Taking notes is super important in college. There is so much information that your professor says in class, and sometimes the information they tell you isn’t even in the book! There are a bunch of different ways to take notes. The most important thing about your notes is that they are easy for you to read and reference later when you are trying to study for a test. Here are some different ways to take notes that might work for you!
The Cornell Method:
For this method you leave a column on the left blank to write keywords/ or a “cue”. The rest of the right side of the page is used to write your actual notes. You leave about two inches in the bottom of the page to summarize the notes in a few sentences. This allows easy review of your notes for the future.
The Outlining Method
You can use this method to organize the topics and subtopics into organized sections. It should be structured like:
- Major Topic
- Subtopic
- Explanation of the topic
- More specific points about the explanation
- More specific points
- Another explanation
- Explanation of the topic
- Subtopic
- Subtopic
- Different major point of lecture
- Subtopic
- Another subtopic
Here is an example of this system being used for a specific topic:
Charting Method
This method is good if you have a lecture about chronological events, or need to compare topics.
Here is an example of how you might set this type of note taking up
There are many different ways to take your notes. Some other tips that might be helpful for any method you use is:
- Color code your notes
This can be a helpful way to organize your thoughts and make it easier to review in the future. You could use highlighters or different colored pens to make organizing the topics and key points easier for you.
- You don’t have to write down every word
The point of note taking is to get the most important information from the lecture onto your notebook so you can study it later. Try to use abbreviations when possible to shorten the amount of time it takes to write something down.
- Revise your notes after class
After class reread your notes, make note of what you don’t know and highlight the key points. When I was an undergrad, I would make note of all my questions and then schedule office hours with the professor to go over what I was confused about. It helped me go from doing okay to doing great in my classes!
(Peighton)
