Note Taking

Hello lovely WEPOteers!

My name is Mal and I used to have serious organizational problems, especially when it came to note-writing. My handwriting was atrocious, and I could barely decipher it when it came time to study for exams. 

Since then, I have learned quite a few things about successful note-taking, and I am going to share those tips with all of you so that you can start off your classes on the right foot!

          1.)    Start with reading the text before the class, and make a note of 5 or 6 questions you would like to have answered by the end of the lecture. Make sure those questions get answered, either by asking in class or visiting your professor’s office hours. 

          2.)    If your professor has the lecture slides on ANGEL, print those out and bring them to class. Make the notes directly on the slides because often they have relevant diagrams that you may see again on tests. I recommend about 4-6 slides per page, and printing on both sides of paper. 

          3.)    Keep a separate notebook and folder for each class. 

          4.)    Stay alert for and highlight points your instructor emphasizes through his or her verbal cues. Watch for lists such as "the following five steps" or "the four major causes" and for summaries signaled by words such as "consequently" or "therefore." Professors love to ask these types of questions on exams. 

          5.)    Use abbreviations and symbols to save time. Make sure you understand your abbreviations.

          6.)    Focus on the point the professor is making, rather than scrambling to copy the entire overhead without listening to what the professor is saying.

          7.)    Make sure your writing is neat and spaced out. Take the notes as if you were going to be giving them to someone else. 

          8.)     I personally like to leave about a 2 inch margin down the right side of the page and that section is dedicated to questions only. Then I draw arrows to connect the question to the concept I am confused about. It really helps when I go into office hours because I have a specific set of questions to work from. 

          9.)    If there is something the professor says that seems odd or confusing, do your best to copy it word for word and make a note by it. Then when you go into office hours, you can ask them, “What did you mean by this?”

         10.)  In your math and physics courses, you will be doing a lot of example-based problem solving. Make sure you follow along with the professor as they do each example problem. Then, next to the problem, write down step-by-step instructions for yourself. This will make it really easy to follow along later when you are working on homework or practice exams.

 
Malorie Feidner is a junior in Industrial Engineering, and she is a Mentor for WEPO '14!