Making notes when studying

At the end of a topic, write up a summary of the key information. This means when you come to revise you can easily find the information that you are looking for, plus it also helps to cement your understanding of the information.

Making a list of anything you don’t fully understand allows you to look over these at a later date and you can then approach your mentor, lecturer or tutor if you feel you need to.

Doing this stops you from ignoring the content you don’t completely understand and instead encourages you to proactively work towards learning and engaging with it.

Notes don’t have to be boring! They could include a mind-map, colour coding, symbols or diagrams. Get colourful and bright to make the most important parts standout, or even condense your notes further with flashcards.

Not only does doing this make note-taking more fun, but it makes the information you need more memorable too and easier to find when you come to revise.

Doing this ensures that when you revisit your notes you will understand what you have drawn.

There is nothing worse than looking back at your notes to see a beautiful, time-consuming diagram that you can no longer remember the meaning of.

When you are taking notes from textbooks or other written materials do not copy the material word for word unless you clearly use quotation marks and clearly reference where you got the quote from.

If you do not do this and you go on to use “your” notes in a report or essay and do not adequately reference, you will be committing plagiarism.

An easy way of avoiding this is to write your own interpretation of what the text is saying. This not only means you won’t accidentally plagiarise, but it also helps you retain the information and makes your notes easier to revise from.

Keep separate notebooks or folders for each module that you study, so that you can easily find your work.

Students who study science may find that having a separate notebook for practice problems and calculations is really useful as it avoids getting these muddled up with other notes.

If you are studying a new topic that includes lots of vocabulary you have not encountered before, make a list of new words and their definition.

This will not only help you retain the definitions, but it also gives you a resource to refer to if you forget their meaning.

As notes are normally only for personal use, it is important to remember that you don’t need to worry about spelling, handwriting, punctuation, or using complete sentences.

All that matters is that you get the information written down in a way that YOU can understand when you revisit your notes.