10 College Note Taking Tips

Good college note taking tips and skills is one of the most important techniques that every college must develop.  No teacher will be waiting for you like high school, you must get with the program and learn to take fast, legible, and organized notes every day.  Your note taking skill will have a direct effect on the grades in your class, your studying skills, and your ability to recite the information.  Here are some helpful note taking techniques that I have developed in my first year of college and will be sure to help you better your college career.  These techniques could also probably come in handy in business settings as well.

10. Compare Notes with a Friend - Even though they say that notes are only useful for the person that took them, sit with a friend and compare each others notes.  This will help inform people of some material that they missed, or to better understand the lectures.  This is also pretty much studying, which is always good if you want to make a good grade in the class.

9. Bring Your Laptop - If you are like me and are an extremely fast typist than it will make a lot more sense for you to bring your laptop to class. Don’t be afraid that people are going to judge you, because usually half of the kids bring their laptop to class.  You will be able to take notes on nearly everything that is said and it will also be better organized, more legible, and you can print out multiple copies with ease.  Many students just use Microsoft Word to take notes, I used to use notepad but have lately been using Microsoft OneNote which is a program specifically designed for taking notes, it is incredibly handy and simple to use.

8. Use Abbreviations - This one can save you a lot of time and effort if you simply just use abbreviations for common words and phrases.  Develop a key on the first page of your spiral so that you will have a good legend on what each abbreviation means, this can help considerably when taking notes or to prevent hand cramps.

7. Read and Write Clearly - How are you going to review your notes if you cannot read them later, this is another obvious tip but is also extremely important.  You must write legibly for you to be able to take anything out of the notes when it comes time for finals.  It can be hard to take legible notes when you have to write so much so fast but this is an important step in the note taking process.

6. Review and Edit Your Notes - Academic centers consider reviewing your notes to one of the most important parts of the learning process.  It is extremely important to review your notes within 24 hours of taking them.  Consider re-writing or typing up your notes if they are ineligible or to help with memorization.  Edit your notes in a different color pencil so that you know the difference between edited notes and the ones you took in class.

5. Don’t Jot Down Everything you Hear - This somewhat falls under the category of listening, just don’t take notes on everything that you hear.  3/4th of the material will not be on the test and is just filler information or background information so that you can better understand the material.  The key to note taking is to be keen and listen to what the professor is saying often times they will give you clues on important material and tell that it will most likely be on the test.  Try to train your ear to listen for the important detail, even while taking notes.  It is an important skill asset to have during college.

4. Go to Class Prepared - You won’t be able to take notes if you do not have a pen or pencil, you must always go to class prepared to learn and takes a bunch of notes. Bring highlighters to class if you feel that they help you identify with the material better.  Read the assigned material before the lecture, this will make sure that you understand the material before it is even taught and when theprofessor begins to lecture over it it will just be a refresher.

3. Get Close to the Teacher – how are you going to take notes if you cannot hear your professor or see what he is writing, this tip is an obvious one, I always hate the kids that sit in the back and squint their eyes just to be cool, or to look like that they don’t care.  Get close to your teacher, if you sit within the front two rows the professor will get to know your face and you, in a large classroom this can be very important to developing a good relationship with your professor.  He will see you everyday and get to know you and your personality.

2. Organization - They key to note taking is to be able to go back and study the material that you took notes on, this is where organization comes into play.  If you just scribble all over the paper anddon’t use any kind of system than it will not be useful later on.  You will most likely have to find the right kind of system that works for you, since everyone is different.  Look up on theInternet some popular note taking techniques, one that comes to mind is the Cornell method which is where you divide the paper into two sections.  One section is the general categories an the other is all of the information.

1. Listen – This one may seem rather obvious but I do not know the number of students that just zone out during lectures.  Why even bothercoming if you are not going to listen to the professor speak on the subject, this is one of the most basic rules for note taking but also the most important one.  It may be hard if the subject isuninteresting or you stayed up all last night partying but try to improve your focus and listen to the teacher lecture on the subject.  After All it is only an hour or two and shouldn’t be very difficult.