Effective note-taking
Obviously studying at university is going to mean 'taking lots of notes'. To ensure that you do this effectively and that they reinforce your learning, (as well as jogging your memory), it's good to have a few guidelines to keep in mind when taking notes in your lectures, workshops and tutorials.
- Ensure that you have a separate notebook/ folder for each different subject you're studying.
- Keep your notes organised, logical and try to keep your handwriting as clear to read as possible, as you'll need to be able to understand and read them, many weeks from now.
- Your aim is for your notes to remind you of as much of the relevant lecture content as possible. Your aim is for your notes need to be meaningful 24 hours later, 72 hours later and months later (when you come to revise them for a possible exam).
- Don't try to write down everything from a lecture, word for word. Aim to capture the relevant pertinent points, summarise ideas and concepts, use bullet points, flow diagrams, charts to capture the key content.
- It can help also to develop your own shorthand system so that you can try to take notes in a quicker, more abbreviated form. An example of this might be: Mktg SWOT analysis useful 4 invstging intnl + ext strgths of a Co. (A marketing SWOT analysis is useful for investigating the internal and external strengths which exist in a company).
- There are a few tried and tested different methods to taking notes, or you can develop your own system. Generally try to use headings and sub-headings, bullet points/ short phrases to summarise the key info, and a margin to the right side of the page as well as the bottom of page which be helpful for notes on extra readings/ external sources /notes/reminders etc.
- Try to review your notes regularly and always briefly re-read them before your next lecture/ workshop.
- If you require more information on effective note-taking, take a look at the Self Study Resources Folder as well as some of the recommended reading texts on this site.
