How to take notes in lectures

Taking notes is an art, and the following suggestions are not intended to be fixed rules.

Don't try to take down every word

It is not normally possible to take down every word, and in any case that is not the point of a lecture. Listen to what is being said, and try to think about the meaning rather than the words. When the lecturer has finished a point, write down a summary in your own words of the main point.

Use abbreviations

Unless you can write unusually quickly, you will need to use abbreviations for long words and common words. Develop your own abbreviations. Long words should be abbreviated if they occur more than once or twice. For example, the word "government" occurs a lot in political history. You could write "govt" in your notes. Some short words are so common that it may be worth using abbreviations; for example "from" is extremely common. You might decide to use "f." It is not necessarily a good idea to work out a lot of abbreviations in advance, as you may forget them: many people find that they naturally develop their own abbreviations as they go along. If you find yourself writing a word repeatedly, then think about abbreviating it.

Some people find mathematical or other symbols useful, such as the mathematical "therefore" and "because" symbols. There are also some traditional abbreviations, often from Latin, such as "cf" (compare) which you may find useful. These are often used in printed books so it is worth knowing the more common ones. (See The Allyn and Bacon Handbook p. 530 &ff.)

Some abbreviations may be used for particular lectures. For example, suppose a lecturer begins a lecture about Tshekedi Khama and the BaNgwato. For this lecture, it will be useful to have abbreviations for "Tshekedi Khama" and "BaNgwato" even if you do not normally abbreviate these. "BaNgwato", however, is a little tricky to abbreviate because the first six letters are the same as for BaNgwaketse. Perhaps you could use "B'to", or you may decide to leave it unabbreviated.

Example:

Lecturer: "Tshekedi Khama became Regent of the BaNgwato in 1925, at the age of 25. He was the uncle of the actual heir, Seretse Khama, who was at that time only 4 years old and could not succeed to bogosi for many years yet. Tshekedi remained Regent until 1949, and remained an influential figure until his death in 1959."

The inexperienced note-taker attempts to write down all this as it is being said. The good note-taker listens point by point, and writes down abbreviated notes, thus:

With brief notes like this, it is advisable to leave some space between items. This makes the notes easier to read and allows you to add headings or comments later. Notes taken in this abbreviated style do not necessarily take up much less space than notes written out in full.

Compare:

(1) Notes taken as dictation:

(2) Notes taken abbreviated form, but without adequate space:

This is not easy to refer to.

(3) Notes taken in abbreviated form, with proper spacing:

This is clear and easy to refer to. The points have been separated so that you can find them quickly.

The point of a lecture is different from that of a dictation session. When you take dictation, the words pass directly from the speaker to your pen, and you are thinking about copying the words. However, in a lecture, you hear what the speaker says, take in the idea, and write down your own note about the idea. You should be thinking about the idea.

Dictation:

             (copied) 

Speaker's words----> written notes

Lecture:

           (listened to)          (summarized)

Speaker's words----> idea understood----> written notes

The act of listening to a lecture and taking notes is important part of the learning process. If you had just been given the notes, already written, they would be far less valuable. In writing your own summary, you are fixing ideas in your mind and beginning to "digest" them.

Note, incidentally, how a diagram was used to express the last point. You can sometimes do this in your lecture notes. For example, you could indicate a chain of causes by arrows:

Lecturer says:

Student writes:

Headings

Headings are very useful because they group points and make the relations between them clearer. Sometimes it will be easy to see, as you are taking notes, that a heading should be put in. For example:

Sometimes, however, the lecturer may not make the structure so explicit. After a lecture, you should go over your notes, making sure that you understand them, and at this point it may be helpful to add a few headings.

Cross-references

You may also want to add references. Suppose that after a lecture you find useful material in a book about something discussed in the lecture. You could add, in the notes, a cross-reference to this material.

Example:

This would remind you, when you were revising the notes at a later date, to look up this reference (either the book itself, or, preferably, notes already taken from the book) for more details.

Your own comments

Sometimes (either during a lecture or when you are looking at your notes) you may have an idea of your own. It is useful to have some convention for distinguishing these comments from the lecture itself. (For example, you could write "{Self-....}" to indicate that a comment or idea is your own.

Correcting your notes: You may sometimes need to correct your notes. (This could be because you misheard something, or even because of a slip of the tongue by the lecturer.) In particular, if you have an error in an essay or test which the marker points out to you, check your notes and make sure that the error is not there. Otherwise you will forget the correction and relearn the wrong information when you revise for the final examination. Repeating errors which have already been pointed out to the class is likely to lose marks.

Copying notes for missed lectures: It may happen that you will occasionally miss a lecture due to illness etc. When this happens it is a good idea to get a copy of someone else's notes. As discussed above, notes already written are not nearly as helpful as your own notes, but they are obviously better than nothing. You may find the following strategy useful:

1. Try to have a friend or acquaintance in each class, whose writing you can read easily.
2. If you miss a lecture, get a photocopy of your friend's notes.
3. Go over the notes carefully and make sure you understand them - this is very important with notes written by someone else. If the lecture is particularly important (e.g. on a subject you are preparing for a test) write out the notes again, in your own style.

AFTER THE LECTURE

• Read over your notes, to make sure you understand them.
• Make some more notes of your own from books. You should be building up your notes all the time.
• Every day, you should not only go to lectures but also work from books to build up your understanding of the matters the course is dealing with.
• As a rule of thumb, your notes from books should be at least as large as your lecture notes.

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Copyright © 1999 Bruce Bennett
Last updated 6 October 1999