Note-taking

[Anonymous No.6669021]

How do you guys take your notes?

[Anonymous No.6669023]

With pen and paper

[Anonymous No.6669027]

>>6669021
LaTeX and lots of hyperref

[Anonymous No.6669029]

In a notebook with a pencil. I had a friend who too their notes on an iPad, said it worked really well.

[Anonymous No.6669034]

Notebooks or binders

[Anonymous No.6669035]

Notebooks or binders?

[Anonymous No.6669039]

>>6669027
>LaTeX and lots of hyperref

I very much doubt you can format LaTeX quickly enough to be useful for note-taking.

[Anonymous No.6669082]

Binder and pencil is best method

When it comes to actually writing notes, beyond the necessary diagrams and information I try to usually write them in a simple narrative, colloquial format, as if I'm writing to explain the concepts to myself in the future. It makes reviewing notes a lot more engaging.

Also if it's a class that I don't necessarily enjoy I'll add exclamation marks to the end of all my sentences in order to stimulate some sense of (albeit false) enthusiasm when I re-read them. It helps more than you'd think.

[Anonymous No.6669091]

>>6669039
Latex is really very simple. Bit of cleaning up afterwards and it's great for note taking.

[Anonymous No.6669094]

with a pen

[Anonymous No.6669099]

I record the lecture audio with my phone, and take notes simultaneously. I write down the time on several intervals to indicate when I wrote what so I can correlate it to the lecture audio.

[Anonymous No.6669101]

>>6669039
> implying I go to class

[Anonymous No.6669106]

>>6669101
>Paying thousands for essentially nothing

[Anonymous No.6669111]

>>6669101
I don't understand how you even do that shit. I didn't know that people even cut classes in college before I started it. Why would you pay so much to make your classes hard by skipping lectures?

[Anonymous No.6669120]

>>6669106
> implying I'm still in school or that my classes weren't also recorded and pausible.
> implying I didn't pay thousands for a fancy piece of paper

[Anonymous No.6669123]

>>6669111
I sleep when lectured at.
People talk to slow for me and don't give information fast enough.
I can pick up stuff really quick and don't need a full hour and half of doing examples to get it.

[Anonymous No.6669428]

i like it when professors give out note packets

[Anonymous No.6669430]

>>6669428
Can you scan that and upload it?
It looks really interesting.

[Anonymous No.6669465]

>>6669123
at least you get examples. I've had classes where the lecturer just goes over his slides, what a waste of time; those are the ones I skip.

[Anonymous No.6669471]

>>6669021
>Axiom
>Definition
>Lemma
>Theorem
>Corollary
>Technique
>Example
>Explanation
>Diagram
Use as needed.

[Anonymous No.6669481]

>>6669465
I fucking hate Cornell notes. They forced us to do them at my junior high school and even graded us on them.

[Anonymous No.6669485]

>>6669430
my dad's using the computer with the scanner right now, so hopefully these pics came out good enough. I would consider uploading the notes from the whole semester but that would take way too long, considering this is like 1/3 of one of the 15 chapters we covered.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rw7m8ysvools7e2/AADQMuCJjj-XKXC6tmsFr0oaa

[Anonymous No.6669511]

>>6669481
Same here. I never understood why they would force individuals a note taking system that didn't work for them.

[Anonymous No.6669519]

Has anyone tried taking notes on a tablet and pen? My new tablet has a full digitizer surface and I've been wondering how useful it would be on a real note taking scenario.

[Anonymous No.6669543]

>>6669519
I imagine it to have a couple of advantages:
-Your notes are instantly digital
-You can correct mistakes easier
-Potentially easier to add in diagrams/references/etc.
-Can manipulate them later

Cons:
-Might take longer to write things down
-They're not physical i.e. lack the advantages of having it on paper (still, you can print them)

Also, just because your notes are digital it doesn't mean you can freely search through them in a ctrl-f manner. Unless you're using software that recongizes writing you'll end up manually sorting/tagging everything.

[Anonymous No.6669551]

>>6669543
I really like the idea of all digital notes, but if it's inconvenient in any way I'll probably ditch it in a heartbeat.

[Anonymous No.6669595]

>>6669551
This. I've got a touchpad and can take notes on it and stuff but it always ends up feeling so tedious compared to pencil and paper. I expected the exact opposite to be the case when I first bought my touchpad and was excited to use it for note taking.

[Anonymous No.6669639]

I just put regular white paper in a binder; I hate it when there are lines.

[Anonymous No.6669642]

>>6669639
I use mostly blank paper too, but I still use squares for math.

