7 Effective Note-Making Tips For Students

Your exams are approaching, you want to revise your syllabus before appearing for exams, you have a bunch of textbooks and an organized set of subject-wise notes. Which one would you choose? Many students out there chose the latter one, even I did and would. Note-making is an art which if understood and mastered early fetches you good grades with smart work. Starting early in note-taking is very important to make it a habit. Note-making starts with note-taking. Note-taking is when you listen to the professors and their lectures and rush to jot the key points whereas note-making is the process of organizing the notes collected in the earlier process and assimilating them to help you few days before exams. Here, we at Docmerit bring you 7 effective tips to prepare a worthy set of notes to be relied on.

1.    Paper or Paperless?

Today, if we talk about note-making, the first question that arises in our minds is whether to keep it digital or physical. Well, if you have just started note-making, go for the physical version that is the pen-paper method. Use A4 sheets or a notebook, with a set of colorful pens, includes but, is not limited to Blue, Black, and Red.

• Red for headings, subheadings, important date, place, person, or a term.
• Black for definitions, introductions, summaries.
• Blue for the main content.

You can even choose the digital note-making, it is hassle-free, organized, and could be read anytime, anywhere. There are many free note-making apps available on Appstore and Playstore, you can check those.

2.    What’s important and what’s not?

Remember, you want to assemble the points in a way that you’ll be able to understand even after months or a year after the actual lectures. Also, you want notes that are easy to recall and not another copy of your textbooks. Here, comes the tricky part, initially, it could be difficult to breakdown the importance of the content. Everything may seem important but not each one will be included in the notes, right? So, look at one concept at a time from a chapter, break it into levels of importance, like let’s say definition/term à person who derived it à main idea à examples, diagrams, or any other relevant information.
Read and re-read the materials, finally pen it down.

3.    Be creative! Make it a masterpiece.

Your creative mind will bring you a level up in note-making. Make use of flowcharts, diagrams, this way even note-making will be a fun activity and you’ll enjoy it. Try to avoid writing in paragraphs, make points, equally spaced and in an easily readable format.

4.    Turn theoretical subjects into stories by yourself.

For a few subjects, the content is mostly facts and not much could be done about that. With theoretical subjects comes too much information, so structure it that way. Read, read while understanding it, wait for a few minutes, try to recall, put down the points that you recall on paper. See if you have missed any important points. If yes, include it, otherwise, you have done a wonderful job! You could try making stories around what you’ve read but make a meaningful one. This way, you can remember for a longer time.

5.    Keep your notes updated.

This tip will give you an extra edge over others. Keep updating your notes if the subject is research or current affairs oriented. You can add important announcements/ discoveries that appear in news, comments by leaders relevant to your subjects. This would show how updated you are with the latest stuff going on.

6.    Jot it down, rate its likelihood of appearing in exams.

One of the key point while note-making is to stick to your syllabus and the type of questions appear in your exams that could be categorized to the subjects, universities, or countries. Keep the previous year’s question papers, rate the likelihood of a concept appearing in exams then accordingly devote your time and efforts to that.

7.    Know your style and then prepare.

In the past, you might have tried and tested different strategies and approaches for preparation and you know what has worked and what hasn’t. Once you adopt a method and continue for a month or two with dedication you would come to know what works for you the best. Hence, start early and practice it!