by Judi Kesselman-Turkel and Franklynn Peterson
Everyone knows it's important to take notes in class. So students all take notes. But few students know what notes to take or how to use the notes in studying.
Educators spent many years researching how to take notes. Why not start now to use the note-taking system experts recommend? It's guaranteed to raise your grades by at least several points.
Start with a looseleaf notebook, or several if you like one for each course. Spiral-bound notebooks may seem classy, but you'll soon see why they're too limiting.
Use 8 1/2- by 11-inch looseleaf paper (or 8 by 10 if that's all you can find). Write on just one side. This may seem wasteful, but it's one time when you shouldn't economize.
Leave room for a topic heading on each page. In fact, since this heading is very important, write "Topic:" on the top line of each page right now. Then fill it in each time you start a new page.
Now, before school starts, take the time to draw rules making three columns on several pages for each subject. (By a few weeks into the semester, you won't need to draw actual lines to separate the columns. You'll be able to imagine them there.) Here's how to do the drawing:
Use the 2-3-3-2 technique if the course is one in which reading and class work are closely related, such as history and science. Make three columns going just three-fourths of the way down each page.
The first one on the left should be two inches wide. This is for "recall clues," which we'll explain.
The middle one is three inches wide, for lecture and class notes.
The right-hand column, also three inches wide, is for related textbook and other home reading-assignment notes.
The two-inch space across the bottom of the page is for writing brilliant observations and conclusions in class or at home.
Start a new page each time a teacher starts a new topic.
Use the 2-5-1 technique if it's a course where the lectures and the readings are not closely related. The technique is the same except that you'll use separate pages for class notes and reading notes. (Be sure to mark what's reading and what's class notes.)
You've probably figured out that, here, you rule a column two inches wide at the left for "recall clues," five inches in the middle for notes, and an inch at the right for your deductions and other asides.
Skipping the left-hand section of each page, you'll write your regular notes in the other one or two columns. For now, take them just as you've been taking them all through school. (For more help, see Chapter 4 in Note-Taking Made Easy, which also offers many tips for knowing what belongs in your notes and what doesn't.)
The column on the left, for "recall clues," is the big gold key to higher marks. Here's how to use it.
As soon as you can after you've written your notes in the other column or columns -- whether class notes or homework notes -- take a minute or two to read them over. Don't study them. Just read them.
While it's all still fresh, make sure you haven't left out anything important or put down anything incorrectly. Make your changes now.
Next, in the empty left-hand column, set down clue words to the topics in your notes. These clue words should not repeat any of the information in the other column or columns. They should just label what kind of information is in those particular paragraphs.
If you've ever made crib sheets, you'll know how to write good clue words. For example, to remember what we said so far about note-taking, you need just the following clues: looseleaf, one side, class-home 2-3-3-2, class or home 2-5-1.
Pick clue words carefully. They will become your memorizing tools. You'll use them later on when you're actually studying, to trigger your memory of what's in your notes.
Dr. Robert A. Palmatier, who was for many years a reading educator at the University of Georgia, recommended this note-taking method for students. Here's how to use it to study for tests.
First, make sure you've filled in all the clue words along the left-hand column. Then take out your looseleaf pages and shift them around into the order that makes the most sense for studying.
Now begin with the top page. Cover up the notes portion, leaving just the clues visible. See if you can remember the notes that go with the clues. Check yourself and go on to the next page. Keep coming back to the clue words you were shaky on. As you get a whole page right, set it aside.
Once you've gone through all the pages you're expected to know for the test, here's how to prepare for a short-answer test. Shuffle up your note pages so they're out of order. (That's why it's important to use just one side of the paper.) Dr. Palmatier says that since you're going to have to remember information out of logical sequence, this is how to be sure you can do it. Then try to recall the notes from random clue words.
For an essay test, he says, you can usually be safe in assuming that "those areas on which the most notes are taken will most often be the areas on which essay questions will be based." So pinpoint those sections and get so you can remember all the facts or pointers from just the clue words. (You may want to memorize dates, names and such.)
Here's why this "recall clue" note-taking method works. It makes you do the one thing most proven to help you remember: It makes you think about your notes and make logical sense of them in your mind.
Taking tests is a skill all by itself. Some students pick up the tricks as they move through school. Other students always struggle with tests and get lower marks simply because they haven't become "test-wise." Our next article in this series will reveal specific tricks you can use to become test-wise.
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Most of the preceding tips were excerpted from the book Note-Taking Made Easy by Judi Kesselman-Turkel and Franklynn Peterson, which is used in schools and colleges through the U.S. and Europe. Published by the University of Wisconsin Press, it is sold through bookstores at $6.95. It is part of an eight-book series that includes Test-Taking Strategies, Secrets to Writing Great Papers, Research Shortcuts, Spelling Simplified, The Grammar Crammer, The Vocabulary Builder and Study Smarts.