Ask HN: How to Take Good Notes?

1) Before the lecture on a topic, read the text on the topic and highlight the key points;

2) Before the lecture on the topic, transcribe your text book highlights into hand written notes in a notebook you will take to class. Leave space for comments and more notes to be added during class.

3) During class, you already have been exposed to the topic twice, so participate in the lecture! Your notes serve to refresh your memory, where you are asking for clarifications and adding emphasis on the points your professor stresses.

4) The day before the exam, transcribe your hand written notes with in-lecture additions to index cards with a question on one side and the answer on the back. Share these with other classmates and quiz them.

5) Get a 4.0 GPA and live on the Dean's List like I did.

2. Speed is important, so don't write every word, don't write every letter of every word.

2a. The preceding point could be written: "Spd impt, dont write all wrds or all lttrs"

3. Write legibly

4. Actually re-read your notes, don't just leave them and not return

5. When you re-read, notice where you can take better notes and how.

When in a lecture, see if you can record it and revisit it to create more notes. Look for visual cues and if there's something you can touch or do, feel it or try out whatever you're learning, whether in class or on your own time. Keep asking yourself questions about what's being discussed to stay engaged.

In class, do an outline so you can record everything as quickly as possible. If you can do written, it's better because it activates your spatial memory and forces you to put things in your own words. Only take notes about what matters. Dates, names, formulas, historical significance, pros and cons, theories, arguments, pictures, and questions you have.

Once you have an outline, come back to it and create a mind map so you have an overall picture of what you learned that day. Extra credit if you cultivate a separate mind map of the entire course over the semester.

For study, you could use the Cornell system to make it easy to quiz yourself and use Anki for rote memorization on the go. Review any time you're waiting like for class, an elevator, in line, etc.

If you're studying with a textbook, highlight, write your thoughts in the margin or on post-its in the book, and use color coded tabs in the best way YOU see fit. Group by theme or topic, or whatever suits you.

If you've pretty much rehashed notes in as many ways as possible, you'll retain a whole ton of it already just by activating all kinds of memory, not just one. You won't have to study as much later if you put more time up front right when you were exposed to it. The longer you wait, the more it fades.

But next comes review and this is the MOST important step when it comes to note-taking and retention. If you want to remember something long-term, look at your notes daily for a month. You don't need to quiz yourself or check that you've got it committed to memory. Just read through your notes once per day and be done with it. You can quiz yourself a little later into it by covering the notes and recalling as many facts as you can before looking at them. Also you can practice whatever it is you learned or listen to the lecture again any time you'd listen to music. To make it even more effective, choose different places to review your notes so your brain doesn't only recall information in your primary study location. Don't be hard on yourself here, patience is a virtue.

Once you've reviewed your notes daily for a month, you only have to review them once a month to retain it for years and years to come. Choose one day a month to read through all the notes you've accumulated up to this point over all your classes and go have fun with all the free time you have now.

Hope that helps!