The Shorthand Place
Note Taking
Part 2: Classroom note-taking
Why take notes?
Some form of note-taking has long been regarded as an essential part of education. There is an ancient Chinese saying,
"Tell me, I forget, Show me, I remember, Involve me and I understand".
Francis Bacon put in another way,
"Reading maketh a learned man, but writing maketh an exact man".
There seems to be a measure of agreement that the act of writing, the active involvement of the listener or student, is an important part of learning and education.
Both quotations recognise that getting involved with what you hear, such as making notes, leads to understanding which makes later recall easier. Thus facts learned at different times can be associated and recalled when needed. Education might be described as an ability to make associations and relationships using the knowledge that has been learned. It is an attitude to knowledge, a system of thinking which goes beyond simple memory learning.
The purpose of making notes is
- to help make sense of what has been heard or read
- to create a personal record which can be used for revision or
- to record personal comment or interpretation.
We write notes
- To aid memory
- To clarify our thoughts
- To use on a subsequent occasion.
To aid memory;
Words heard are quickly forgotten. Much of what is heard is forgotten after minutes and after a day only a fraction remains in the memory.
To clarify our thoughts;
Note-taking is a form of personal involvement and therefore is an important aid to understanding. If we understand what is being said we are more likely to remember it.
To use on a subsequent occasion;
Note-taking is an aid to taking personal action – whether to look up a quotation or read a passage in a book. Or to develop a set of notes for revision, learning and recall for a later examination.
Notes as maps
A good set of notes can present you with a map of your topic which will be a constant guide along your learning route.
Your notes become a map or image of your thinking; a visual representation of the facts you are recording. Like a map or a picture, notes may include varying amounts of detail. Often you will need both an overall picture and a more detailed picture. Do this by providing a summary section - perhaps at the beginning of each set or sub-set of notes.
The intention of your notes is to indicate the main aspects of the topic and to show the relationships between them. This enables you to make relevant associations between the various aspects and also between topics.
Fundamental points
Once you appreciate that what you are trying to do is to create a visual image of the topic, your note-taking becomes manageable. Essentially you are trying to record salient facts about the topic in a semi-visual form which allows you to create a pictorial image of the facts and their relationships.
Fundamental points to guide you to a good set of notes;
- Show the main ideas.
- Keep topic headings concise and any accompanying text brief.
- Show relationships.
- Be selective and keep to essentials.
- Space out notes on the page to allow for later additions.
- Use your own words as far as possible.
Always record the essential details of your sources; these will be invaluable for later reference. These details will include who gave the information you are using, e.g. lecturer, and also any written source, e.g. book or periodical. Use a standard technique for recording these details and be consistent. All names, titles and dates must be accurate.
It is best not to type up your notes. You will be tempted to put too much detail into them and you will lose the opportunity to create any visual map of the topic.
Techniques and method
The quality of your notes will be influenced by the quality of the speaker and the way the talk is presented. An experienced lecturer is more likely to give you plenty of time and help in creating useful notes.
A common practice in a lecture (or any talk) is for the speaker firstly, to tell the audience what s/he is going to say, then to make the presentation, and finally, to remind the audience of what has been said. In such cases you should be able to jot down the important keywords in the first few minutes as a sort of 'contents list' for the talk. Using these keywords as headings you can write your notes in a semi-structured way. At the end you will be able to go over the notes as the speaker revises what has said.
Many lecturers will mention a significant point and then give subordinate points. Listen for pointers or markers, they may be expressed as 'firstly, secondly, thirdly', or as 'the next point', or as 'then' or 'finally'. A phrase such as 'in other words' gives you a clue that the topic is being re-phrased and repeated. There may be several ways in which the speaker presents a specific point, watch for these and make a note if you wish to alter any keyword if a new one is mentioned which you find more appropriate.
As the lecture proceeds, underline or box in important points, either as keyword headings or as key points for later expansion or development. This is where a block diagram-map can be useful (see below). You may wish to make margin notes to indicate passages which you, or the lecturer, consider to be significant.
