DO YOU ALSO GET BORED WITH WRITING IN CLASS?🙄
Another stereotype. How we write notes in class – the capture process. Sometimes teachers even dictate what should we write. That’s horrible.
What should proper notes from a lesson be like?
- brief
- detailed enough to show the context
- easy to remember
Nobody wants to spend hours learning from incomplete, bad notes. Neither do I. Neither do you. So let’s learn how to take good notes!
Linear vs non-linear
Either way, your notes can look like this page – linear.
Or it can look like this:
Now you may be thinking that the downside of non-linear note-taking is legibility. But either way, you’ve now learned as much in one glance at the diagram (mindmap) as I could write in three paragraphs of (boring) linear notes.
Best for me is to combine the two. Either way, you can use both digital and analogue.
(don’t) listen to the teacher
Don’t rely on what the teacher dictates. Does it ever happen to you that you don’t understand the teacher’s interpretation at first? That’s understandable – you don’t think the same way and you don’t know as much as an expert. That’s why you have to formulate the notes yourself – for yourself.
Every time you want to write something down, ask yourself:
- Will I need it (for a test or maybe for myself)?
- Isn’t there a better way to say it and make it shorter?
And most importantly – 90% of the time, don’t write in complete sentences. Write in bullet points and headings, like this:
SUMMARY IN THE FORM OF LINEAR notes
- concise, with context
- use diagrams, drawings – non-linear note-taking
- write only things:
- useful, essential (for a test, for yourself)
- in your own words
Concise, simple and clear right? Then try that in your next class too.
