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Effective note

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7 views

Effective note

Uploaded by

mehakrehman696
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Effective note-making is an important practice to master at university.

You have a lot of new


knowledge and you need to develop reliable mechanisms for recording and retrieving it when
necessary. But note-making is also a learning process in itself, helping you to process and
understand the information you receive.
Good note-making...

 enables you to avoid unintentional plagiarism


 helps you to focus on what is important in what you are reading or hearing
 helps you to understand and remember material, and make connections
 helps you to structure the assignments you're researching
 provides a personal record of what you've learnt (more useful than your lecturer's or
friends' notes) and records your questions and ideas
 sets you up for exam revision

There can be problems...

 note-making can distract you from listening to lectures


 note-making can put additional stress on those who do not write naturally
 you can end up with so many notes that you have to spend twice the amount of time
going through them again to find out the important points!

Developing more effective note-making practices will help you to avoid these problems, and
make your studying less stressful and time-consuming.

 Critical note taking (video)

A brief screencast on making your notes more useful and effective.

 Critical notetaking (transcript)

Read the transcript

Making note-making more effective


The two key principles are [1] to be meticulous and accurate, and [2] to be active rather than passive.

Being meticulous and accurate about recording sources and direct quotations is an important part of academic discipline, as well as
accidental plagiarism. This means:
- always recording the necessary details for any source you use as soon as you start taking notes. Don't wait till you've finished
forget, or misplace the text.
- having a clear system so that you know which of your notes are [1] paraphrases of someone else's ideas [2] direct quotes [3]
Two things to watch out for...
...if you photocopy an article or chapter, make sure you include the page numbers as you will need them for referencing - write them in
edge of the photocopy (at least the first page so you can count forward)
...if you are making notes from a website, keep a note of the URL (website address) and the date that you accessed it - you will need th
The most effective note-taking is active not passive. Active learning helps you to make meaning from what you
learn: passive learning is allowing yourself to be an empty vessel into which knowledge is poured with no way of
organising or making meaning from it. You are less likely to remember things you learn passively, which means more
checking your notes while you're writing assignments, and more repeated effort when you come to revise.
Passive note-taking includes:

 underlining words
 cutting and pasting from online documents
 trying to write everything you hear in a lecture
 copying slides from the screen
 copying lots of direct quotes rather than putting the ideas in your own words
 writing notes on everything you read, because you're not sure what will turn out to be important
 not evaluating or criticising the sources you use, but just accepting them as suitable evidence

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