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One thing that I’ve noticed about many students is that they have no idea how to take effective notes. It’s not their fault because it’s not like schools have room for classes specifically designed to teach students how to write notes. They expect kids to just know how to do it (even though most teachers’ PowerPoints are less than organized) and leave them with no idea of how to write notes that will benefit them later.

https://weheartit.com/entry/325386962

So, we just have a bunch of students writing down information they will never remember, care for, or look at again, and they do absolutely nothing for studying.

The only way to rectify the situation is to tell you how I write my notes and hope that the techniques I use will help you write better notes (otherwise, what am I even doing this for?).

At the end of this post, there is a lovely little graphic I made that will illustrate each of the points as eloquently as possible.

1. Include a Title and a Date

I know this seems elementary, but it is VITAL to have a title and a date. If you don’t have a title, your notes all just fall into one big blob of words that could or could not be related (who knows?). If you have to go back to double-check information, it could take seventeen years just to read through your notes and find the one page you need. A title summarizes the content in a few words, which helps when you’re navigating through a stack of paper taller than yourself. As for a date, it helps you organize your notes better. If you prefer to organize your notes from oldest to newest, all you’d have to do is check the date and file it exactly where it needs to be.

Simple enough. I hope.

2. Use Headers

I cannot express to you how important headers are. Let me explain their importance through a scenario: you’ve got three whole pages of notes about, I don’t know, calculus (bleh). There are dozens of example equations that serve to explain different purposes and techniques. But, none of them are labeled. It’s just a jumble of equations, and you have to play a stressful game to figure out which equation explains which technique.

All your troubles could have been saved if you had just put some headers up. Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.

(I’m not done, though, so please keep reading.)

3. Use Color!

This is where note-taking gets fun (I know I sound like a nerd). COLOR is what makes your headers and important ideas POP (which is a point I will specifically address next). All it takes is a quick swipe of a highlighter or a pen with ink other than black to make everything a little more friendly to your brain when you’re re-reading later. Having one big blob of black ink on the page with every sentence running into another isn’t pleasing to the eye, but adding a pop of blue or pink could brighten up your paper.

Even if you don’t have time to use color during the time you’re taking notes, take a few minutes after you’re done to highlight and mark important ideas. You’ll thank me later.

4. Mark Important Ideas

IF YOU DO NOT DO THIS, I WILL HAVE A MENTAL BREAKDOWN. I cannot stress enough how important this is. Any main idea or vocabulary word (no matter how well you think you know it) needs to be highlighted, written in a different color, capitalized, or set apart in one way or another. These are the ideas that the teacher will repeat over and over and over again. There is a reason they repeat it a million times (usually) and you need to remember it. The best way to do this is to make it a focal point in your notes.

Here are some ways you can mark important ideas:

Highlight

If you want to go an extra step, use different highlighter colors for different things: vocabulary is yellow, important people are green, important places are pink, main ideas are blue, etc.

Write it in a different color

CAPITALIZE IT (make it seem like you’re shouting it out into the void)

[Use brackets], -> arrows <-, *stars*, or other accessories to point it out.

Put a box or other shape around it to set it apart from other information.

Layer colors to make it pop.

You could even come up with your own way to draw attention to main ideas. Be as creative as you want!

5. Organize It

Organization is key when taking notes. Everything that is related needs to be grouped together under a heading or some sort of indicator of their relation.

And I BEG OF YOU to not write your notes like they’re an essay. Please. That is all I ask of you. Each point made needs to have its own line, and the easiest way to do this is to use bullet points. You could always get more creative in how you arrange your notes, but bullet points are a student’s best friend. Throw a bullet point in front of a note, and guess what? Your notes are already 50% more organized.

If you’re feeling spicy, you can always change the look of your bullet point: •, », →, ⇒, ♦, ◊, ~, *, etc. You could even draw a little dinosaur as a bullet point, and that is perfectly okay.

I’m not sure how productive it would be, but you could definitely do that.

Here are a couple photos I found from Pinterest that give just a few handwritten bullet point examples you can incorporate into your notes:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/301881981265218801/?lp=true

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/383931936968668751/?nic=1

6. Relate Difficult Ideas to Familiar Ideas

This may be a little confusing or weird to explain, but this is one of my most sacred note-taking tips, and I have to share it with the world. Remembering everything you are taught is really, really hard. Impossible, even. Especially when you just cannot grasp the examples a teacher is giving.

As crazy as it sounds, make up your own examples, and relate hard-to-remember topics to pop culture, sports, or other things that you enjoy. You’re going to have to put some brainpower into this, so if you are one of those students who do the bare minimum, you’re probably going to skip over this point (please don’t, though).

