First-year college students sometimes get a rude awakening when they discover college is far different than high school. While they may have excelled in high school, they find that it takes much more effort to be successful in college.
One way to ensure that you will have a successful experience in college is to learn to take effective notes in class. Here are 6 tips on how to take notes.
- Use a pencil. Then, you can easily make changes without creating messy, confusing notes.
- Develop your personalized shorthand for taking notes. This will help you increase your note taking speed.
- Don’t write down every single word. Write down main points and sub points. And especially don’t write down every word in a PowerPoint presentation. You’ll be so focused on capturing all of the words that you’ll forget to listen.
- If your professor defines a word or terminology, write down the definition.
- If your professor indicates that something is important, put a star by the information. This will help you find important information when you review your notes at a later time.
- Create graphic organizers whenever possible. These are visual representations of the information covered. It shows how concepts are related and organizes knowledge and ideas.
There are several things that you can do after class to solidify your notes in your memory.
- Review your notes. Determine what the main points of the lecture were .
- Write a short summary of your notes.
- Mark items that are unclear. Ask your professor for further clarification or review the material in the textbook.
- Just before class, review the previous class notes. This will refresh your memory on the material that was covered.
- Reflect and review your notes every week. This keeps the material fresh in your mind and helps eliminate the need to cram for tests.
- Using 3 x 5 inch index cards, create study notes of the main topics and information from the lectures.