Learning Skills: Note-taking

Why take notes?

It’s important to take notes in class, or when reading a textbook or online content.

Taking notes increases your concentration, understanding and attention to detail and helps you to organize your thoughts.

Tips for Note Taking

Summarise

• Don't try to write everything that you hear or read. Write what you think are important key points.
• Use your own words - paraphrase the key points.
• Make note of anything that doesn't make sense. You can come back to it later.

Structure

• Organize your notes. Use headings, subheadings, dot points and colours to distinguish different topics and major/minor points.
• Diagrams can be used to represent connected topics and ideas.
• Abbreviations and symbols can make note-taking easier.
• Your notes are just for you, so use the tools that you find easy.
• Your notes don't need to be works of art, but they should be neat enough to be easily read in the future.

Review

• At the end of the class or day, review what you wrote down. This will help you remember the topic.
• At the end of the class or day, the information should still be fresh in your mind. You can add any additional notes that you think will be useful.