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How to Take Effective Notes

Provides descriptions of approaches to note-taking and interacting with texts

Contact Your Librarian

Contact Your Librarian

Photograph of Trish Pearson

Trish Pearson

she/her/hers

tpearson@uwcchina.org

Benefits of Note-Taking

Note-taking is a not only essential skill set for academic success, but also will be important for you in other areas of your life. Good notes help you by

  • increasing your concentration and engagement
  • encouraging active listening
  • increasing learning
  • increasing memory storage

Note-Taking PPT

From DP1 Cohort Meeting

 

Whats's in this guide?

What's in this Guide?

In this guide, you'll find helpful hints for how to determine if a scholarly article is likely to be helpful for your research. The goal is to save your time when finding articles.

General Advice for Excellent Note-Taking

  • Write down the date and any other details at the top of the page
  • Use the margins effectively.
  • Leave space in your notes to revise, add, and edit
  • Use abbreviations
  • DON'T just write what's on the slide!
    • you'll usually get the slides anyway
    • what else is important?
  • If your teacher keeps repeating it, write it down!
  • If it's in the reading and the lecture, it's prob v imprtnt
  • Include things in bold, italics, and highlighted 

TLDR

TL/DR

This video addresses the benefits of note-taking, a few styles, and whether digital or paper note-taking is better.

The next video covers 2 important areas of note-taking. For the first 5 minutes, he covers research and recommendations on paper vs digital note taking. At around the 5:50 mark, he covers methods and process of note-taking AND how to use notes to study effectively. Big focus on active learning and engagement with the material.