Study Tip #9
TAKING USEFUL CLASS NOTES

Why Should You Take Notes in Class? 

How would you like to study using a technique that is one of the top predictors of students’ grades on tests? That technique is taking notes. Recent research has shown that the higher the quality of students’ notes, the higher their grades, all other things being equal.

If you listen to a lecture and decide not to take notes on it, you must trust in your memory to recall it. When you prepare for a test, you will have nothing written down to review with. Can most people remember enough facts from lectures to pass tests several weeks later? "No!" say psychologists who have compared note-takers to listeners.

Why not? Most people can keep information in their working memories for only 15 to 20 seconds unless they recite it or deliberately memorize it by making associations to it. And during lectures people don't have the time to recite, make associations and memorize. Moreover, during a lecture with much new material your mind forgets because the many bits of new material interfere with each other’s associations and confuse you. That means you listen and you understand at that time, but when the lecturer moves on to new topics, you forget. And if that forgetting during a lecture isn't bad enough, more forgetting happens in the hours and days after the lecture as normal interference and fading weaken the new memories. Only 10% of the material may last. It's often better if people take notes and review them later: they can recall about 80% of a lecture.

When Should You NOT Take Notes?

There are times when your concentration on taking notes can interfere with your need to understand new and complicated material. Note-taking and listening while thinking about new ideas give your mind two fairly complex tasks to do and they interfere with each other. When a lecturer gets into complicated material, the interence gets worse.

When you need to understand, pause from taking notes and listen and think. Then once the difficult complex part passes, resume note-taking. As soon as possible jot down things you might forget later.

What Material Is It Useful to Take Notes On?

• Use the instructor's goals as a guide. You should set as your top goal to figure out what your teacher wants the students to learn. When you know these goals, you can listen for information that helps you reach those goals. Take notes on anything that will help you learn what the teacher wants the students to learn.
• Write down the questions teachers ask as well as their answers. Why? First, the questions often reveal the teacher's goals and objectives. Second, teachers will ask questions on tests, and if you have written the questions in your notes, you can review by asking yourself those questions and reciting the answers. You will associate stimulus to response. You will use the questions as stimuli to build associations.
• Write down the titles of lists. Why? The title helps you organize the material and becomes a stimulus to build associations.
• Write down general ideas: concepts, hypotheses, summaries, formulas, cause-and-effect statements, main ideas. Why? You will need these general ideas later to help you interpret concrete facts. They're often easy to understand but also easy to forget.
• Take notes on examples. They illustrate the meaning of general principles and concepts. You can be brief. Use just enough words to remind you of the example. Why? Examples are useful when you find general ideas unclear, because you can get clarity by studying examples.
• Write down most new words, concepts, technical terms, and phrases with technical meanings. Why? New words are relatively hard to learn, easy to confuse with others, and fast to fade from working memory. Yet you will need them constantly. So write them down.
• Copy down diagrams, charts, and tables that summarize information.
• When a teacher explains chains of reasoning (math proofs, scientific reasons, evidence for ideas, etc.), you should take notes on each step.

What Style of Note-Taking Works Well?

• The Academic Learning Skills Department at Lane Community College recommends that students use the "Cornell system." You draw a vertical line down the page about two and one-half inches in from the left margin. You write your notes in the space on the right. You save the space on the left to use when you review. In it you later write the key words, study questions, and important phrases. It becomes (1) an outline for review and (2) a set of cues for you to use when you practice reciting the material without looking.
• Write numbers and letters to separate the major points. But do not try to make a formal outline of a lecture. The reasons are that you will not usually have enough time and most teachers do not speak from formal outlines.
• Use separate lines for separate ideas. It adds clarity when you review. Let yourself waste paper.
• Draw boxes and circles around related ideas. Underline key words. Draw arrows to connect related information. These lines signal things to associate together. Use two or more pens with different colored ink if it adds clarity. Distinct colors help you distinguish differences among concepts.
• Try to be neat.

How Can You Deal With a Fast-Talker?

