Effective Notetaking

Strategies for notetaking in lectures

Improve your listening skills

There are various strategies you can use in your lectures that can help to make your notetaking more efficient, and more useful to you. Two approaches that can be used in all contexts to improve your listening skills are:

Develop an active listening approach:

• Just like in conversations, we listen more when we are actively engaged with the speakers and the subject. So use physical cues to help your mind to focus:
• Sit where you have a good view of the speaker;
• Try to sit up straight, lean forward and nod when the lecturer is speaking. These physical cues can trick your brain into staying focused;

Top-down' listening:

• 'Top-down' listening is a form of active listening where we use our interpretive skills to engage with the content.
• When you arrive at the lecture, take one minute to free write and jot down all the ideas or questions you have about the topic.
• Listen out for keywords that you recognise.
• Word association: if the lecturer triggers an idea, make a note or add an icon to follow up later.

Read down to find out about other strategies for notetaking.

Abbreviations

Use abbreviations to speed up your notetaking. Don't write word for word - use abbreviations or invent your own system:

• You can use mathematical symbols, e.g.:
  & for 'and', + for 'plus', < for 'less than', > for 'more than', and = for 'equals'.
• Also use shortened forms, e.g.:
  discⁿ for 'discussion', or popⁿ for 'population', exp^l for 'exponential', or v for 'very'.
• Make up your own acronyms, e.g.:
  wrt for 'with respect to', and IWB for Interactive WhiteBoard'.
• Also use other symbols - e.g.:
  Right for 'resulted in', Up for 'increased', Down for 'decreased', wrong for 'incorrect', and correct for 'correct'.

Unless you are being given new key terminology, aim to capture the meaning of what has been said, rather than the precise words.

So instead of a whole sentence…

… you could simply note down:

Gradually incorporate more abbreviations into your work.  You can invent and use your own, or find more examples of standard note-taking shortcuts online (e.g. Helpful abbreviations for speedy note-taking and note-making - University of Portsmouth).

Concept mapping

Alternatively, you can use concept mapping. Concept maps and mind maps allow you to look for links between key subjects and get away from structure, linear notetaking in the lecture:

When making a mind map, don't worry about perfecting the layout and presentation - focus on creating an area for each topic and using arrows or icons to indicate links:

Structured notetaking

Develop a notetaking template that allows you to extract key words, terms or subheadings and gives your notes structure, such as the Cornell method:

Steps for the Cornell Method:

First set out your paper, keeping a margin on the left hand side (this will become your 'Cue' Column for review purposes), and a summary area at the end.

Then follow the 5 stages:

Stage 1: Record
Take notes, including any important information and diagrams, and relevant questions or answers.

Stage 2: Reduce
Review your notes as soon as possible, using the Cue Column to condense your notes in the fewest words or questions possible, and then summarise the notes in a couple of bullet points.

Stage 3: Recite
Cover your notes, and use only the Cue Column, see if you can talk through the whole page.

Stage 4: Reflect
Reflect on how well you understand the topic, and how useful your notes and 'cues' are. Consider whether you need to do further reading.

Stage 5: Review
You can quickly review the cue column and summary before your next lecture, or to prepare for an exam. Repetition improves your familiarity with the concepts.

Using a template or layout like this allows you to:

• Build structure into your lecture notes;
• Create a resource for revise for subsequent lectures;
• Add visual notetaking techniques icons, arrows, colour and highlighters, and piders to break up sections;
• Revise from the cue or key word column to test your memory and understanding at the end of the module.

Assistive technology

You can use notetaking software or a digital recorder to record lectures (but please follow Hallam's ' Guidelines for students on recording teaching ').

There are several benefits to recording lectures, because you can:

• Concentrate more fully in the lectures because you don't have to worry about missing crucial content.
• Listen again while walking or exercising to help you process and evaluate the content.
• Organise and develop your notes when listening again

It may help to use software as you organise and improve your notes - with the Glean app you can:

• Annotate your recordings
• Search recordings by keywords
• Save recordings to the cloud

Visit the Assistive Technology pages to find out more and book onto a training session for using Glean.