Methods of Taking Notes for College

Adult and Continuing Education

Getting good grades begins with taking good notes. How you take notes for your class can depend on your style of learning and the way your teacher organizes the lectures. Al Seibert, Ph.D. and Mary Siebert M.S. writing in their book Adult Student’s Guide to Survival and Success suggest three different ways you can take notes:

Outline Format: Outlines work well for lectures or talks where the instructor is organized and presents ideas in a logical order. Outlines begin with a main topic and major points are given similar heading (A, B, C, etc.). The advantage of this method is that points can continue to be broken down in to more minor points. The disadvantages are you can not use this method if the teacher doesn’t lecture in an organized manner and you may be so busy thinking about where to place a point, you may miss part of the lecture.

Summary Method: Works well for auditory learners. You listen for several minutes and then write a short paragraph summarizing the main points. This method is useful when your teacher uses long examples or stories, or is disorganized. You need to be able to write your paragraph though without losing track of the next topic begin discussed. Disadvantage to this method is that is does not work well if you have a lot of facts to write down.

Mapping – Mapping is a highly visual method and works well for visual learners. Mapping begins with a clean sheet of paper. Each main idea is placed near the center of the paper it is presented. (Most lectures will only have three or four main ideas). The main idea sits in the center of the paper with a circle around it. Significant details are placed on a line that branches off from the circle. Minor details branch from the significant details. Looks a bit like a giant spider in the end. The advantages to this method are that it is brief, flexible, and fits either organized or disorganized lectures.

If you want more information about how to succeed in college see our post on How to be Successful in College at our site Fasthowto.com

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This entry was posted on June 23, 2009 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.