 Occasionally, you will take notes from a teacher who talks so fast that you cannot write fast enough to keep up with the information. Fortu¬nately, this is rare. Most teachers help students take notes. They restate each point several ways. They add examples and they apply points to sev¬eral situations. They explain things and conclude with sum¬maries. They use extra words and that gives you time to take notes.
However, when a teacher does talk too fast, you must accept the unpleasant fact that you can only get the high points and that you will miss things. Here are some options as to what to do:

• Write faster. Omit unneeded words. (the, a, and, etc.,). Abbreviate words (w/o for without, acctg for accounting, etc.). Write in phrases, not sentences.
• Stop trying to spell right.
• Stop trying to think about the material. Just listen and write. Exception: Sometimes a teacher would prefer that you listen to an explanation of a complicated idea so that you understand it. Then you can stop writing.
• Make your attention switch back and forth rapidly between your writing and listening to the teacher. You hear an idea, you notice yourself start writing a word or phrase, you put your handwriting on automatic, you switch to listening again while writing, you switch to noticing your writing, and so on. You should try to develop this skill.
• If you fall behind, then leave a gap of several lines in your notes, skip what you missed, and start in again where the teacher is. After class ask another student for what you missed.
• If you cannot both listen and write, and if you think understanding is more helpful than writing notes now, simply stop writing and concentrate on listening and understanding. It is particularly safe to listen when the ideas are general and there is little new vocabulary. But when there is new vocabulary and specific facts, then struggle to write mindlessly.
• Tell the teacher about the problem and ask for repetition or for a slower talking speed.
• Right after class is over when you know you've missed things, try to go over your notes immediately and fill in what you can remember of the missing spots. Add details and examples that you skipped during class. Do not delay doing this. The longer you wait, the more your memory will fade. But if you act fast, you can remember a lot.
• You may suspect you write too slowly and take too many notes. You can find out by looking at other students' notes.

How Can You Use Notes to Review?

• Do review them. If you take notes and don't review them, you will forget as much as a person who just listened. Use distributed study; do multiple reviews with time intervals between reviews.
• Review soon after the lecture. You will remember more right away than if you wait till later and your memory has gone cold. This early review will repeat associations you made during the lecture and add new ones. When you review two or three times more, each review makes the associations firmer so that test questions about the new knowledge will trigger strong associations and let you recall it.
• Review both your lecture notes and similar textbook passages at the same time. It will build associations that make memory easier.
• If you use the Cornell system, write key words and questions in the left margin. Then cover the right side, look at the material on the left, and try to recite the full material. Then you should check your memory by looking at the material on the right. If you missed some points, cover it up and try again.
• If it's possible, try to recite aloud. If not, try to "talk to yourself" silently. Do not mumble in your head. Do not make vague pictures of the answer. Vagueness in review causes poor memory. Since you know you will be tested with words, you need to use clear precise words while you review.
• Here is a psychological trick: Look to the left, make a picture of a good friend, and recite your answer to that person. It works.
• Think about the meaning of the material. Compare where it is similar to textbook material or different.
• Hunt for how the material is organized.
• Study the examples until you can tell how the principles are used in them.
• Will a later lecture’s content build on a prior lecture’s content? If it will, review your notes before that class. Why? You will put that information into your working memory and activate the part of your brain that knows that subject. The result will be that you will understand the coming lecture better than if you listened to it cold. Psychologists have proved it.

Tape Recording and Recopying.

• Should you use a tape-recorder? Not usually necessary, but some people find it helpful. Some people play tapes while driving. If you tape classes, you will still find lecture notes useful. With a set of notes you can reread the main ideas of an entire lecture in 3 to 5 minutes. Without notes, you need to listen an hour to get the same information.
• Will it help if you recopy or retype your notes? It can help when you use a computer and rearrange notes to highlight concepts, examples, principles. On the other hand, recopying notes does take a lot of time, and you may choose to study your original notes. Try to take reasonably neat notes the first time.

(Dan Hodges. 7/07)

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