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How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

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Re: How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

#121

Post by ranc1d »

dspillett wrote: post #105
Rainymood wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Write your notes up at the end of the day with reference material at hand and no compromises. You can structure, extrapolate and transform things into your own understandable language then. As if the average modern day student is going to do this. I did what OP did and it worked for me because instead of dozing off I was focused on keeping up with the lecturer. It worked for me personally. More on topic, the standar…

> As if the average modern day student is going to do this. If that is the case, then I fear little from the upcoming students chomping at my old ankles in the jobs market! Transcribing my lecture scribbles to neater notes later in the day (or sometimes later in the week depending on scheduling) was important in solidifying the knowledge or, more importantly, realising that something hadn't twigged in my head as I th…

My handwriting is terrible,and worse when it comes writing down formulas, this could be a useful way of writing up notes a lot quicker. Also useful for cheat sheets or summarising notes

Re: How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

#122

Post by setquk »

lastUsername wrote: post #116
setquk wrote: post #65

I don't agree with this. Perhaps it's possible for someone with exceptional LaTeX and vim knowledge, but even after using both for 20 years I wouldn't do this. The point of the lecture is to assimilate structure and basic understanding, not to produce a neat set of notes instantly. To take notes to this detail means you're putting more time into the note taking than the work. Use a pen and paper. Write down structure…

It is scientifically proven that handwriting is better for your memory because it forces you to process the material more than note taking on a laptop. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://linguistics.ucla.edu/pe...

Totally agree. Also handwriting is better for your handwriting! About ten years into my IT career my skills devolved into chicken scratch and I can't even read notes I wrote recently now. I need to do something about that.

Re: How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

#123

Post by gjulianm »

setquk wrote: post #76
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this works for the guy how can you ‘disagree’?

Because it's very much an edge case and he hasn't passed yet. A lot of people get to the end of their course and realise they have thousands of pages of useless words and diagrams and have a nervous breakdown. It takes a lot of discipline and time to write very high quality notes and to study. I spent more time thinking about things and experimenting with ideas and writing notes than I did in lectures or tutorials or…

I did take LaTeX notes for most courses on my math degree, and I passed all of them. In fact, the ones where I dedicated more time to the notes were the ones that I could study more easily as I put in more effort to understand and review what I wrote.

Re: How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

#124

Post by madengr »

ivanbakel wrote: post #120
madengr wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto, EE too. I bought a copy of Abramowitz and Stegun just for the great table of Laplace Transforms. If I were a professor, I’d ban all electronics from the room. All the decent professors handed out copies of the notes anyway, or wrote them in real-time on an overhead projector, for easy copying later.

Then you'd be a terrible professor, because that attitude is not pro-learning. Students take their own notes because writing is an aid to memory. Students take electronic notes because those notes are easier to organise, edit, and search through. Many "decent" professors will not hand out notes, and the writings they put on the projector might be scanned and put online, but those writings have none of the benefits of…

Yep, I’ll be just like this guy.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ksnt.com/amp/news/local-new...

Re: How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

#125

Post by jki275 »

ivanbakel wrote: post #120
madengr wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto, EE too. I bought a copy of Abramowitz and Stegun just for the great table of Laplace Transforms. If I were a professor, I’d ban all electronics from the room. All the decent professors handed out copies of the notes anyway, or wrote them in real-time on an overhead projector, for easy copying later.

Then you'd be a terrible professor, because that attitude is not pro-learning. Students take their own notes because writing is an aid to memory. Students take electronic notes because those notes are easier to organise, edit, and search through. Many "decent" professors will not hand out notes, and the writings they put on the projector might be scanned and put online, but those writings have none of the benefits of…

You know people used to hand-write notes, right?

The act of writing them actually helps one to remember -- I never went back and organized, edited, or searched through notes I took, because I remembered most of the material, and what I didn't was in the book.

Re: How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

#126

Post by mhd »

jxy wrote: post #29

A template expander is indispensable for productivity. I have a perl script that expands text based on matching regular expressions. In this way I'm not tied to any particular editors: I wrap it in an AppleScript for a text service, and I wrap it in a shell script for working in Acme.

