An essay on note-taking

Taking notes while teachers are lecturing is very beneficial to students in number of

ways. One of which is to remember and it will save students time relying on the memory later

one. You can be an amazing listener, but unless you have a good note taker, it would be hard

for you to remember what the teacher said in the previous lectures. For the notes to beneficial,

they should be well structured and you can go to them over and over so that they are still fresh

the days prior to the exam. This essay will be showing and explaining some of the strategies

that students should know while they tend to take notes.

Reviewing and pre-reviewing are the two main steps students should do before they step

to the next class. It is very beneficial to students to students to review the notes taken

previously about the previous lecture and this helps to link between what’s this coming to the

preceding notes. This process does not take much time and it would be great around ten

minutes prior to the lesson precisely as the ideas will remain fresh in the students’ mind. Also,

it would be great if you pre-review the text book before you get into the class in the sense that it

helps you be acquainted with the main notions and concepts and this, in turn, will make it easy

to follow with the teachers while explaining. Moreover, usually, it happens that most students

feel hesitated whether to jot down some notes or not; this happens when they don’t know if the

information is of importance or not. In this case, the best way is to take those notes when you

are in doubt. The reason is that it is better to write too much than not enough.

Other tips are to know how to go on a diet and to know your instructor. Firstly, to go on a

diet means to effectively use abbreviations although a lot of students do not like to use

abbreviation on the ground that they may not understand them when to it comes to reviewing

process. That is why abbreviation should be exploited effectively. How? In every lecture, there

are some words which are repetitive and should be abbreviated to save time especially when

the instructor talks fast. In the meantime, unimportant words should be left out. Along with the

abbreviation strategy, knowing your instructor is of much importance as well. This is because

each lecturer has his/her own teaching style. The best way to do that is to see your teacher as

soon as the lecture comes to an end. You show him/her your notes, telling him/her if your notes

are enough to understand the whole lecture or not. If he teacher says ok, that’s fine; if not, you

can ask where the problem is and what notes are missing and should be taken. While doing this,

you know your teacher’s teaching style. For example, it may appear to you that examples are

not necessary to jot down, but for the teacher, they are of much interest.

Finally, for the students to be good note-takers, they should be equipped with more than

one strategy mainly as one technique may not work equally all lectures and lecturers, too. Of

the methods you have, there must be the favorite one. There are two good strategies to take

notes. Number has to do with the why you deal with the paper you use to take notes. Ahead of

time, you take a sheet of paper and divide it into three main parts; much room should be left for

the main ideas and another space usually at the margin for the key concept while the last part

usually at the bottom is given to summary of the lecture. This method does not work equally

with all teachers. When you are in the class, you just need to pick up the main ideas swiftly and

some details that explain it. When the teacher steps out, you take that sheep of paper and

summaries the whole notes you took during the class. This is necessary as it helps stick the

ideas into your mind and easy to remember later on. Another strategy has to with typing and or

rewriting them. It is so advantageous that while trying to type or write them in a proper way,

the learning process takes place and this is the best way to revise them. Finally, as to revision

process of these notes, students should revise them interactively. How? You take a blank sheet

of paper and put on the paper to hide the main ideas and test yourself to what extent you can

remember all the notes. Instead of staring at the notes, it is good to revise them interactively.

To put it in a nutshell, students may attend lectures on a regular basis; they may

understand the lecture properly; they may show active participation in the class, but unless they

take notes and they are good at doing that, they are more likely to miss the whole point of the

lecture and the purpose for which they are at college- to do well at exams and attain good

grades. Thus, students should be more kitted out with enough strategies to be good note-takers.