Specific explanations, interpretations or definitions may be marked in parentheses (curved brackets). If you wish to insert your own interpretation of a point, or to make a note to yourself as a reminder to look up a related issue, such notes may be included within square brackets [...]. This is a common bibliographical indicator of something which is not given in the text.
Always write neatly and legibly. Remember, these are only your immediate notes and you will be transcribing them into your full notes later.
The FOCUS technique
(Focus – Observe – Clarify – Use)
Effective note-taking requires close attention to what is being said or done. At all times you need to pay attention to what is going on. You need to FOCUS.
Focus your attention.
Become actively involved in the proceedings. Concentrate your mind on the matters in hand and get involved. For most people their personal attention span is quite short, usually only a few minutes at a time, so it is important to focus your attention closely.
Block out other distractions, other work issues and any personal distractions. For the immediate time-span you will be immersed in the matter of this class. To do this effectively you will need to concentrate.
Observe.
Observation requires that you look and listen. Looking focuses your mind on whoever is speaking, this helps you to understand what is being said. If you cannot see the speaker clearly you may have difficulty hearing the words.
Observe how the speaker is behaving. Look for individual mannerisms or gestures which may give clues to the background of what is being said. Is the speaker forceful, convincing, truthful, enthusiastic? Look for eye movements and the set of the mouth; these are some non-verbal indications underlying the spoken words.
Careful observation will help to focus your attention and increase your alertness. First look and then listen. While you are looking at the speaker you are also listening to what is being said. Listen for the background to the words.
How words are spoken and phrased can indicate importance and significance. Listen for any repetition which is used for emphasis. Listen for clues in the pace of speaking, the tone of voice and any pauses in speaking. All these will point to relevance and significance of what is being said.
Your observation will combine listening and looking. Notice the use of gestures, hand movements and body movements. The way the speaker moves his head and eyes will also provide clues to the interpretation of what is being said.
Notice where and how the speaker moves during the presentation will also be observed. Sitting on the front of a table or walking down amongst the listeners is a sign of a relaxed and less formal approach to the subject. These are clues as to how you may wish to ask questions.
In all cases you will need to be selective when listening. Not everything is of equal importance. Following the above-mentioned clues will help to guide you to what is important and useful.
Clarify
Some points may not be immediately clear or understood. At certain points you may need to clarify what is being said. Asking a relevant question at the appropriate time will help you, and other listeners, to a greater understanding of the matter.
Try not to anticipate issues which are likely to occur later on in the presentation. Allow time for the speaker to develop the subject and then ask for clarification when it is needed. Don't try to be clever or try to side-track the issue. Unnecessary humour or comments will only irritate the speaker and others.
Use
What you are hearing should be of use to you. A class or lecture is not mere entertainment; it has a purpose which can be of use to you. Focus your attention on the speaker and the presentation, listen and observe both the matter (topic) and how it is being put across to the audience.
Asking appropriate and timely questions can help to put the event in perspective for you.
Control of proceedings
As a participant you do have a measure of control within the class. The teacher will have prepared the lesson by defining the objectives to be attained and the order and manner of presentation. A good teacher will have the majority of the class in mind when preparing the lesson notes.
You are an important member of the group, but, with the best will in the world, neither the teacher nor yourself may experience complete clarity in interpreting the subject. You have a measure of control to ensure that you do understand what is being presented. This will also provide feed-back to the teacher to gauge the effectiveness of the presentation.
Questions and Answers
Your 'control mechanism' lies in an appropriate Question and Answer technique. The emphasis here is on the word 'appropriate'.
Listen carefully to what is being said and apply FOCUS as described above.
Be aware that your attention span is likely to be relatively short. This is natural and happens to us all. You must deal with it to ensure that you really will benefit from the lesson or meeting. As you practise FOCUS the more your attention abilities will improve.
The best way to maintain your attention span is to take written notes – this is your active participation. Get really involved in the proceedings. The act of writing helps to maintain concentration. It is something you are doing rather than just listening. You are being involved in the presentation. If the subject is being presented logically and clearly you will be aware of the order of thought. This is an ideal situation! Your teacher has different thought patterns (and level of knowledge) to yourself and you may not always be able to follow the train of thought. This is the moment when you may ask a Question.
