a
piece of paper.
 As the professor makes new points, write those around the central topic. Draw lines
connecting different ideas. Feel free to draw images instead of writing words. Mind mapping
is a visual activity.

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