I ran into a situation a few days ago that made me wonder. A gentleman told me he had never been taught how to take notes on his reading. This is a well educated man who made his own note taking system which depended heavily on highlighting. That simply doesn’t work efficiently enough. After the break, how to take notes on your reading.
Highlighting doesn’t work because you really are not absorbing the material when you read. You are just prepping the book for the study session later. We want to have this material internalized so we don’t have to do a lot of studying before the exam. Internalization of the material can be accomplished in several ways, repetition, phrase the material in our own words, and the assembly of the notes into units.
When we take notes on our reading we are doing several things. We are reading the material. We are writing what we think is important on a sheet of paper, or in a computer note system. That writing part is a type of repetition which helps us to internalize. So, the point here is that you should write the notes in your own words. Which adds another layer of internalization.
I can hear the next question. But how to I take notes? You have already been given instruction on that, but you did not realize it. Remember in English class the module the Teacher taught about outlining? Remember that the teacher wanted you to outline the material “in your own words?” She was helping you to learn how to take notes for most classes. Outlining is a form of note taking and one that actually works quite well. Outline the chapters, and you have a very good basis for study.
The first pass is to give the outline it’s shape. I outline entire chapters in my notes. Then I add to the notes such detail as I think might be important, both to me and to the exam I might be taking. If this reading is being done in conjunction with a class, then the second pass is any material the instructor adds that is not in the book.
My third pass is the clean up of the notes. Basically you should have a set of notes, written in your own words, that you could use to deliver the class your self. After having gone through this with at a minimum of three passes you should “know” this material.
A lot of older students loose this skill, so I recommend going through these steps to take noted on your reading.
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