For me, I listen to a lot of music and pay attention to the celebrity world far more than I should. However, since I know a lot about those topics, I will make jokes and reference those things when I’m taking notes. I’ll even throw in some memes for good measure to drive a point home.

Make jokes, reference your favorite song, relate a historical figure to Taylor Swift, put in some memes, make harmless fun, and call it day.

7. Use Shorthand

Now, I know there are guides online that show a long list of words to shorten, but I feel like those words are always weird ones to shorten, and their abbreviations make absolutely no sense. I once saw someone shorten “book” to “bk.” Like what? That’s two letters less, friend. You’re not helping much.

Anyway, in today’s age, we have adapted our own little version of shorthand, and I’m pretty sure everyone has used it at some point: text abbreviations. Like, omg, I’m totally LOLing rn. I’m sure you have your own favorite abbreviations that could work just as well in your notes.

Also, if there’s a name you just keep repeating, and it’s a long, annoying name to write out, give him/her a nickname. Learning about George Washington? Call him G. Wash. Reading Romeo & Juliet? Call them Dumb and Dumber. Easy Peasy.

Another tip: leave out articles like ‘a,’ ‘an,’ and ‘the’ when writing. It’s a small change, but it could make a big difference. Also, use symbols like & and # to shorten long words. There’s an endless array of possibilities.

Just do whatever feels natural. Don’t force yourself to shorten words, then come back later and not know what in the world “bk” means (does it mean “bacon king?”).

8. Have Fun!

This sounds dumb to those of you who hate note-taking, but anything can be made fun if you put your mind to it. I have the best time writing notes because it brings out my creativity and forces me to think of ways I could remember the information.

If you’re super creative and artistic, turn your notes into a piece of artwork. Find new lettering techniques to create variety among headers. Doodle relevant cartoons in the corner. Think of interesting and unique ways to remember information (I once remembered the name of a river in New York because of Wizards of Waverly Place, if that tells you anything.)

Just don’t think of notes as a world-ending, death-inducing practice that was created to torture young minds. Think outside of the box and make it fun for yourself.

Bonus Tips

Remember that all these tips can be applied to typed-out notes as well. Especially typed notes. If anything, these tips work phenomenally well in Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and anything other word processing machine because all the colors, highlighters, fonts, and font sizes are right there for you to use. Not to mention, you can actually paste those memes into your document (which actually help if you find the right ones).

Also, if you’re as big of a nerd as me or have a bunch of free time, don’t completely void the idea of rewriting your notes. I know. I’m the crazy lady telling you to rewrite your notes like it’s fun. But just try it. During class, a teacher could be going far too fast for you to keep up and make everything as organized as you want it. If you’ve got the time, rewriting notes and organizing them better is actually very helpful. Not only does it make your notes more readable, but rewriting them is also a studying method. Writing notes has been proven to improve memory, so if you’re struggling to study for a test, rewrite your notes.

Look, I know I sound insane, but if it works, it works.

Or I’m just a nerd. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, I hope this helped! Below is an example of my own notes from when I read The Scarlet Letter in English class. I rewrote them after class, and I have marked how I incorporated each point into them. There are also some side notes beside it to explain a couple other things I did.

Example:

Header: For the header, I wrote down the chapter title and number because I didn’t know which one my teacher was going to refer to it by later.

Shorthand: I was tired of writing ‘Dimmesdale’ out every time, so I nicknamed him Dimmy. You can also see later that I refer to ‘Chillingworth’ as CW. I’m pretty sure I also referred to him as ‘Chili Fries’ later.

Bullet Points: When I indented again, I used a different bullet point to differentiate between the main idea and its smaller points.

***************************

Post-Its: This is kind of an add-on to organization because if you don’t have enough room on your paper or forgot to add something, post-it notes are your best friend. While they are attached to the paper, they can also be lifted or moved.

Make Jokes: I called the Puritan kids urchins, and next to it, you can see I included a little comment that says, “What a legend.” Those little side-notes can also be used to add in an idea that should probably be remembered but doesn’t quite fit the bullet’s main idea.

Final Thoughts

If you are still struggling to visualize exactly what you want to do, I’ll leave a link to my Pinterest board on School Tips, which is full of more ideas and techniques that other Pinners have created. Just in general, Pinterest is an amazing place to find note-taking hacks and ideas.

Good luck, and enjoy the beautiful gif/meme below. 😀

-The Awkward Unicorn

When you realize note-taking doesn’t have to be torture.

https://tenor.com/search/jungshook-gifs

Note-Taking Tips One thing that I’ve noticed about many students is that they have no idea how to take effective notes.

#Notes #Tips

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