Preparing to take good notes in class

The first step to taking good notes in class is to come to class prepared. Here are some steps you can take to improve your note-taking before class even begins:

• Preview your text or reading assignments before the lecture. Previewing allows you to identify the main ideas and concepts that will most likely be discussed during the lecture.
• Look at your course syllabus so that you know the topic / focus of the class and what’s going to be important to focus on.
• Briefly review notes from previous class sessions to help you situate the new ideas you’ll learn in this class.
• Keep organized to help you find information more easily later. Title your page with the class name and date. Keep separate notebook sections or notebooks for each class and keep all notes for each class together in one space, in chronological order.

Note-taking during class

Now that you are prepared and organized, what can you do to take good notes while listening to a lecture in class? Here are some practical steps you can try to improve your in-class note-taking:

• If you are seeking conceptual information, focus on the main points the professor makes, rather than copying down the entire presentation or every word the professor says. Remember, if you review your notes after class, you can always fill in any gaps or define words or concepts you didn’t catch in class.
• If you are learning factual information, transcribing most of the lecture verbatim can help with recall for short-answer test questions, but only if you study these notes within 24 hours.
• Record questions and thoughts you have or content that is confusing to you that you want to follow up on later or ask your professor about.
• Jot down keywords, dates, names, etc. that you can then go back and define or explain later.
• Take visually clear, concise, organized and structured notes so that they are easy to read and make sense to you later. See different formats of notes below for ideas.
• If you want your notes to be concise and brief, use abbreviations and symbols. Write in bullets and phrases instead of complete sentences. This will help your mind and hand to stay fresh during class and will help you access things easier and quicker after class. It will also help you focus on the main concepts.
• Be consistent with your structure. Pick a format that works for you and stick with it so that your notes are structured the same way each day.
• For online lectures, follow the above steps to help you effectively manage your study time. Once you’ve watched the lecture in its entirety, use the rewind feature to plug in any major gaps in your notes. Take notes of the timestamps of any parts of the lecture you want to revisit later.

Determining what’s important enough to write down

You may be asking yourself how you can identify the main points of a lecture. Here are some tips for recognizing the most important points in a lecture:

• Introductory remarks often include summaries of overviews of main points.
• Listen for signal words / phrases like, “There are four main…” or “To sum up…” or “A major reason why…”
• Repeated words or concepts are often important.
• Non-verbal cues like pointing, gestures, or a vocal emphasis on certain words, etc. can indicate important points.
• Final remarks often provide a summary of the important points of the lecture.
• Consider watching online lectures in real-time. Watching the lecture for the first time without pausing or rewinding can help force you to focus on what’s important enough to write down.

Preference

https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/effective-note-taking-in-class/