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Optimize your note-taking skills and minimize pre-exam panic with these handy tips on how to take better notes! Never miss a word of your lectures ever again:
Handwritten is best
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Many students have gone digital, but some studies suggest that writing your notes out by hand, is, in fact, better for your memory. Due to haptics- or your sense of touch- writing out your notes makes it easier to remember them. This is because using as many senses as possible- including touch, since each letter is formed differently when writing- ensures that more memory traces are created in the brain of the content. This means that retrieving material becomes easier while studying… in other words, pre-exam cramming becomes a lot less stressful!
Use red and blue
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That’s right- it’s been scientifically proven. The color red improves accuracy, while the color blue improves creativity. Using these colors during note-taking has also been shown to lead to higher test scores. So next time, ditch your pencils and old black pens. Opt, instead, for blue or red ink. You won’t regret it!
Limit your colors
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… but make sure not to overdo it. While it’s always great to use highlighters and go the extra mile to make your notes look extra pretty, remember that sensory overload- i.e, too many colors- can also detract from focusing on your notes. You want to make sure that you’re focusing on the content of your notes while you’re studying, rather than how aesthetic they appear. Besides, spending too much time on aestheticizing your notes might mean you’ve missed important bits of information.
Use binders
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Binders are better than notebooks because you only need one for all your classes. Seriously. You just need a divider in between your notes for different courses. What’s more, if you forget to add any information, you can always slot it in later- or easily remove notes for accessible studying. Also, your notes are less likely to get lost if you keep them all in the same place.
Come up with your own system of writing
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By this, we don’t mean that you should invent a wholly new language that only you can speak. We simply mean that you should come up with a shorthand system that works for you. Writing “eg.” instead of “example”, for example, can save you two whole seconds while note-taking- which means that you’ll have more time for jotting down that crucial piece of the lesson your teacher rushed through!
Mark what seems unfamiliar
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This way you don’t have to go through all your notes when reviewing- only things you didn’t already know. This particularly helps students who are tempted to take down every word their professors say. (Which, incidentally, is a trap you should avoid falling into while taking notes.)
The Cornell Note-Taking method
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To get into the specifics of the method, we recommend actually reading up on it, but this is essentially a method of notetaking which is used post-lectures to help memorize facts for exams. There are columns for recording information (i.e- taking notes during class), and also columns for writing down relational questions in order to grasp the material recorded. There are also templates for this method available online!
Record your lectures
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If you’re a slow writer and there’s just nothing you can seem to do about it, then you might want to consider recording lectures. This does not, however, mean that you stop taking notes or paying attention in class. It means that you take briefer notes, noting down the corresponding time on your recording device next to each important piece of information so you don’t need to listen to the entire recording again while studying.
