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

castel.dev

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

#81
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…

Agreed. Paper and pen is hard to beat when it comes to equations and improvising. Hats off to anyone with that level of Vim & LaTex skill though. Now that I'm in the workforce I use OneNote, Notepad, and Confluence for notes and documentation for the most part, but I still use a lot of pen and paper as well... especially when doing complex coding where I need to map out how all the data structures work before hand.

Run away from OneNote quickly. Microsoft are not shipping OneNote desktop any more, preferring the horrid UWP app.

Another vote for paper or neutral formats here. They persist longer than vendor whims!

Case in point I wrote a lot of my work up on TechWriter on an Acorn RiscPC. Where are we now with that. Hmm...

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

#82

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…

> mechanical task of taking notes rather than actually absorbing and engaging with the content The mechanical task of taking notes is one of the most important parts of actually absorbing the material. It is not an either-or. Hearing/seeing the information, processing it in a way that makes sense to you individually, and then mechanically writing it down in a legible manner is one of the main methods that your brain…

I wonder if traditional memory techniques (e.g. method of loci [1]) would have long-term benefits over taking notes by hand?

According to this highly interesting HN thread, Alan Kay apparently doesn't take (much) notes [2]. I also found Warren Buffett's tip to focus on information that "doesn't expire or expires very slowly" an excellent rule of thumb for daily life. Obviously, with decades of books under their belts both of them are outstanding systems thinkers, so it must be true that they just don't need to take notes that much.

I'm a 30-something, but I like to trust my brain's tendency to forget more and more. Most of the stuff I don't remember probably wasn't relevant for my current mental models. If it's important, it sticks in one way or another. (I try to reinforce this by using the aformentioned method of loci, but I'm not as confident with this as I would like to be. It involves creating "sticky" images for the brain, and thus it always requires at least several seconds for me to "store" something that way.)

One probably won't be an A-level student with this approach, though -- but in trying to live a meaningful life, letting things (information) go often helps a lot. It's a great bullshit filter for everything.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11809285

3: https://fs.blog/2019/02/compounding-knowledge/

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

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mechanical task of taking notes rather than actually absorbing and engaging with the content The mechanical task of taking notes is one of the most important parts of actually absorbing the material. It is not an either-or. Hearing/seeing the information, processing it in a way that makes sense to you individually, and then mechanically writing it down in a legible manner is one of the main methods that your brain…

I would disagree with you on the benefits of taking notes in higher maths. If I'm taking notes, I can barely follow what is going on in the lecture. If I don't take notes I can fully concentrate on the lecture and logic, but then I have nothing to study/reference. Teachers should provide notes so you don't have to do it yourself, especially if they're just writing off a sheet of paper. They're usually just worried th…

I often wonder if those studies about "copying the entire lecture by taking notes" are an example of the Simpson Paradox. Breaking them down to sub-groups of students and their experience would surely reveal another picture. At least some students can't benefit from this, as my experience mirrors yours. Courses that required me to write everything down were those where I couldn't remember anything at the end. I just can't write and listen / comprehend at the same time.

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

#84

Hey, for note taking using markdown and mathjax, I also like Typora ( https://typora.io ) a lot. Easy to install, wysiwym, works out-of-the-box!

I do the same thing (markdown and mathjax) but I use TeXMe (https://github.com/susam/texme). I like TeXMe a lot because it turns any Markdown and LaTeX notes into a self-rendering file. Just open your Markdown+LaTeX notes in any browser and it renders itself beautifully, almost looks like a paper.

It is not wysiwyg though. But for me the convenience of distributing my Markdown+LaTeX source itself that can render in any browser without a separate compilation/processing step is a huge win!

See https://github.com/susam/texme#get-started if you are curious how it works.

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

#85
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree with you on the benefits of taking notes in higher maths. If I'm taking notes, I can barely follow what is going on in the lecture. If I don't take notes I can fully concentrate on the lecture and logic, but then I have nothing to study/reference. Teachers should provide notes so you don't have to do it yourself, especially if they're just writing off a sheet of paper. They're usually just worried th…

I often wonder if those studies about "copying the entire lecture by taking notes" are an example of the Simpson Paradox. Breaking them down to sub-groups of students and their experience would surely reveal another picture. At least some students can't benefit from this, as my experience mirrors yours. Courses that required me to write everything down were those where I couldn't remember anything at the end. I just…

Agreed. Either lecture or tell me to read a chapter. I can't multi-task that well with learning something that detailed.

