Mostly, as a student, you will be taking notes to revise for exams from a book, in lectures or in the lab, but later you will be taking notes in your work or research, so it is an important skill.
A. Value of Notes
Keeps you active and concentrating
Provides a written record for revision.
B. Storing Notes
Loose leaf binder
Notes can be re-arranged
Notes can be added to
Keep notes on one topic together.
Notebooks
Suitable for rough, “working” notes: must re-write
Less flexible for permanent notes.
C. Writing Notes
Include:
Main ideas and important details
Logical plan of argument
Make notes after reading—not while reading:
Use your own words
Note only essentials
Understand, don’t copy.
Use outline form (NOT summary)
Note the original headings and sub-headings
Note central idea of each paragraph
Important details (in brackets)
Use indentations (about an inch)
Use letters and numbers to signify iniportance
I, II, III…
A, B, C, D…
1, 2, 3, 4…
a, b, c, d…
i, ii, iii, iv…
bullets, dashes, asterisks…
Use your own shorthand (especially in lectures)
long words often used
certain types of ending
common abbreviations eg ie, cf, NB, =, < ,> etc
stick to your system
don’t use in work presented to others.
Layout
Should be pictorial & form a visual pattern—look memorable
Do not make into identical blocks of writing—not memorable
well spaced—room for insertions
wide margins—room for marginal notes
source and date at top
block capitals and underlines
boxes for important items
colour,
diagrams
arrows and symbols
Make each page into a picture—creativity, visualization.
Use pencil for initial notes.
flexibility
can be erased.
D. Lecture Notes
Understanding more important than note-taking
Follow lecturer’s argument—listen
Get the gist then make a note
Use creative pattern technique.
Check notes after lecture:
Re-construct lecture (recall—promotes learning)
Without recall…
50% is lost immediately
75% lost within one week
98% lost within three weeks.
Correct notes—add, give depth and shape
Immensely beneficial—discipline—must do.
Points missed
Discuss with colleagues
Ask tutor—Important!
E. Checklist for Notes
General format:
Is your notebook too small?
Are your pages too crowded?
Is your handwriting legible?
Do you mix different subjects in the same notebook?
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Before you go, think about this…
Evolution is irreversible—but except in a strict sense, it is not true. A fish, hundreds of millions of years ago, left the water ultimately to evolve into terrestrial vertebrates, but land vertebrates have often taken to the water since, and have assumed the shape and lifestyles of fish. The strict sense is that they have not become fish again.
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Robert Anton Wilson (The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science, 1986) describes skeptics as the New Inquisition, but Sagan points out that no sceptic compels belief, and the reverse is actually true, that it is the skeptics who are deprived of an adequate voice. The media treatment of the skeptical approach is dismal, and the media hacks, hosts and presenters are all convinced that religion is far more important than science, mainly because they are scientific illiterates themselves, and proud of it! New agers are not being called up before inquisitorial tribunals, nor whipped for contradicting orthodoxy, as critics of received religions were, and they are not being burned at the stake. Their beef is the same as that of the Christian Churches, they cannot stand having their fancies criticized. They are offering stale religion because they have not the bottle or discipline to oppose the politicians and corporate executives who make the decisions about our world. When they are not right wing tricksters, they are moral cowards.
Mostly, as a student, you will be taking notes to revise for exams from a book, in lectures or in the lab, but later you will be taking notes in your work or research, so it is an important skill.