Warning! Keep awake and do not anticipate. An explanation may be about to follow. An appropriate question will indicate that you are following what is being said but that a particular point needs clarification. This clarification needs to be recorded in your note-book
Listen carefully to questions asked by other classmates. You may have similar difficulties and the answers given may obviate the need for you to ask for help on that point. Write your own version of the clarification given.
The W5H method
The W5H formula is essentially a simple but powerful control checklist for covering almost any topic; it is a very useful way of tackling any new subject. It asks six fundamental questions about a topic and guides you towards understanding - and remembering. You can use this as a basis for asking relevant questions. The six magic words are,
Who What When Where Why How
Although not all of these question words will apply in every case, get into the habit of asking them, in this order, of every new subject you meet. You may be surprised how well the formula covers most topics.
WHO, is the key to the subject you are dealing with; it prompts you to ask WHO is the personal subject of the lesson or presentation. The answer to the question can be a name, functional term (what the person does) or a personal definition or description.
Check the correct Name, and spelling, of the subject name. Sometimes an alternative name may be given, perhaps a shortened form or a colloquial or 'nickname'. These facts will give you a practical WHO subject heading to write at the head of your notes.
For historical names you will need dates to go with the name (see WHEN below); these may be the dates of birth and death and of any notable event relating to the subject.
In biological subjects there will frequently be a scientific name; check the spelling carefully if this is in Latin or another foreign language.
A geographical location will also often be appropriate (see WHERE below).
WHAT, is the non-personal subject of the lesson or presentation. It may be an activity or an event. The question prompts you to clearly define what it is that you are dealing with.
You need to be clear as to the correct name or title of the subject. Alternative spellings or descriptions may be given. Check – Subject name – title – spelling – alternative wording – brief statement or description.
A single sentence should be adequate to describe WHAT as a subject. Keep this concise, accurate and simple.
This now gives you a Title of the subject and a brief explanatory statement or description.
Now you have a Subject Heading for your notes you can follow the rest of the formula.
WHEN, tries to place your notes in a time-scale. This is useful not only for historical subjects but may be applicable to any topic which covers a span of time. This question prompts you to be clear about when an event occurred or when something is to be done.
The dates for people and events are important and need to be carefully noted. Sometimes there may be some doubt as their accuracy, in which case you should insert a question mark alongside the date either in front of the date or in square brackets following the date, or both.
Dates may be grouped as a period, e.g. Tudor or Elizabethan in historical topics, or Cambrian in scientific topics. Wherever possible try to get actual year dates in order to set your subject into a time frame.
Note that many writers will use the abbreviations 'BC' or 'AD' to indicate time before or after the time used for Christian dating. Others may use 'BCE' which may be interpreted as 'Before the Christian Era' or as 'Before the Common Era'. In contemporary society the latter may be preferred. Jews, Hindus, Moslems and other religions generally recognize the dating of years as a common usage even though they maintain different dating practices in terms of the initiation of their own particular beliefs.
WHERE, asks you to place the subject in a space frame. This may be
- a geographical place or
- a spatial relationship - in front, behind, above, below or at the side.
The question prompts you to be clear about the placing of the subject or its activity.
The geographical placing of the subject is the obvious description of the continent, country or a more local area to which the subject relates. This may also prompt questions about language and customs relating to the area. Be aware of the various possible implications of where the subject takes place.
But geography is not relevant to all subjects. Spatial relationships may also need to be considered and will prompt other questions including size and shape. 'How big' and 'How small' may be relevant questions. The form(s) of the subject may need to be clarified and also the relationships with other persons or objects.
WHY, probes the reason behind the particular topic or event. The question prompts you to give an explanation - a cause or a purpose for the activity. Once you have given a reason you will have moved a long way to understanding it.
WHY is one of the first questions that a child asks its parents. We all need to understand why things are as they are and why they happen. Too often we accept what we are told without questioning. In some cases this question is difficult to answer, or perhaps the current state of knowledge does not have an answer. Try to pursue this quest for understanding as far as you can. It is an extremely important question to which you will need answers if you are to have a complete understanding of the subject.
