Taking Notes In Class
Taking Notes
The art of taking notes in class has been lost to many students today. It is, however, one of the keys to getting good grades in school. It helps in grade school, middle school, high school and college. If you don't take notes in every class you attend maybe it's time to brush up on your skills before it's to late.
One of the key benefits of good note taking is the ability to free your brain to concentrate on more important matters and not try to remember everything that was said. Once you have written something on paper you have given yourself permission to concentrate on something else for the time being.
The secret to good note taking lies in finding the proper balance between to much information and not enough. When you try to write verbatim what is being said you can easily come up with a set of notes that are longer than the chapter you are studying. When this happens the notes seldom get used.
Your notes should contain a good outline of the ideas being presented. Under the main ideas can be the supporting data. Making liberal use of bullets can effectively list your supporting ideas in short concise thought. If you keep a highlighter handy you can quickly highlight the areas of most importance, this makes it faster when you are going back and just giving your notes a quick scan.
One particularly effective method of taking notes in class is to divide the page into two columns. In the left column you write your class notes and in the right column you write any questions or comments about the left column entry. This makes studying easy, especially if someone is helping you study off of those notes.
One of the worst habits you can get into is taking notes on loose pieces of paper. They can get lost, misplaced and are difficult to keep organized. A better way is in a special notebook just for class notes. Dating each page is an excellent habit to get into as it makes it so much easier to go back through your notes finding important pagers that might need to be reviewed or studied.
Another important aspect of taking notes in class is to review them every day. They are useless if you don't use them and you will retain so much more from each days classes if you review you class notes in the evening. Make it a habit to do every day and you will soon realize what good note taking can do for you.
Another form of good note taking you should take with you beyond the school years is a daily activity log. Every time I am on the phone I am taking notes. Who I talked to, the topic and any other information that might be important. Every time a promise or a commitment is made it should be entered into your daily, dated, notes. Go over these notes weekly and monthly to make sure all your commitments have been met.
There are two overused lines in our society, I forgot and I didn't have time. They both say that what ever it was was not important to you, that's the message you are sending anyone you say this to. If you took the time to write it down you would not have forgotten, if it was important you would have made time. Take notes, plan ahead and never use these excuses.
Do you have an effective way of taking notes in class? Let us know, it might help others with better test scores.
Do you have a good note taking tip?
Tell us how you take notes, what works for you?
Parenting A High Schooler :
School Reform :
Green Schools
Back To School :
Making The Most Of K-12 :
Higher Education
College Applications :
Effective Teenagers :
High School Student Resume Tips