[Anonymous No.6669648]

I've been using spiral notebooks until now, but I'm thinking about sticking paper in a binder and using that.

[Anonymous No.6669665]

>>6669642
>>6669639
argh I hate unlined paper.
My writing gets huge and starts to curve everywhere.

[Anonymous No.6669677]

>>6669665
That's only annoying when you're doing a lot of writing. If you're doing something involving a lot of diagrams and drawings unlined is definitely great.

[reporting No.6669691]

I'm going to get flamed for propagating pseudo-science here but IDGAF because it's always worked better for me. In addition to all the traditional methods mentioned here, I like to spice things up by engaging my creativity while I take notes. I do this by adding color, diagonal lines, and generally designing the notes in a unique way. Sometimes I even doodle pictures relevant to the lecture. This has several advantages for me. It makes the lecture a more memorable experience, it makes reviewing the notes more fun, and there are some that suggest engaging both hemispheres of the brain increases retention. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED335141

[Anonymous No.6669697]

>>6669691
>I'm going to get flamed for propagating pseudo-science here
>adds a scientific source

Friendly reminder that you're anonymous and this isn't a bad idea.

[reporting No.6669723]

>>6669697
most people on /sci/ view anything that isn't based entirely in numbers as pseudo-science

[Anonymous No.6669793]

>>6669691
>and there are some that suggest engaging both hemispheres of the brain increases retention
Everything except this was sensible. The whole left brain right brain thing is pseudo-science.

[Anonymous No.6669824]

Read textbook chaper ahead, take one sided notes i black while reading.
Add stuff in blue during lecture
Back of the page is for overflow

[Anonymous No.6669827]

>>6669824
Also, I highlight in blue the stuff I wrote beforehand if the prof mentions it

This approach is two pronged:actually learning (filter stuff you read), and beating the final/midterm

[Anonymous No.6670035]

Engineering paper for stuff involving maths
despite its price, its unlined, yet still has that translucent line from the squared backing, so graphs look clean and words are straight
for gen Ed, one note and typing works

then again i dont take notes, more annotate examples

[Anonymous No.6670041]

>>6669428
Most of the note taking thing is writing it down and processing it while you're doing so, if I write something down I hardly ever look at it again unless it's some complex formula or something. Most of the time I just have it committed to memory right as I'm writing it.

[Anonymous No.6670063]

I'm a lefty and going to school for physics/astronomy, so I've given much thought to this matter. If I use a normal lined notebook, drawing graphs with points/lines is a mess and doesn't work. I ended up buying an artist's sketch pad. Again though, the lefty curse is against me. I use the book by having the binder on top and writing landscape across the page. When I want to flip the page I just flip it up. A little tricky at first, but it's a cinch now!

[Anonymous No.6670066]

Math major here. Am I the only one that just doesn't take notes in class? I find that if I put my undivided attention towards the professor and what he's writing, I get more from the lecture. Needless to say, I depend on the textbook a LOT. I'll go back and read the chapter a dozen times along with internet research if I must.

My peers think I'm crazy, but this method has gotten me through all sorts of courses....differential geometry, two semesters of abstract algebra, combinatorics, real analysis, etc.

[Anonymous No.6670067]

>>6669691
...I think I might know you. Math major? Did you take differential geometry in the fall?

[Anonymous No.6670069]

>>6670067
Last spring I meant***

[Anonymous No.6670094]

If notetaking is interfering with my paying attention to the subject matter as it's being presented, I don't bother.

Basically, I'm better off listening to the instructor than replicating their words in my notebook and trying to make sense of them later.

If I have to reference something later, there are plenty of sources available. Note taking is good for reinforcing what you already understand or are familiar enough to follow along with the instructor. But I generally find I don't reference my notes at a later date anyhow (maybe because I'm a crappy note-taker, but still, I get along just as well).

[Anonymous No.6670109]

Giant stack of printer paper, and pens of various colors (thought I'm usually to lazy to make use of them).

[Medical_Physicist !!ST92PtcX00D No.6670116]

>>6670066

I always did this, I took my notes with the textbook, not lecture. Like you said, I can reread a passage as many times as I'd like but the professor is--ideally--only going to say something one time.

[Anonymous No.6670132]

>>6670066
>>6670116
This is pretty solid, but do you guys still have paper to do some scratch when a proof/problem is hard to follow? Just curious.

