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NOTE TAKING IN LECTURES-NOTE TAKING IN LECTURES-PRACTISING STRATEGIESPRACTISING STRATEGIES

ROBERT BLAKE

Effective Learning Programme for International Students,

Student Learning Development Centre

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Note Taking In Lectures: practising Strategies- Note Taking In Lectures: practising Strategies- outlineoutline

This session will help you with ways of recording

what you hear in lectures:

• A strategy for listening & taking notes in

lectures

• How to lay out notes

• How to use symbols and abbreviations

• Questions for clarifying points for note taking

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Practising Note Taking Strategies- Practising Note Taking Strategies- Introduction Introduction

Taking notes in lectures can be a difficult experience. One student commented:

‘We have lecturers who talk at us non-stop, scribbling stuff on the whiteboard all the time, and we’re still trying to get it down minutes after they’ve left the room…’

[quotation from Rowntree, slightly adapted 1998:119]

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Practising Note Taking Strategies in Lectures- Practising Note Taking Strategies in Lectures- IntroductionIntroduction

What has your experience been of lectures so far?

How successfully have you been able to take notes?

Has Powerpoint been used in your classes?

Has it helped you to take better notes?

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Practising Note Taking Strategies in Lectures- Practising Note Taking Strategies in Lectures- IntroductionIntroduction

How can we take more effective

notes from lectures, whether

Powerpoint based or not?

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Practising Note Taking- SQL2R Practising Note Taking- SQL2R

•To use lectures creatively, a balance between listening carefully and taking notes is needed.One way to take more effective notes in lectures is to adapt the SQ3R strategy used for effective reading [Survey, Question, Read, Recall, Review] to SQL2R:• Surveying• Questioning• Listening & Note taking • Recall • Review

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Practising Note Taking Strategies- Practising Note Taking Strategies- SurveyingSurveying

Surveying: listening for signposting.

Signposting language explains the overall structure of

the lecture, and how the parts of the talk are structured.

Surveying the lecture for signposting signals can help

you plan the layout of your notes. In Powerpoint based

lectures it involves surveying the overall structure from

the handout.

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Practising Note Taking Strategies: Surveying-Practising Note Taking Strategies: Surveying-SignpostingSignposting

Some examples of signposting language

I’ll begin by Well, The first of these settings, One of the key questions So now we’ve come to …. To sum up, what we’ve looked at so far

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Practising Note Taking Strategies- Practising Note Taking Strategies- QuestioningQuestioning

Along with surveying, questioning can be helpful:

Before the lecture, ask:

-What do I want to get out of this lecture?

-How does it fit in with the course?

-What do I already know about this topic?

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Practising Note Taking Strategies- Practising Note Taking Strategies- QuestioningQuestioning

During the lecture ask yourself:

- what are the main points?

- What clues is the lecture giving about what is

follow e.g. ‘There are 3 main theories….’

- What is informative?

- What is analytical?

- What is the lecturer's opinion?

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Practising Note Taking Strategies- Recall & Practising Note Taking Strategies- Recall & ReviewReview

After the lecture remember to Recall &

Review. Unless you have a superb memory,

you’ll forget much of what you’ve heard &

made notes on, So it’s necessary to find

ways of recalling

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Practising Note Taking Strategies- recallPractising Note Taking Strategies- recall

Quickly draw a quick mind map, spider

diagram or flow chart summarising what

you remember –

• What are the main points?

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Practising Note Taking Strategies: ReviewPractising Note Taking Strategies: Review

Review involves assessing how well you’ve been

able to remember the lecture information during

recall

• Make questions about the parts you couldn’t

remember.

• Review your notes to answer the questions & fill in

the gaps.

• Make a list of those bits you did not understand &

reread your notes to understand

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Practising Note Taking Strategies- types of Practising Note Taking Strategies- types of notesnotes

You can record your notes in a number of ways including:

• Linear notes

• Flow diagrams

• Mind maps

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Practising Note Taking Strategies- types of Practising Note Taking Strategies- types of notesnotes

You can record your notes in a number of ways including:

• Linear notes: with headings & sub-headings; points are numbered sequentially

• Flow diagrams: suit logical thinkers

• Mind maps: suit visual thinkers. Put the lecture

topic & aspects of the topic branching off from the

central point See slide 17 for an example.

