Note-Taking: A Different Perspective

[Cryptos]

Hey folks,

 

I have noticed a few threads discussing issues with note-taking, either in class/lectures or at business meetings and so on. In large part the environments of interest are those that come with a time element. So writing a few notes in the quiet serenity of one's home early on a sunny Sunday morn doesn't really figure.

 

Anyway, most of these discussions (from a cursory rummage among them) tend to focus on what type of script to use, or what fineness of nib, paper properties and suitable inks. And in themselves these technical issues are important.

 

However, there's something missing, in my opinion, and that is the question of what the note-taking function is meant to accomplish. After all, if I went to a lecture and wanted a verbatim recording of it then I would do just that - record it. I would not seriously consider trying to write it out in situ. Same goes for business meetings: record it, transcribe it later, when time is less pressing.

 

The point of this post then is to put forward the idea that, in general, if someone with average handwriting skills and speeds is struggling to take notes under one of the aforementioned scenarios, is it not reasonable to ask whether that person's note-taking methodology is somehow inefficient, rather than looking at the tools of the trade and assuming that the solution lies there?

 

I realise that I have presented this as a black and white situation, which it clearly isn't, but I think it is probably worth discussing all aspects of note-taking if one wishes to improve.

 

Surely there must be books out there that talk about the art of note-taking[1]

 

Something to think about.

 

 

[1] I'll have a look over the weekend.

 

 

[MBFan]

I'd imagine most people have got a style/ method that works for them. The discussion is usually, as is see it, centred around how to make note-taking specifically with a FP more efficient, not the end result of having all the necessary notes.

It's like a carpenter discussing which is the best saw to cut wood with when he already knows how to build a house.

[Xand3]

I agree with MBFan. I've been a student for the vast majority of my life. I think if I hadn't figured out how to efficiently take notes by now, I would be in a world of trouble.

 

I come to the fountain pen forums to discuss what combo of pen, ink, paper makes note taking most enjoyable. If I felt I needed advice on the actual process of note taking, I'd like to think I would be searching elsewhere.

 

Your mileage may vary. ..

[Sasha Royale]

Always open to new ideas and suggestions -- especially when there are donuts.

Did you bring donuts ?

Edited August 29, 2014 by Sasha Royale

[PaganArcher]

During the late 40's through the 70's if memory serves, my great grandfather was a court reporter for I belive six counties. He used a Parker fountain pen with Sheaffer Skrip purple ink (I still have three large bottles of his remaining ink). Gregg shorthand was his weapon of choice. Literally thousands of legal pads filled with notes and depositions, all typed back out at a later time by his wife. Effective for sure, but the one method that always eluded me.

 

Instead I developed my own "shorthand," paraphrasing what was said in a way that triggered more detailed memory later on during study.

 

What does all this add to the topic at hand? Nada really. Just an anecdote of effective fountain pen use and note taking from a bygone era that planted the seed of my addiction to writing.

[Yaakova]

During the late 40's through the 70's if memory serves, my great grandfather was a court reporter for I belive six counties. He used a Parker fountain pen with Sheaffer Skrip purple ink (I still have three large bottles of his remaining ink). Gregg shorthand was his weapon of choice. Literally thousands of legal pads filled with notes and depositions, all typed back out at a later time by his wife. Effective for sure, but the one method that always eluded me.

 

Instead I developed my own "shorthand," paraphrasing what was said in a way that triggered more detailed memory later on during study.

 

What does all this add to the topic at hand? Nada really. Just an anecdote of effective fountain pen use and note taking from a bygone era that planted the seed of my addiction to writing.

 

I remember studying Gregg Shorthand in high school in the mid-70's. The book recommended using a fountain-pen, so I used one of my trusty Sheaffer cartridge pens. Never actually used the shorthand outside of school, though. The company I went to work for afterwards used Dictaphones. With one of my bosses, I remember I had to listen to what he said and then transcribe what he meant ... unless I was mad at him, then the letters went out exactly as dictated.

[Pickwick]

The spoken word averages four every second, therefore the only solution is to write down a keyword as a memory aid, or learn shorthand.

[Elyptic]

However, there's something missing, in my opinion, and that is the question of what the note-taking function is meant to accomplish. After all, if I went to a lecture and wanted a verbatim recording of it then I would do just that - record it. I would not seriously consider trying to write it out in situ. Same goes for business meetings: record it, transcribe it later, when time is less pressing.

 

Generally, I completely agree. However, to lend an alternate perspective, there are many instances where recording devices are simply not allowed. This has caused me to struggle to find a note taking system that not only was fast enough that I wouldn't fall behind at meetings, but also detailed enough to capture all necessary details and important quotes. With practice, I've gotten better at this, but it has been an ongoing struggle.

 

And as an asside, often times my notes have to be reviewed prior to leaving work or a meeting by a security advisor. Shorthand, for me, wouldn't work as it would appear I was purposly obfuscating my notes...

[Cryptos]

Of course, I was merely generalising. In my lectures I have had other students wonder why my notes never cover more than one side of foolscap and not densely at that. I have explained that I use a lot of referencing points, either to slide numbers or to textbooks. Doesn't seem any point in the lecture to copy down what I can easily find in my leisure (now that I know where to look). And the interesting thing is that if I ask students, who sit and type, what the lecture was about, right after it finishes, they often have very little clue. I think that is a bit weird.