[Anonymous No.6670148]

>>6670132
The above comment is mine: >>6670063

I typically what others do, in that I'm not taking notes the whole class.I'm mostly listening to the teacher, and if they're explaining a concept I'm fairly comfortable with, I won't even write it down. If it is something I'm uncomfortable with, I'll write something down. Typically in the form of arrows between other objects on the page.

I almost never write sentences being a math major. All of my notes are graphs / examples with small margin notes explaining each step. I work much better this way. Words seem to get in my way of understanding a concept. I have a good memory, and it works against me sometimes. I end up memorizing words/phrases rather than see how the problem works itself out.

You can't memorize a problem, because they're all different, but I CAN memorize the necessary steps you need to solve the problem at a given point given certain aspects. Writing landscape in this fashion allows me to have expansive diagrams to depict the transformations of the equations.

[Anonymous No.6670322]

I have a fun technique I would suggest to you guys as well.

If you know the topics covered in lecture beforehand (this is usually the case everywhere), print out (or write, or take your own pre-existing related material) some summary/notes of the topic (even a wiki-page or a scanned textbook chapter will do). Read it beforehand (not absolutely necessary, you can also read it during the lecture).
Then in the lecture just listen to the professor and if he/she is saying stuff that's on the notes, don't do anything (subconciously you're learning a lot, though, affirming stuff from 2 sources). If he adds something original/insightful, make small corrections/highlights/notes on your preexisting text. It feels a little like a game ("find-the-paragraph!"). :)

[Anonymous No.6670475]

>>6670041
yeah, i went back and rewrote all the notes in a notebook myself when i was studying for exams, its just nice to have something directly from the professor, almost to see how he would take the notes to best absorb all the info

[Anonymous No.6671444]

I don't take classes anymore. So the purpose of my notes are different. A lot of my notes are developing ideas. As a rule of thumb only 1 page out of 3 has a fully developed idea worth saving. So, this is my system.

I have a memo pad that has a bunch of dots on the edge of the page. I scribble out math problems, diagrams, ideas or whatever. If I write something worth saving I snap a picture with an app I made that automatically crops out everything outside the dots. Everything else goes into a stack destined for the trash.

[Anonymous No.6671736]

>>6669481
So much this.

[Anonymous No.6671740]

>>6669465
I FUCKING HATE CLASSES GIVEN WITH SLIDES, FUCK THEM, FUCK YOUR FUCKING MEME IN THE INTERVAL SLIDE, NO ONE LAUGHS FAGGOT, FUCKING COMP SCI

[Anonymous No.6671773]

>>6670094

I've recently found that this method works for me. However, I'm unsure of myself and I'm a bit scared seeing as taking no notes / sparse notes runs counter to my previous study habits (i.e. a lifetime of word-for-word note-taking). As such, I'm wondering: how do you study for your courses? Any preferred study habits?

[Anonymous No.6672032]

>>6671740
Fucking lol. I like slides, but I've never had memes in them.

[Anonymous No.6672078]

Whats the best wat to take chemistry ans biology notes? Laptop or just pen and paper?

[Anonymous No.6672100]

>>6672078

I don't think you'll do well on both of those..

[Anonymous No.6672123]

Do any of you guys use Papers/Zotero/Mendelay/OneNote/Evernote for keeping track of research papers/citations/important bits of information?

[Anonymous No.6672129]

>>6671740
Y U NO LIKE MEMES, ANON?

lol

[Anonymous No.6672134]

>>6672123
Mendeley/Evernote here. I use evernote for notes and for my task management system.

Write down as much as you can in a trusted system, it will free your mind.

[Anonymous No.6673260]

fek

[Anonymous No.6673287]

[Anonymous No.6673289]

I just read the text book. No notes for me..

[Anonymous No.6673295]

>>6669027
>LaTeX
>Being this autistic

[Anonymous No.6673331]

I never take notes because I feel like I'm doing it wrong somehow; like there's some universally correct way to take notes that I'm not aware of.
I'm like this with a lot of things.

[Anonymous No.6673334]

>>6673295
> having clean notes on my computer
vs
> having piles of notebooks with more doodles than information

[Anonymous No.6673352]

>>6669023

This. I tried the whole computer shit but I found I retain information a lot better when I physically write stuff down. When it comes to mathematics, it is graph paper all the way.

[Anonymous No.6673360]

>>6669691
how the fuck do you keep up

My QM and analysis teachers throw so much shit up on the board or move so quickly through slides, you can only keep up by writing as fast as you can - IF you are lucky. And I write very quickly in cursive..

[Anonymous No.6673675]

>>6673334
>not having doodles and diagrams of the shit youre studying