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How to Take Lecture Notes
Effective note-taking is not recording or transcribing. It is an active part of the learning process that requires you to quickly digest the lecture material and write down its key elements in a manner that suits your learning style. After properly preparing for the lecture, optimize your process for taking notes. With the following steps, along with prompt revision and reorganization, you can become a better lecture note-taker.
First, remember to take notes instead of transcribing the lecture. In order to take better notes, you need to be an "active listener." This means that you don’t just record what is said. Instead, you should engage with the material and determine the essential elements of what is being said.
For instance, instead of spending time writing down every detail of Theodore Roosevelt’s various foreign policy actions, strive to establish key concepts of his overall foreign policy and identify the examples as support. This way, you have already begun the process of learning and understanding, or, in other words, studying. This necessity of active engagement is one reason why many experts advise against recording lectures.
Secondly, learn to pick up on the lecturer’s cues and clues. The lecturer will use vocal patterns, hand gestures and other indications to emphasize important parts of the lecture. Start observing these patterns and gestures in order to discern what is essential information.
Recognize main ideas by identifying signal words and phrases that indicate something important is to follow. Your instructor will use signals to convey what she is doing. Every good speaker does it, and you should expect to receive these signals. Examples include:
First... second... third...
The significance of this is...
From this, we can see...
Learn to identify other clues as well. When making a key point, the lecturer may speak more slowly or loudly; repeat a word or phrase; take a longer pause before resuming speaking (perhaps even to take a drink of water); gesture with his or her hands more demonstratively; stop walking around and / or look more intently into the audience; and so on.
In addition, make up your own shorthand method. Shorthand writing is a way to use shortcuts so that you don’t have to write every single word. You can also write notes more quickly, an essential skill when listening to a classroom lecture. Develop your own set of shortcuts, abbreviations, symbols, sketches, etc. Even if no one else knows what your shorthand means, you’ll know what you mean.
Use abbreviations and skip unimportant words to take notes efficiently. Only record the important words that you need to get the idea of the point made. Skip words like "the" and "a" that do not convey additional meaning to the lecture content. Create abbreviations to help you write things down quickly, such as drawing arrows for increase/decrease or to show causation, and especially for terms used over and over again.
Have you got it? How much information have you jotted down during my lecture? Start practice now.