How to Make Effective Notes For Study

How To Make Effective Notes For Study: A Step by Step Guide

For a smooth study of a topic or chapter, effective notes making is very important. To boost our understanding of a concept of topic, we need to have an organised and clear notes. 

In this article we will go through the concept of “effective notes making”.

Understanding the purpose of Note Making 

We need to clear the purpose first behind the “effective study notes”. Its a short, sweet and easy understandable version of detailed matter from our books. It may be mind maps, abbreviations, short definitions or an information for fast recalling while exam preparation.

There may be various types of notes:

• Lecture notes: It is the matter we write while attending a class or lecture.
• Reading notes: It is written material while reading books, articles or newspapers etc..
• Summeries: It's a brief summeries of topics to help us for quick revising the matter before exams.

Choose the Right Note Taking Method

You need to choose right method of notes making what make your learning easy. Different methods can be worked for different students. Here are some of popular note making strategies.

• Cornell Method: It's a system of effective notes making which includes three sections mainly. The main notes, key points to remember, and a summery of the matter. It makes a structure for easy understanding and to organise the material logically.
• Mind Mapping: It is ideal for visual learners. It helps to visualise the data and how the topics are interconnected with each other. By using diagrams and flowcharts we can make the information more easy to understand.
• Outline Method: It's a simple outline including headings, subheadings with key points. Its a structure of breaking down the information from higher to smaller points.
• Charting Method: It's a good method when you compare effectively the multiple concepts by using tables and charts. 

Focus on Key Points, Not Everything 

Its a common mistake what students do while note making. They try to write everything in paragraphs. But it's not the write system of note making. We will revise the concepts by notes. We only need to focus on Key points indicating with short abbreviations what click in our mind while revising the concepts.

Here is how to make your notes more efficient?

• Identify main ideas: You need to select only most critical information while listening and reading. And must listen or read carefully to pick the most important points.
• Use bullet points: Use the dots and stars to give a better structure to the information. 
• Highlight keywords: Mark the important terms, definitions and key points with a highlighter.

Avoid the unnecessary detail in your notes. To make it easy to understand you need to learn “how to identify key points while taking notes”.

Use Abbreviations and Symbols

While taking notes we need to save both time and space. So we have to use the abbreviations and symbols in the middle of the paragraphs. There are some symbols which you know very well and can use them for some words, so use them. For example 

• & For ‘and’
• W/ for ‘with’
• “arrow” for ‘leads to’
• b/w for ‘between’ etc..

You can create your own abbreviations and symbols for note making process to make it faster.

Organise Your Notes:

You may get confused while revising the concepts if your notes are not organised very well. An organised structure of notes is easy to review or revise and it is a key to making “effective study notes”. 

• Use headings and subheadings.
• Leave space or margin between the sections or paragraphs. You can use it later for additional information to more clarify the points.
• Use colour colour codes to highlight or underline important terms.

Revise Regularly 

Making the effective notes is just the first step. You need to feed the information in your mind that's why you have to revise them time to time repeatedly. It will make them stay in your memory for a long time. Your exam preparation will be easy after applying these techniques. Your mind will become familiar with the information which you collect in form of notes if you recall it periodically.

Click here to see handwritten notes samples 

Make Notes Interactive 

Making the information interactive will enhance the process of learning the matter. Try the key points with information. You can also mention some related questions without answers. In future while revising, your mind will dive in the details of the information due to the question.

For example if you are making history notes, write the key points first : when, how and reasons behind the happened event. Then write the related information “the battle happened in ………” like that.

Then mention questions in the last.

Note making is a good hobby and Revising them regularly is part of descipline.