find your perfect postgrad program
Search our Database of 30,000 Courses

Refine courses

Posted May 31, 2013

The Importance of Good Note Taking in Lectures

Note taking is one of the most crucial skills you will require to get through your postgraduate degree as a huge proportion of the information you will be given will come in the form of a lecture or presentation. Technology has aided students a great deal in the past few years, and now most presentations are uploaded onto university intranets for access during study time; however this should not be an excuse for you not to take notes during class and to zone out. What you do not get on these presentation slides is the in depth explanations that come during the lecture and these are what will make the difference to your work. Check out these essential tips to improve your note taking:

Be Selective

The first rule of note taking is to be selective. You are not a scribe, and your job is not to try and write down every single thing that is said to you. This is a waste of time and effort and will actually hamper you when reading through your notes at a later stage. Select only the most important ideas from the session and write down phrases and key points from that. Clear and concise annotation of maps graphs and diagrams can be useful, but do not cover them with text that will mean nothing to you in a few weeks time when you have forgotten exactly what they meant.
 

Using Shorthand

Using shorthand is one way of ensuring that you do not spend more time than necessary writing and can concentrate on what is actually being said. Creating your own shorthand code is a good idea, as long as you can remember your abbreviations. Don’t write things down in a complicated code that you will not be able to decipher in the future – make a key somewhere if necessary, as this will prevent future confusion. After a month or two, you will become accustomed to this and your note taking will become much more efficient.
 

Digitize Your Notes

It is a good idea to type up your shorthand notes as quickly as possible after the session so that you can expand on ideas whilst they are still fresh in your mind. Shorthand notes made four months ago may not make much sense when you come to look at them again, but a more extensive review of the notes typed up after the session will be very helpful. Doing this on the computer, and then saving to an external location such as Google Drive will ensure that you do not end up losing everything if you misplace a piece of paper or book that contained all of your notes!
 

Do you have any good tips?
 

Leave a comment

All contributors must be over 16 year olds

By submitting your comment you agree to our privacy policy.

Categories