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Practising Note Taking Strategies- linear Practising Note Taking Strategies- linear notesnotes

An example of Linear notes:

Taking notes from lectures• Prepare for the lecture • Use tape/buddy + good note taking • Look for organisation clues from lecturer Taking notes from readings• Know what you want from the reading • Look for organisation clues from headings, sections, paragraphs • Don’t write down examples • SQ3R Approach • Survey – flip through & layout • Question – structure and relevance • Read – twice through quickly • Recall – main points, facts & biblio. Details • Review – repeat steps & relate to task• Example from Exeter University Web site

http://www.ex.ac.uk/dll/studyskills/note_taking_appendix_a.htm

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Practising Note Taking Strategies- mind map Practising Note Taking Strategies- mind map notesnotes

An example of notes in the form of a mind map from Tony Buzan. Note the use of colour & space

http://www.mind-map.com/EN/mindmaps/how_to.html

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Practising Note Taking Strategies- flow diagram Practising Note Taking Strategies- flow diagram notesnotes

An example of notes in the form of a flow diagram

Liverpool Hope University http://www.hope.ac.uk/gnu/stuhelp/notes4.htm#Note

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Listening To Lectures: Note takingListening To Lectures: Note taking

Useful lecture notes reflect the structure of

a lecture by marking out the:

Introduction

Main points

Sub-points

Supporting detail

References

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Practising Note Taking Strategies- mind map Practising Note Taking Strategies- mind map notesnotes

You can use subordination to identify the

importance of information:

• key information on the left hand side

• detailed points in the middle

• comments & questions on the right

hand side

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Note Taking Strategies- lecture detailsNote Taking Strategies- lecture details

Also record on each page:• Course title- abbreviations• Lecture title• Lecturer name or Initials• Date • Page number• Sub topic? [Helps you locate topics]This can help you to avoid plagiarism &

keep track of your notes 6 months on

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Note Taking In Lectures- Symbols & Note Taking In Lectures- Symbols & abbreviationsabbreviations

Symbols & abbreviations can save you valuable

time: enabling you to write less & identify the

main points more efficiently.

• reducing the time you take writing notes

• therefore giving you more time to understand

lecture contents & to concentrate on the main

points of the lecture

• help you to take notes using you own words

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Note Taking In Lectures-using abbreviations Note Taking In Lectures-using abbreviations

• e.g. for example• i.e. that is• etc. etcetera: and so

on• N.B. note• Q. question• No. number• probs. problems• p./pp page/pages• 1st   first• max. maximum• c.

about/approximately• ref. reference• thro‘/thru through

• imp important• sit. situation• eval evaluation• analy analysis• diff/diff.y difficult/difficulty• diff.t different

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Note Taking In Lectures-using symbolsNote Taking In Lectures-using symbols

What symbols would you use for?thereforebecausestatement/answer is correctstatement/answer is wrongquestion; is the statement correct?or (this/that = this or that)and/plusditto (means the same as the words immediately above the ditto marks)does not equal, differs from, is the opposite ofis/are/have/has/equalsleads to/results in/causesdoes not lead to/result in/cause

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Note Taking In Lectures-asking for Note Taking In Lectures-asking for clarificationclarification

To take notes more effectively you may need, if the lecturer allows, to ask questions for clarification

Think of some questions that you can ask to make a lecturer easier to understand

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Note Taking In Lectures-asking for Note Taking In Lectures-asking for clarificationclarification

• I’m afraid I didn’t follow your point about…Could you go

over that again?

• Could you go over [again] what you said about ..

• Could you explain what you meant when you said that

…?

• Could you be more specific about..?

• Could you expand a little on what you said about…?

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Note Taking In Lectures-asking for Note Taking In Lectures-asking for clarificationclarification

• Could you give an example of …

• Sorry/I’m afraid I didn’t catch what you say about..

• Sorry you speak a little louder please?

• Sorry could you speak a little more slowly please?

• Sorry to interrupt, could I ask a question about ..

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Note Taking In Lectures - further help Note Taking In Lectures - further help

For further help, seeAndy Gillett’s excellent UEFAP site athttp://www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/celt/sldc/materials/lectures.htm

Look under structure, to see many examples of language lecturers use to structure their talks and exercises.See also the SLDC web pages on ‘What am I getting from lectures’http://www.uefap.co.uk/listen/listfram.htm