For all of my school years, taking notes has been a terrible activity that arose on occasion. In preparation for high school, I logged online to the Khan Academy website to broaden my knowledge of ancient history. I was surprised to find taking notes an enjoyable activity.
Note Taking Process
In the Khan Academy resource, there are videos and articles that give you the information you are looking for. While taking notes on a video, I usually start by skimming the transcript to know what I should be looking out for in the video. Otherwise, I put on music and note the things that the video narrator is saying.
- Write your heading in pencil. I use the title of the video, though if when I finish my notes there is a more fitting title, I change it. (If the title has a basic subject like Paleolithic Innovation, I write the definition of said subject underneath the heading.)
- Start with your first bullet point. Take notes on some of the important things the narrator is saying/what the article has written and what will benefit you to know. If there are any images/drawings, try to draw them if possible or relevant. It’s good to write a little blurb around them if you want to.
- Add bullet points for different subjects and keep editing and adding onto the earlier ideas that you have. You can add little things to remember on the side of your paper- this makes the notes look fuller and they are easier to understand and read through.
- Go over everything with highlighter! Make the more important subjects in your notes highlighted, as well as any other things you want to remember. I usually rewrite the title in pen to make it more prominent, though the rest of the article I write in pencil. Getting some nice colored highlighters is vital to having a legible note page. Make sure they don’t bleed through!
Benefits of Note Taking
Note taking, besides having easy access to information that you can carry, has many benefits. For one thing, writing things down helps you to better remember subjects. It engages your mind in the complex topics that you study and makes it easier to organize information in your mind. This strategy is also used for later years in life, when listening to lectures from, perhaps, collage/university professors. As mentioned in the video, having a small preview of these lectures before in the lecture allows you to know what is important to write down. Sometimes, taking notes allows you to reinforce ideas that you are struggling with, helping you to excel in school and work environments.
Additional Information
Taking notes sometimes includes recording images down into your journal. I usually use a bullet journal instead of the standard lined paper because the bullet journal gives you a guideline for where to write as well as an easy space to draw pictures. I also recommend using a darker, erasable pen, as sometimes pencils have difficulty with sustainability and pen ink is more prominent. All of my images I draw in pencil first, going back and tracing them over with a pen. Having a relaxing environment to take notes is also good to help you to remain focused. There are many internet information sites online so making sure that the resources you use are reliable is very important. Duolingo, Memrise, and Khan Academy are the main sites that I recommend and learning how to make different fonts makes your notes all the more interesting. Otherwise, happy note taking!
RELATED STORIES:
https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/effective-note-taking-in-class/
https://www.goodnotes.com/blog/note-taking-methods
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