21 7 Tips on How to Take Better Notes
Learning Outcomes
- Apply the reading process to “7 Tips on How to Take Better Notes.”
- Summarize the article.
- Respond to the article.
- Apply the ideas in the article to your note-taking practices.
Preview the Article
Follow the steps below to preview the article “7 Tips on How to Take Better Notes.” Ideally, you should print the article and write your responses in the margins of the printed copy. To read more about previewing, visit the chapter on previewing a reading.
- Read the title. What does it make you think about? What do you think the article is about? What questions do you have? Record your predictions and questions on the printed copy of the article near the title.
- What is your experience with taking notes? Record your thoughts on the printed copy of the article.
- Read the first two or three paragraphs. What additional predictions do you now have about the article? What additional questions do you have? Record them on the printed copy of the article.
- Scan the article and notice the headings (e.g. 1. Do take notes). What additional thoughts or questions do these raise? Record them on the printed copy of the article.
- Scan the bolded and underlined vocabulary in the article. If there are any words that you do not know well, look them up in a print or online dictionary and write some notes about their meanings on the printed copy of the article. Keep in mind that some words have multiple meanings. For example, the word shallow is used in paragraph 21; we often use this term when referring to the depth of water, such as in a lake or pool. However, shallow has a slightly different meaning here. You may need to read the sentence containing the word to understand the word’s usage.
- Based on your preview of the article, what do you think is the central point of the article? (Don’t worry if you are not sure. This is just a prediction or guess – you do not have to be correct as long as you are engaging your brain.) Record your prediction on the printed copy of the article.
- Based on your preview, do you predict that the article is narrative, expository, or argumentative?
Read Interactively
Now, read the article using the guidelines from the chapter on reading interactively. As you read, follow these steps to engage with the text.
- Pause to confirm or revise your predictions and to answer the questions you posed while previewing the article. Write down those revised predictions and responses to the questions as you read. If you cannot find the answers to your questions, save them for further research and discussion.
- Pause at other points to check for understanding of what you just read. Can you explain key ideas in your own words yet? If not, reread to clarify. Ideas that come later in a text build on the previous ones. Therefore, it makes no sense to keep reading if you did not understand something or if you became distracted. Anyone can become distracted while reading, so don’t hesitate to use the strategy of rereading when necessary.
- Pay attention to any vocabulary words that are confusing. Look up the words in a dictionary if they are interfering with your understanding, or mark them to return to later.
- Record any opinions or reactions you have to the reading in the margins of the article.
- Write down any further questions that develop as you read.
7 tips on how to take better notes
Kenneth A. Kiewra, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
September 3, 2019
1 In a graduate-level educational psychology course at Florida State University, my professor didn’t allow students to take notes. He reasoned that taking notes prevented students from reflecting on the lesson.
2 Yet, the professor also thought students needed a good set of notes to review later for exams. So he provided students with complete notes following each lesson. Most students appreciated this arrangement. I, however, did not. I was a copious note taker who believed in the value of recording one’s own notes.
3 So instead of obeying the professor’s note-taking ban, I sat in the back of the classroom and took notes secretly, scribbling feverishly on a small notepad whenever the professor looked away – until I was eventually caught pen-handed and had to fib about writing a letter to a friend back home. This episode prompted me to study note taking – something I’ve done for the past four decades. My objective has been to determine the value of note taking and how to best take notes. Here are seven note-taking tips.
1. Do take notes
4 Students who take notes during a lesson achieve more than those who listen to the lesson without note taking. This is because the act of note taking staves off boredom and focuses attention on lesson ideas more than listening without taking notes.
5 The primary value of note taking, though, is more in the product than the process, more in the reviewing than the recording. Students who record and then review notes almost always achieve more than students who record but do not review notes.
2. Take complete notes
6 The more notes students record the higher their achievement. But many students are incomplete note takers, usually recording just one-third of important lesson ideas in notes.
7 Incomplete note taking is perhaps due to human limitations. Lecture rates fall between 120 to 180 words per minute, but most people can only write or type a fraction of those words per minute.
3. Take detailed notes
8 Students are actually fairly successful noting a lesson’s main ideas. They falter when noting a lesson’s vital details. Suppose, for instance, an instructor says:
“Short-term memory has a limited capacity (level 1). Its capacity is just seven items (level 2). Capacity can be increased by chunking information into smaller bits (level 3). For example, a 10-digit phone number can be chunked into three smaller bits, 560-642-1894, and easily held in short-term memory (level 4).”
9 In one study that examined missing details, students noted about 80% of a lesson’s main ideas (level 1) but progressively fewer subordinate details: 60% of level 2 ideas, 35% of level 3 ideas, and just 11% of level 4 ideas. Students especially omit examples from notes even though examples can be crucial to understanding lesson ideas. One study showed that students recorded just 13% of lesson examples.
4. Look for note-taking cues
10 Students should be on the look out for lecture cues that signal idea importance or organization and enhance note taking.
11 Importance cues can be verbal, such as when an instructor says, “Note this” or “This is really critical.” Sometimes, it is not what is said but how it is said. For instance, an instructor may say an important point louder or softer than less important points, repeat the point or pause afterward for effect.
12 There are also nonverbal signals, such as pointing, clapping, or a piercing glance that cue students to important ideas.
