Students too often undervalue their own work. The effort put into
taking
notes on books and lectures, into writing essays and drafting exam answers,
is
effort well spent. You should conserve it by organising and keeping your
work so that you can refer back to it and develop it.
The easiest record system for most students
will probably be a
combination of A4 notebooks and
computer
files.
A4 loose leaf note books. You might have one
book that is for
current work, that you take into college, and other books that you keep at
home for filing material by subject.
Computer files arranged in a
directory tree
structure. You can keep
this on a computer
hard disk
, with a copy on a
floppy disk.
Decide how to organise your written material.
You will need somewhere to keep:
-
lecture
notes
- notes written in groups
- handouts
-
notes based on books
- notes preparing for essays
- essays
- draft exam answers, and
- other material.
It may seem sensible to file your material by the course it comes from.
The disadvantage of this is that it does not encourage the maximum use of
your material. When you have finished a course the material is not finished
with. You may
well want to refer back to it in later courses or after you have left
college. To help you do this:
Consider arranging your filing system alphabetically by subject: Freud,
Kant, Wollstonecraft, Feminist theories, Adam Smith, Town Planning - etc.
Think about how you will cross-reference: You could crossreference by
notes in a margin, you could use a card index to cross-reference or you
could make a cross referencing system on a computer file<.
Using Notes:
Before you take notes it is as well to think about how you intend to
use them.
You may use them:
To consolidate your learning: What you
hear or read only once, you are
not very likely to remember. Taking notes, reading them through, and
rewriting them where this is helpful, will help you to take possession of
the knowledge you have gained.
To create a database: You can use your
notes as a source of information
for your
computer database
or a card
index. A computer database is like a
card index that does not run out of space on its electronic cards.
To prepare essays: You will want to
refer to your notes when writing
essays. When you do, it will be important that your notes are referenced,
so that you know which parts are quotes (and where from) and what the
various notes are based on.
To revise for exams: You will use your
notes to revise before exams.
For this you may want to write out a new set of notes that lists the main
points you want to remember in a succinct and memorable way.
To prepare reports: Writing a
Report
on an experiment, empirical research, a
field trip, or something that you have designed, will require a variety of
different types of notes.
Note Form
The form you take notes in will vary with circumstances. Two useful forms
are bullet points and Spidergrams.
Bullet Points
Bullet points are:
-
separate points
-
not necessarily numbered
-
headings rather than sentences
You will develop a variety of different note forms, to meet different
needs. Note forms analyse (break down) the continuous prose of speech and
writing into parts. This can make it easier to make the record and to
retrieve it. It can also make it easier for the reader to see the structure
of what is being said, and get the main points.
You will use note forms for taking down key points in a
lecture. But you will also use them to analyse a situation. You may, for
example, work
out what different writers are saying about some issues by listing the
issues under each writer's name, with a note for each issue giving the
writer's opinion.
Essays, and other forms of academic writing, are not written as notes. They
are written as continuous prose, with
sentences
arranged in
paragraphs.
It
is valuable to practice converting continuous prose into notes, and notes
into continuous prose. You will also gain from thinking about the
advantages of each.
Study
links outside this site
Andrew Roberts' web Study Guide
Picture introduction to this site
Top of
Page
Take a Break - Read a Poem
Click coloured words to go where you want
Andrew Roberts likes to hear from users: To contact him, please
use the Communication
Form
© Andrew Roberts
|
Index
Lecture
Notes
Mind Maps
Note Form
Organise notes
Spidergrams
Use notes
Value notes
|