How to Take Notes You’ll Actually Review

Written by Lauren Smyth

Imagine listening to your own voice for hours at a time. You’re forced to pay attention to yourself because you desperately need the information, but you’re on the edge of getting up and running away in a panic because, well, it’s your own voice. Also, someone has messed up your recording. The audio that was once so clear is now garbled, hard to understand, and topically all over the place like a malfunctioning teleportation device. Oh—and you’re on a deadline.

That’s what it feels like to study bad notes. The metaphor holds especially true if, like me, you strive for straight lines and neat handwriting and get annoyed when you can’t manage it. But do you really need to take remedial handwriting classes to create notes that are pleasant to review?

Spoiler alert: The answer is “no.” There’s no need for Pinterest-aesthetic notes, but you do need to be methodical when you’re designing and organizing them. Here’s how it’s done.

In Class

  • Don’t write down everything the professor says. Instead of copying every word verbatim, drill down to the main point. In economics, for example, you might take a (conceptually simplified) note like this:

       Supply

  • Def: Producer willingness/ability to produce quantity at different prices
  • Influenced by:
    • New tech
    • Number of producers in market

Add a graph, and you’ve condensed twenty minutes of lecture into five lines and a picture.

  • Avoid dropping or abbreviating key words. Notice that in the sample note above, there are no complete sentences, but the fragments are sensible. If I changed the definition of supply to something like “prod will/ab prod quant at diff $,” I would have invented a new language that I’ll have to re-learn before I can use these notes. This may seem like it saves time in class, but beware—if you’re taking notes so quickly that you can’t write out whole words, return to the previous point.
  • Use your highlighter strategically. A full page of marker ink is overwhelming, so highlight only words that will require review. 

Here’s a peek ahead: Everything you highlight should go into a Quizlet deck after class. Unless you want to spend your whole afternoon typing, be discerning about what you mark up.

  • Draw graphs, diagrams, equations, and charts on the left side of the page. Write explanations on the right side. Since you read left-to-right in English, this allows you to see the picture first and the explanation after, which can help organize your thoughts. Some people prefer to reverse this order, depending on whether they process text or images better. Whichever style you choose, be consistent with it.
  • Don’t be afraid to use bullet points upon bullet points.
    • Important
      • Topics
        • Often
          • Require
            • Lots
              • Of
                • Indentation.

Each new subtopic should have its own indentation, even if that means you start writing halfway across the page.

After Class

  • Copy the main points from class without looking at your notes. This tip was recommended by economics professor Dr. Michael Clark, who provides students with extra paper to complete this exercise. During a break between classes, try to write down all the main points from class by memory onto a blank sheet. Then, double-check what you wrote against your notes. Active recall teaches your brain to remember what you’ve learned without depending on notes.

If you work carefully, you can combine this step with the next one.

  • Copy new vocabulary and concepts into a Quizlet or flashcard deck. Anything you highlighted goes here. One topic may need two or three cards. Referring to the sample notes above, I would divide this overview of supply into two cards, like this:

What is supply? > Supply is the quantity producers are willing and able to produce at different prices.

What factors influence supply? > New technology and the number of producers in the market

Phrase the front of the card like a test question. “Draw an Edgeworth box,” “If taxes fall, investment will ______,” and “What are the four efficiency costs of inflation?” are all well-worded, complete questions.

This deck can get seriously long. I once made a deck for a journalism class that included 190 cards. But don’t worry—in the next step, you’ll weed through your terms and get rid of what you don’t need.

When Reviewing

  • Review your Quizlet deck first, not your notes. Vital information from the class should be in this deck. Review it, eliminating cards as you learn them, until you get down to five or six that you just can’t remember. Set these aside—we’ll come back to them.
  • Review your notes quickly and efficiently. This step should take no more than half an hour to maybe an hour for a final exam. Don’t let it take longer, or you’ll find your attention waning. To prevent yourself from getting distracted, try writing down the notes you don’t fully remember onto a separate sheet of paper, rephrasing as you go so that you’re not simply rote memorizing.
  • Create a “cram sheet” the night before your exam. Take the five or six cards you couldn’t remember and anything from your notes that still seems confusing and write it out onto a sheet of paper. You’ll bring this with you to the classroom when you take the exam. This sheet should contain topics you either don’t expect to be on the exam or highly detailed topics like very long equations that you can easily cram.

Read this paper immediately before your exam. Seriously. Your eyes should be on it ten minutes or less before the test. When you have the major concepts down, short-term visual memory will carry you through the highly detailed topics that are harder to remember.

Even if you’re not naturally organized, and even if you don’t feel like you need order to be successful in your studies, run an experiment with this method and see if it helps. I can almost guarantee you’ll feel more prepared for and less stressed about exams. Plus, you may find yourself getting better grades and spending less time studying.

Because if you want to read a novel and get eight hours of sleep the night before midterms—and feel good about it, too—this is how it’s done.

Lauren Smyth, ’25, is an economics major and journalism minor. Outside of starting arguments in philosophy class, she enjoys curling up on a bench outdoors (sun, rain, or snow) to write novels or articles for her blog, www.laurensmythbooks.com.

 

 

Published in September 2024