Of course that doesn't get you niceties like jumping to different parts of the template and mirroring edits. But having it universally available might be worth the trade-offs. How do you invoke it in Acme? Tag item mouse-click for every expansion?

Re: How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

#127

Post by gjulianm »

lastUsername wrote: post #116
setquk wrote: post #65

I don't agree with this. Perhaps it's possible for someone with exceptional LaTeX and vim knowledge, but even after using both for 20 years I wouldn't do this. The point of the lecture is to assimilate structure and basic understanding, not to produce a neat set of notes instantly. To take notes to this detail means you're putting more time into the note taking than the work. Use a pen and paper. Write down structure…

It is scientifically proven that handwriting is better for your memory because it forces you to process the material more than note taking on a laptop. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://linguistics.ucla.edu/pe...

I want to highlight that part:

"Participants using laptops are more likely to take lengthier transcription-like notes with greater verbatim overlap with the lecture"

In other words, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with taking notes on a laptop if you don't copy everything verbatim. If you force yourself to process the material you should have no problem.

Re: How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

#128

Post by gjulianm »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #7

As a feat in itself this is definitely very impressive, but I wonder if it's really worth anyone's time to spend precious lecture time with your mind fully occupied in the mechanical task of taking notes rather than actually absorbing and engaging with the content. Especially for an extremely content-dense subject like Mathematics, where you need all your concentration just to process what you are reading and follow…

OP describes exactly how he abstracts away the mechanical task of writing LaTeX and can focus on the content. I did a similar thing in my classes and after a little bit of practice and tool adjustment you just don't think about LaTeX more than you think what pen to use or how to highlight something when handwriting.

And precisely because math is so content-dense, having your notes is important, as they will be organized in a similar way to how the content is organized in your mind. Yeah, there is a lot of study material but most of the time, unless the class follows a textbook literally, you'll want your own set of notes with only the class contents, and you'll want to organize that in a way that is easy for you to understand.

Re: How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

#129

Post by sewercake »

lastUsername wrote: post #116
setquk wrote: post #65

I don't agree with this. Perhaps it's possible for someone with exceptional LaTeX and vim knowledge, but even after using both for 20 years I wouldn't do this. The point of the lecture is to assimilate structure and basic understanding, not to produce a neat set of notes instantly. To take notes to this detail means you're putting more time into the note taking than the work. Use a pen and paper. Write down structure…

It is scientifically proven that handwriting is better for your memory because it forces you to process the material more than note taking on a laptop. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://linguistics.ucla.edu/pe...

As another reply mentioned, it seems like hand-written notes are good because the limitations on writing speed force you to synthesize information as it is relayed to you.

Outside of mathematical lectures, I find writing notes in something like notepad++ more fruitful. I can attempt mirror the structure of the speakers' argument using tabs/indentations, and quickly reformat the document as the logical structure becomes clearer.

Re: How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

#130

Post by gjulianm »

_ux1n wrote: post #12
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #7

As a feat in itself this is definitely very impressive, but I wonder if it's really worth anyone's time to spend precious lecture time with your mind fully occupied in the mechanical task of taking notes rather than actually absorbing and engaging with the content. Especially for an extremely content-dense subject like Mathematics, where you need all your concentration just to process what you are reading and follow…

Glad to see this at the top, agree 100%. I’m definitely going to copy some of OP’s setting and snippets, but not for real time use during a lecture. A textbook is an infinitely better reference than any notes one could take in class. Read the damn book. Lecture time should be for asking questions when you have a freaking live expert professor literally presenting the material to you. Ask all the small, nuanced questi…

It does not make too much sense to compare textbooks and class notes, specially when you get to higher level classes where the textbooks are reference textbooks, hardly readable by someone who is not already familiar with the material.

Your study notes will contain parts of the textbook, of course, but also explanations that are not in the book, maybe examples that you find useful and that might not be in the book, counterexamples, doubts, schematics... No textbook will have 100% of the contents you need to study.

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