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

#86
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…

>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…

> >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.

Why wouldn't modern day students do this? It's one of the best way to study that I ever used.

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

#87
As a 30-year latex user and a 10-year newbie to vim, I am impressed by the author's skills, and will likely copy some of his macros. However, as someone who has taught mathematically-inclined material for those three decades, I cannot recommend using a computer to take notes in class, for I have simply never seen a student who found that effective.

Although some students try to take notes on a computer during the first day of my classes, I have never seen one who tried to do that after the second or third lecture. The paper method (or, equivalently, using a stylus to hand-write on a screen) is simply better suited to the dynamic of a class. An effective class is not a linear presentation of material, a sort of recitation of a book by a professor. And effective notes are not transcriptions of the class material. An effective class weaves around through a topic, building on interactions with the students. This often involves departures from a simple path that, transcribed in real-time, would be footnotes within footnotes within footnotes, "Inception" style. And of course mathematical material tends to involve a lot of diagrams. Hand-written notes, with lots of arrows between ideas and boxes with sketches, are not just a good way of making a record of a class, but they are a great way of understanding what's going on in real time.

The only place I could see this detailed note-taking method working would be in a class where the teacher essentially reproduced a book in class. But is that the kind of class that justifies the cost of tuition?

I have two anecdotes I'd like to share.

1. A student came to me to ask a question about something that came up in class. I asked to see her notes, to get a clearer idea of what was confusing her. The notes were amazingly insightful and clear. I asked how she took those notes, which contained some things I had said and others I had not said. She replied "I don't write down what you say, I write down what I think you mean." This student will likely be a professor in a few years, and I envy the students who will take her classes.

2. Last term, I recommended that my students try the Cornell note-taking method. (See http://lsc.cornell.edu/notes.html for an example, although there are many treatments of the method online, including videos.) The students who tried it seemed to enjoy it, and it may be no accident that the class leader was one of them.

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

#88
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Paper and pen is hard to beat when it comes to equations and improvising. Hats off to anyone with that level of Vim & LaTex skill though. Now that I'm in the workforce I use OneNote, Notepad, and Confluence for notes and documentation for the most part, but I still use a lot of pen and paper as well... especially when doing complex coding where I need to map out how all the data structures work before hand.

Run away from OneNote quickly. Microsoft are not shipping OneNote desktop any more, preferring the horrid UWP app. Another vote for paper or neutral formats here. They persist longer than vendor whims! Case in point I wrote a lot of my work up on TechWriter on an Acorn RiscPC. Where are we now with that. Hmm...

Thanks for the tip. OneNote is one of a handful of things Microsoft has done that I like. Is it really not on Windows10? I haven't upgraded from 7 yet.

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

#89
post #42

Beautiful notes! But I don't believe those figures are made using LaTeX and Vim... I can't see how you convert keyboard strokes to nice figures shown in the example.

From the original post:

> There, I ex­plained my work­flow of tak­ing lec­ture notes in LaTeX using Vim and how I draw fig­ures in Inkscape.

Looks like the author was using Inkscape earlier but may have switched to something else recently. You can draw impressively beautiful diagrams in LaTeX with TikZ although it can be a lot of work to do so with TikZ which would make it difficult for live note taking.

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

#90
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Run away from OneNote quickly. Microsoft are not shipping OneNote desktop any more, preferring the horrid UWP app. Another vote for paper or neutral formats here. They persist longer than vendor whims! Case in point I wrote a lot of my work up on TechWriter on an Acorn RiscPC. Where are we now with that. Hmm...

Thanks for the tip. OneNote is one of a handful of things Microsoft has done that I like. Is it really not on Windows10? I haven't upgraded from 7 yet.

It does ship with windows 10 but it's a UWP app and it's rubbish. It's missing on Office 2019. See: https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/onenote-2016-is-mis...

This one totally caught me by surprise for ref when I upgraded, perhaps foolishly. I installed OneNote 2016 and am sticking my fingers in my ears until I have some time to deal with it.

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