Why We Take Notes
Taking notes while reading for courses allows us to identify common themes, things that stand out to us, relevant ideas, statistics, and more which are relevant to us. Additionally, when we take notes while we read it allows us to have the most relevant information to us to come back to when writing a paper or comparing ideas or approaches. This allows us to best understand the ideas and arguments in our subject, as well as to save time when putting ideas in conversation with each other in papers or big research assignments.
A video covering approaches to notetaking and methods for taking notes is available from McGill:
Common Note Taking Methods
A way that some people prefer to take notes is the Two-Column Method. In this method, we are creating two columns.
One column is dedicated to naming the big idea, term, question, or concept.
The second column is for writing down the details. What is the primary information we want to remember that the author is sharing with us? That might be historical context, statistics, evidence, or an argument. Your notes are for you!
The University of Tennessee has a detailed guide on other common types of note taking:
Symbols and Colors
Your notes are intended to benefit you. You know yourself best! Try out different strategies and see what helps you organize your information in a way that is most helpful to you. Some options while note taking are:
Color Coding
Color-coding can be helpful in creating and organizing categories. This can be done when writing with a pen or pencil, or digitally. You can come up with your own system that works for you, but here is an example:
- Pink = vocabulary term
- Green = big ideas
- Yellow = powerful quotes
- Red = statistics
- Blue = questions and/or points of confusion
Other colors could also relate to themes, ideas you want to share or explore with others, or anything else you find most beneficial.
Symbols and Drawings
Symbols can also be used to mark your notes. You can put a question mark (?) next to sentences, ideas, people, or terms you have lingering questions about. Stars (*) can indicate big ideas or topics you want to return to. This helps with returning to your text later on and finding these concepts/ideas you want to reconnect or re-evaluate.
Space
Take advantage of the space in a notebook or on a digital page! You can create space between sections of a reading, or organize ideas in different parts of the page.