13 Organizational cues involve statements that reveal the lesson’s organization, such as “Let’s next discuss the atom’s three parts” or “Let’s address two limitations of string theory.” Paying attention to organizational cues can add 45% more details to students’ notes.
5. Revise your notes
14 Note taking has long been considered a 2-R process: record and review.
15 Recent research has shown a third R-step: revision, which occurs between record and review.
16 Revision should be done soon after a lecture or even during a lecture when the instructor pauses. During revision, students should try to use existing notes to prompt the recall and addition of missing lesson ideas.
17 A student in a psychology class might have noted that “short-term memory has a limited capacity.” During revision, that note might help the student recall this related detail: “short-term memory holds just seven items.” That additional lesson idea is then added to notes during revision.
6. Replay lectures
18 Students should take advantage of lessons posted online by viewing them more than once to maximize note taking. That’s because when students view a lesson multiple times, they record more complete notes and raise achievement. In one study, students viewing a lesson once recorded about 38% of lesson details in notes. Those who viewed the lesson twice or three times recorded about 53% and 60% of lesson details, respectively. A fourth group viewed the lesson a single time but they could pause, rewind, and fast-forward the lesson as they pleased, and recorded about 65% of lesson details.
19 In classes where lessons are not posted online, students can ask permission to record lessons with their smartphones so that additional viewings are possible.
7. Take handwritten notes
20 There are two reasons students should take notes longhand instead of on laptops. First, research has shown that students who use laptops in class spend considerable time multitasking, leading to curtailed note taking and lower achievement. The multitasking students reported checking mail (81%), surfing the web (43%), playing games (25%) and using laptops for other non-class purposes (35%). In all, students spend more than half a typical class period using laptops for things that have nothing to do with the class. The same study found that laptop use also distracted nearby students.
21 Second, research has shown that laptop notes are inferior to longhand notes. Laptop notes are more verbatim than longhand notes, and verbatim note taking has been associated with shallow, non-meaningful learning. In addition, laptop note takers fail to note vital graphic information, such as graphs, charts and illustrations, which longhand note takers easily record in notes. Because longhand notes are qualitatively better than laptop notes, reviewing them leads to higher achievement than reviewing laptop notes.
Guess my professor was right
22 Turns out that my educational psychology professor was largely on the mark in forbidding note taking and providing complete notes for students to study. After all, the primary value of note taking comes in the review of notes, and students tend to record sketchy notes.
23 The problem is, in my experience, most instructors do not make complete notes available to students, and students are left with their own incomplete and ineffective notes to review. Hopefully, my research and this article help students record more effective notes on their own.
Kenneth A. Kiewra, Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Reflect
After reading the article, use the following questions to reflect on the content of the article and your reading process. See the chapter about reflecting for a discussion of why this is a crucial step.
- Try to paraphrase the main idea in a sentence. This may be challenging because you have read the article only once. If you are struggling, do your best. You can refine this when you reread and summarize the article.
- Is the article primarily narrative, expository, or argumentative? What is the purpose of the article? In other words, why do you think the author wrote it?
- Which predictions were accurate, and which did you have to revise?
- As you previewed the article, you wrote questions. What questions remain unanswered after reading the article?
- What else do you want to know about the article or topic of the reading? Write down any additional questions.
- How did previewing the article help you to understand and engage with the text while reading?
- Where did you struggle to understand something in the text, and how did you work through it?
- What, if anything, could you have done differently to improve your reading process?
Summarize
Complete a summary of the article by following these steps. Make sure you have read the chapters about Reading to Summarize before proceeding with the summary.
- Reread the article and complete the Summary Notes. See Preparing to Summarize for a review of this topic and an example.
- Then, use your Summary Notes to write a one-paragraph summary of the article. See Writing a Summary for a review of this topic and an example. Make sure that you include in-text citations and the Work Cited.
- Use the self-assessment/peer review questions from Evaluating a Summary to self-assess your summary or invite a peer to provide feedback.
- Use the self-assessment or peer feedback to make changes to your summary.
Make sure you are comfortable with your summary before advancing to the response. If you misunderstand something in the article, then your response may be skewed based on that misunderstanding.
Respond
Write a response to the article by following these steps. Make sure you have read the chapters about Reading to Respond before proceeding with the summary.
- Use the Response Questions from Preparing to Respond to brainstorm possible ideas for your response. See the example in that same chapter.
- Read over your replies to the Response Questions. Choose one idea to write about in your response. Express that idea in a topic sentence. See Writing a Topic Sentence for a Response for examples. Ask a peer for feedback on your topic sentence.
- Brainstorm about possible support you could use in your response. See Generating Support for a Response for examples.
- Use your topic sentence and ideas from the list of support to write a one-paragraph response. See Writing a Response writing guidelines and examples. Make sure that you include the Work Cited and in-text citations for any quotes or specific ideas from the article.
- Use the self-assessment/peer review questions from Evaluating a Response to evaluate your response or have a peer provide feedback.
- Use the self-assessment or peer feedback to make improvements to your response.
Extend: Apply
Apply some of Kenneth A. Kiewra’s suggestions from the article to your note-taking practices. Keep in mind that note-taking requires practice. You may not notice a difference if you try once, but if you consistently work on the strategies over time, you will notice changes in your engagement and learning, as well as the quality of your notes.