Be aware that sometimes the answer to WHY lies in another person's actions – past or present – and these may be open to differing interpretations. Opinions differ according to the speaker's own views, experiences or beliefs. The passage of time and new revelations of knowledge, can all affect such interpretations. This is where further reading and investigation into other sources of information can help to elucidate this most frequently asked question – WHY?
Perhaps more than any other question, WHY is the spur to the full understanding of a subject. It is often the one question which may be the most difficult to answer.
HOW, the final part of the formula, asks in what manner the subject acts. The question prompts you to establish the method of action, the technique used, the process or way of doing the action.
If the subject is a person then the HOW question asks in what manner an action was taken. For a non-personal subject you will need to discover the mechanism of the action, whether physical or biological. Knowing how the action is, or was, accomplished is usually an essential factor to understanding the topic under consideration.
Practical application of W5H
After using this formula a number of times you will begin to appreciate its value in guiding you through a subject. Use it consistently and you will find that it helps you to cover all essential aspects of a subject and to create useful and comprehensive notes.
If you are a new student your use of this W5H formula may be limited by your general experience and state of knowledge. Once you have become accustomed to asking these questions you are likely to appreciate the range and nature of the questions which the formula prompts.
This is a well-tried approach for all educational topics and can be a significant help to understanding and the development of knowledge.
Note-mapping
The first step in note-taking is to make immediate brief notes in your shorthand notebook recording significant facts from the lectures or reading. Then these facts need to be put into some order which can be used for learning and subsequent revision.
In developing your notes you need to analyse the subject into its component elements; this is the process of note-mapping. You are creating an overall visual or map of the subject. Look for relationships between topics and sub-topics and for any clear sequences of thought linking the topics. The W5H formula can be applied to enable the full picture of the subject to emerge.
This process can indicate any gaps in your knowledge and where you will now need to develop and expand your first set of notes.
The following are some suggested ways to structure your notes in order to create a visual map of the subject; this will help you to sort out your ideas and to set the facts into some relationships. These structured notes will be useful for learning and revision but also the act of creating the notes in these forms will itself be a part of the learning process. It is thus not a waste of time but indeed, this part of note-taking lies at the heart of your real education.
Some practical suggestions
The following suggestions can be used as a guide when developing your notes; but work out your own set of conventions to match your particular way of thinking.
Capital letters:
Use capital letters to write key points. This is a standard convention in text. Capitals may be used alone or they may be combined with colour or placed in boxes. Generally capital letters indicate importance so be selective in their use as main headings or significant points.
Colour:
The use of colour in your notes can be a powerful aid to learning and recall, but it can also be dangerously overdone - so be warned! Without going into any detailed psychology of colour it can be said that red is conventionally used to alert or warn (as in traffic lights or danger flags) so red is best used for important key words and key statements. The main topic heading might be written in Red capital letters and topic sub-headings in red lower-case letters. This will help to present a visual structured outline map of the main headings in your subject.
Any of the marks suggested here may also use colour either by writing in coloured ink or pencil or by over-writing with a coloured high-lighter pen.
You can create your own colour conventions such as;
- Black for the main body of statements, and
- Blue for comments.
- Green could be used for conclusions or consequences drawn from the main body of notes; it may also be used for quotations.
- Orange might be used for definitions, historical dates or formulae; this is a colour which stands out well but does not have the full force of red.
This is probably the maximum number of colours that you should use. This may seem at first to be rather complex, but many students have found such colour coding of their notes to be extremely helpful in recalling facts and associations when needed (and especially at examination time). They can literally 'see' the structure of the topic in their mind's eye.
Boxes:
Drawing a box around a key word or an important phrase draws attention to it in its own special way. A box, together with your colour code, can make a very precise statement and more than one box may be linked to show a particular relationship. Boxes come into their own especially when you are creating your structured diagrammatic notes which we will consider shortly. Within a body of text a boxed word or phrase gains more importance than a simple underline.
The box may be rectangular or oval, but usually avoid squares. A circle can indicate 'strength' and may be used for a 'results' note.
