Note-making: a fundamental academic activity
Note-making is right at the heart of academic study. As a student, you will make notes when you:
- attend lectures or seminars
- read to support your writing of essays, reports, dissertations, and theses
Note-making is fundamental to these activities.
Note-making: a significant challenge!
There are many situations, however, in which note-making can be a real challenge, for example if:
- the content of the lecture is predominantly factual and you want to try to record all of the facts but the lecturer is going through it really quickly
- you make notes from masses of background reading, but are then stuck with how to use it all
- you make lots of notes for a piece of writing, but then worry about how to avoid accidentally plagiarising, as you can’t remember which ideas were your own and which were from existing sources
- you find reading academic papers and books quite slow, and feel that you miss out on the overall sense of an article because you spend too much time writing detailed notes as you read through it
Differences between note-making in lectures and when reading
You may have a set of lecture slides in front of you, but you will still need to make your own notes in lectures. Extra slides may be added; and the lecturer will invariably offer more explanation and examples than appear on the slides. You will also want to record any ideas or queries of your own that you have during the lecture.
The big difference between note-making in lectures and note-making from reading is the lack of control that the student has over the process, because lectures happen in real time. This means that:
…when note-making in lectures:
…but while note-making from reading:
- you can’t pause the lecturer; rewind; then replay; to go over something you haven’t understood
- you can easily stop and read something again if you need to
- if you are reminded of some information you want to look up, you have to make a note and remember to follow it up later
- if you are reminded of some information you want to look up, you may be able to do it straightaway
- You can’t slow down the lecturer if you fall behind with your note-making
- you can read and make notes at the best pace for you, to make sure your notes are complete
