Note-taking in Lectures

[hopelesswanderer]

Hi everyone!
Uni starts in less than a month, and I would love to know what note-taking methods/programs you use during lecs and how well they work for you. Written notes v typed etc. What helps you focus more, pros/cons

[jamonwindeyer]

Hi everyone!
Uni starts in less than a month, and I would love to know what note-taking methods/programs you use during lecs and how well they work for you. Written notes v typed etc. What helps you focus more, pros/cons

Hey! I've used so many different bloody methods for taking notes in lectures its not funny.

So I've handwritten, and I honestly think its the easiest for subjects involving formulae or any form of Mathematics. Lets you focus on the lecture more and easily make markings/notes on important stuff if you need to. If I needed an electronic copy, I've used portable scanning apps to get a PDF version, I've also used nifty notebooks and pens where an electronic version is saved automatically. Handwriting is easy, BUT if you have a lot of subjects, lugging around a notebook for all of them is pretty space-consuming. I have long days, so this was a big deal for me.

I now use an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, and honestly, one of the best things I've ever splurged on. Can still handwrite, still make markings, even add audio and text notes, pretty much anything. But its just as intuitive and easy as writing in a notebook. I've tried tablet/stylus before and hated it, but the Apple Pencil works amazingly well; as close to the real thing as I've ever experienced. So if you can splurge on a good stylus and tablet setup, then 100% the way to go imo. All your notes on a single device is amazing and way better than lugging around notebooks.

For subjects not involving formulae, mainly content stuff, I've used a heap of apps/programs:

- Notability - Eh, it's okay. It lets you record your lecture and watch it back in real time (your notes AND the audio play out in front of you), but unless you want to watch your lecture multiple times, there are better.
- Microsoft Word - Good if you need equations or fancy formatting, but if you need those things, just handwrite in my opinion.
- Microsoft One Note - The best for just jotting down notes. Very simple and barebones, but it has organisation in built, and syncs to OneDrive by default. Essentially a simpler version of Word that's a whole lot less pain when it comes to organisation, but gives you nowhere near as much control over what your notes look like.
- Quiver - This is a nifty Mac app that I currently use for subjects involving coding. It makes it easier to include code fragments and has in built organisation. It even supports Markdown and LaTex, for formatting control and equation editing respectively. If you want a solid note taking app with more features/flexibility than One Note, maybe for a maths/computing subject, I highly recommend
- LaTex - As an experiment in my second year I decided to do all my Math notes in LaTex. Mainly this was to get better at using the software - It's a steep learning curve and nothing like anything else on this list. Basically, LaTex is a typesetting engine which turns code into a fancy PDF document. So you are sort of coding, not note taking. Don't recommend it for any reason besides your notes will be gorgeous on the other end - They easily give the best looking end product. But not great for note taking (great option for assignments/reports though!)

In subjects involving lots of diagrams, graphs, or equations - Handwrite, either on a tablet or paper. It's just the easiest and most intuitive - Using a tablet has the bonus of portability, audio recording, and adding extra material directly from the lecture slides to your notes.

In subjects where it's just content, few equations and mainly just words and dot points, use OneNote (FREE), or if you want a little more power to add equations/code, at the expense of 'prettiness,' go for Quiver (if you have a Mac)

If you have any questions about these let me know - I've tried a LOT of solutions over my two years at university

[SuperCell.27]

There are studies (if you google) showing that note-taking via handwriting is the best for memory. I recall from a study that you also note down less but more important things via writing since your brain prioritises key/main points when handwriting. This approach involves writing notes onto a piece of paper and writing whilst listening to the lecturer speak; not annotating the print out of the lecture slides. This bodes well for subjects which don't involve rote e.g. application-based maths, physics, chemistry etc. (i.e. most biology subjects are rote and require you to remember everything; this type of note-taking is too superficial to capture any intricate details)

The most efficient way is to obtain a set of slides (electronic pdf or printed) and simply annotate the slides. This is effective since you already have the content in front of you and you are simply augmenting what is being said/taught. For this method, use a pdf viewer on any platform and simply annotate.

It really depends on what subjects you do and how you learn. Note taking may be ineffective if someone learns best by doing real problems etc.

[Sine]

Preferably a question for the biomed students.

How did you take notes during lectures?  especially for the content heavy units

thanks

[mahler004]

Preferably a question for the biomed students.

How did you take notes during lectures?  especially for the content heavy units

thanks

Did a biomedical science major in the BSc.

First year, computer and paper.

Second year and beyond used an iPad with Notability and a stylus to directly annotate the lecture slides. Had the benefits of handwriting notes, with the benefit of electronic storage. Expensive way to go about it, though.

[Mieow]

Preferably a question for the biomed students.

How did you take notes during lectures?  especially for the content heavy units

thanks

Annotated my slides on Adobe Reader.
I initially intended to do something similar to mahler004 but I use a Surface Pro 3 and my handwriting on that comes off barely legible + the app kept crashing   

[spectroscopy]

Hi everyone!
Uni starts in less than a month, and I would love to know what note-taking methods/programs you use during lecs and how well they work for you. Written notes v typed etc. What helps you focus more, pros/cons

at melbourne uni i would say that DEFINITELY the most common note-taking method is to print out the lecture slides before the lecture with the lines next to each slide to take notes on and handwriting notes on that. second most popular method after that would be one-note on a laptop. after that everything is kind of the same. i personally just listen in lectures and absorb what therye saying and eat etc. and actually write notes and stuff later in the semester as part of exam revision

[Joseph41]

There are some great posts in this thread! How much would the stylus route cost? I've never even considered it to be honest.

My method was very consistent from my first year until my last. I bought three of these bad boys per semester (I take a lot of notes haha):



You can fit five subjects in there. I only ever did four, so I colour-coded each of the subjects (in my head, at least), and kept the last section (white) for miscellaneous notes and my daily to-do lists. It worked well for me.

I never had much of an issue with handwriting notes, and I found I paid attention in class as a result (no chance of alt+tabbing to Facebook haha).