Marginal marks:
A variety of marginal marks may be used in your notes. These may be included at the time of creating the notes or may be added afterwards as part of the revision process. Again it is recommended that you decide your own convention of marginal marks and apply them consistently; they can then be used for marking up other texts such as photocopies and your own personal textbooks.
Please, NEVER mark up any book which does not belong to you!
Marginal marks which you may like to consider might include
| | | three vertical lines alongside the selected text for a very important passage,
| | two vertical lines alongside the selected text for a significant passage
| one vertical line alongside the selected text for something to be noted particularly.
A vertical wavy line may be given a particular function, e.g. a doubtful passage needing some revision.
Colour may be incorporated into marginal marking. This can provide a fast guide to the significant part of your notes. Use the same colour scheme that you have adopted for the rest of your notes, e.g. red for essential points and green for important quotations.
Marginal marking is probably more useful in printed matter than in your own notes but often these marks can add further meaning to your own body of notes.
Underlining:
Underlining is one of the most frequently used conventions to draw attention to a word or phrase. It may usefully be combined with your colour code. As noted above it generally has less force than drawing a box around the selected word or phrase but it does help to make special points stand out for notice. The underline may be straight or wavy. As with all textual marking underlining should be used with discretion. Too much colour and too many marks on a page defeat their object of assisting the eye and brain and merely become confusing.
Spacing:
The use of white space on a page can be very effective in drawing attention and helping to fix points in your memory. Generally keep both side margins of your notes fairly wide; this allow you to insert annotations or marginal marks at a later date and it helps to keep your writing line short which is a great help in reading. A shorter line is more easily read than a long one and also contributes to easier remembering.
Diagrams:
Pictorial representation is often clearer and more meaningful than a mass of text. Wherever it is appropriate, use a diagrammatic approach in your notes. This will help you to sort out your thoughts and understand relationships between topics and issues. Such pictorial representations are also more easily remembered. This approach will be dealt with in greater detail in the following chapters.
Once you have decided on your own personal conventions regarding type, colour and boxes you should then apply these consistently in all your diagrams.
Grouping:
Aim to use the magic of Three's. Notes grouped in sequences of 3 are easier to remember and recall.
Branching diagrams
Branching notes can take several forms and may be described variously. Here we will describe them as 'Spider', 'Aspect' and 'Influence'. All of these arrangements show relationships between the topics noted.
A Spider diagram is almost self-explanatory; a main topic heading becomes the 'body' of the spider and sub-topics branch out from this as 'legs'.
Individual sub-units may be coloured with a highlighter or by coloured pencils and by following your preferred colour coding system various relationships can be seen at a glance. Do not try to include too much in a single diagram. Often two or three smaller diagrams will be clearer than one large diagram. Oval shapes are most practical and are quickly drawn, but where there is a related topic which forms the main heading for a related spider diagram, this can be indicated by using a rectangular box.
You may wish to purchase a stencil sheet to help you draw neat and consistent shapes.
An Aspect diagram begins with its main keyword or topic heading placed usually at the centre of the diagram. From this key point various aspects are drawn as radiating lines of thought. Dependent upon the subject these might include groupings such as,
Key topic - definition - causes - consequences - methods
Key topic - purpose - problems - causes - solutions - benefits
All these show a development of thought from the starting key topic and they can be arranged in the most appropriate and logical way to meet your purposes and the presentation of the subject matter. Always allow plenty of space in these aspect maps to allow you to add further points, thoughts or comments as your studies progress. Keep each diagram as simple and uncluttered as possible.
An Influence map may be used where discrete blocks of facts need to be illustrated to show relationships. This is a useful format to use when summarising a topic as each block or box contains a separate but related thought. This type of 'fact mapping' resembles the flow-chart technique where related aspects of a subject are placed in a particular order of relationships. Indeed, you may wish to pursue this similarity and use some of the standard block shapes which are used in flow-charts. Colour can be helpful when writing the text in these blocks, red for a keyword at the start of a sequence and a consistent colour, perhaps green or blue, to show consequences.
Action or Process
End result
With all these branching relationship map-diagrams try to maintain a consistency in approach; using the W5H formula given above can aid in tying your note-making together. This will also be especially valuable in recall and when writing examinations.