Effective note-taking — Pocklington School

Whatever it is that you are studying, it is your job to sift through the world of information and resources available to arrive at your own understanding of any problem with which you are presented. Choosing when and how to make notes is one crucial part of this work of sifting.

Taking good notes is a way to save yourself time and effort in the longer term. Your notes will help to make sure you have all the information close at hand when you really need it later on. Active note-taking will also help you to understand, recall and represent ideas, concepts and information in a range of different ways, which can help with recall and synthesis of material. It is important to remember that different people find different note-making strategies work best for them, so it is important to experiment and develop a systematic approach that works for you.

You can follow interactive online tutorials on effective note-making here:

https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/courses/Study_Skills/welcome-to-study/index.html#/id/5c3f4c883f6a8f057451b087

https://www.york.ac.uk/it-services/coursefiles/tutorials/notes/story_html5.html

Some basic tips for effective note-making follow although the documents below will also give you some useful tips:

Be concise:

Keep it to the point, use abbreviations when appropriate
Use bullet points rather than full sentences to act as prompts
Try to minimise irrelevant and unimportant information – to avoid confusion later!

Keep it readable