Effective Notetaking

After the Lecture

The last stage of taking notes in lectures is consolidating your learning and finding a way to convert your notes into meaningful and memorable content.

How you consolidate your notes will depend on how you plan to use the information:
 

Building subject knowledge

Bloom's Taxonomy shows increasingly complex levels of learning -
see if you can consolidate your understanding:

• by applying your knowledge;
• analysing how it works;
• evaluating strengths and weaknesses;
• or creating new theories or interpretations.

 
Writing essays

To convert your notes into the basis of an essay, try using a paragraph structure model or framework to translate your notes into possible paragraphs, for example:

• Topic sentence - Use key themes, concepts or ideas from lectures.
• Evidence - Bring in examples and references from sources and independent research, and look back at your lecture notes for recommended theorists, authors and publications.
• Discussion - These should develop your ideas, comments or questions about the topic or theme. Use your lecture and seminar notes as a starting point.

Revision

For revision, turn your lecture notes into a versatile resource, rather than copying out and replicating information.

• Highlight key information and collect quotes, examples and references that you could integrate into your answers and essay questions.
• Always condense your notes - create a Cornell layout from existing notes, or simplify further with a flow chart or tree diagram on key information.
• Add post-it notes (different colours for different categories) to quickly navigate your folders.
• Find a consistent format - familiarity with your notes will boost recall and memory during revision.