 

Anyway, my note-taking method is my own, as I am sure most people's are, but that doesn't mean I never stop to consider if it cannot be more efficient and better at catching salient points.And I don't recall ever thinking that it could be improved by better tools. However, I am totally unsurprised that the idea is polarising.

 

I can give another example from an unrelated sport. I have been playing badminton for many years, and I am actually pretty good, but it always amazed me the number of guys who simply threw money at latest-tech rackets in the mistaken belief that it would make a difference to how they play. From time to time players have said to me to do the same, after all, I am already skilled, how much further would better equipment take me? The answer is not much at all. And even after so many years I still use a middle of the road racket. However, I have never stepped on court without trying to learn something and tweak things that are sub-optimal. High tech may give a professional an edge, where margins are tight. For the rest of us, no.

 

Perfectly acceptable to disagree. It's a (mostly) free world, but dismissing the suggestion out of hand with statements that basically say "there cannot be ANYTHING wrong with my note-taking method" is a bit unsatisfactory.

 

 

EDITED for some gratuitously bad grammar and misspellings. My typing sucks and I am not afraid to admit it. Perhaps I should get a better computer. eh?

Edited August 29, 2014 by Cryptos

[Elyptic]

My typing sucks and I am not afraid to admit it. Perhaps I should get a better computer. eh?

 

Clearly. That will help tremendously! It will also improve spelling, grammar and generally, make your life that much better with no personal investment of time!

[Namo]

Notes taking doesn't and shouldn't aim at verbatim. That's the whole point.

If you do that in class you don't listen. If you record, you are passive. Taking NOTES makes you identity what's important or not. It makes you understand what is said. Hence, you are actively thinking while writing.

So it's not surprising if students who record or type all is said in class can't really say what this was about.

Edited August 29, 2014 by Namo

[Cryptos]

Ah Elyptic, you read me so well.

[Elyptic]

Ah Elyptic, you read me so well.

 

And we all know that our handwriting will improve with a new pen. Perhaps I should pull the trigger on that TWSBI I've been eyeing. I do need an excuse...

[bleair]

From the context of taking notes during lecture I think the learning-value in note taking comes from:

 

- You reforming the thoughts you just heard into your own terms. This reasoning and internal translation can help set the ideas into your head

 

- You rereading your notes in a few days to refresh your memory and hopefully catch a few related thoughts that you didn't fully grasp at the time, at least to ask questions

 

- You taking down a phrase or idea that you only partially understood - even though you didn't get the entire meaning, this "bread crumb" in your notes and can help you research later on. If you hadn't taken the note down you might completely forgot the item altogether

 

 

For myself, my note taking in classes was not exemplary. In some classes I got more value from using my notebook in working through related problems while listening to lecture - in effect turning it into a study hall, except the problems I would doodle on were directly triggered by what the professor was talking about.

 

Certainly in most undergrad classes the professor lectures and shows solving a problem while skipping key steps in arriving at a solution.

 

 

With speech to text tech getting better and better each year I'm curious to see if in a few years student just get a transcript of the entire lecture verbatim, and if that verbatim text will help or not in improving student learning. I'm pretty sure it won't help that much because of the "skip key steps" part I mentioned.

[ravantra]

I always listen very carefully during meetings / lectures and make very quick notes on the key points. They are usually sentence fragments, 2 to 5 words long. I also tend to sketch a lot during meetings. I will graphically connect "ideas" on paper and sketch details and concepts. I should add I'm an architect so visuals are important communication tools for me.

 

I spend a minimal amount of time taking notes or drawing though. After the meeting ends I will go through my notes briefly and add anything else I may have neglected to write and add any final thoughts, add a date and time and then file away.

 

Listening is the most important thing to take away from a meeting. I will also send out an email to everyone attending summarizing the key points and putting it on the "record" so to speak. I hate misunderstandings.

Edited August 29, 2014 by ravantra

[Elyptic]

I always listen very carefully during meetings / lectures and make very quick notes on the key points. They are usually sentence fragments, 2 to 5 words long. I also tend to sketch a lot during meetings. I will graphically connect "ideas" on paper and sketch details and concepts. I should add I'm an architect so visuals are important communication tools for me.

 

I spend a minimal amount of time taking notes or drawing though. After the meeting ends I will go through my notes briefly and add anything else I may have neglected to write and add any final thoughts, add a date and time and then file away.

 

Listening is the most important thing to take away from a meeting. I will also send out an email to everyone attending summarizing the key points and putting it on the "record" so to speak. I hate misunderstandings.

 

In my opinion, very good practices listed here. I think for me, the biggest keys to successful note taking at business meetings are:

1. Ensure you're spending maximum amounts of time listening, discussing, and asking questions. In other words, when appropriate, actively participate. This does mean writing only important topics, keywords or brief sentences which summarize a key point. Leave enough spaces around your initial notes.
2. Going back over notes as soon as is practical after the meeting is over (or during breaks) and fill in the details or add additional sentences / thoughts to clarify points which may not be so clear in a few weeks time. This is where the additional space comes into play.
3. Someone at the meeting should send out a meeting summary. Read it, and if there are items which are either missing or don't seem quite right, clarify with the participants immediately, while the discussions are fresh in people's minds.

Then again, perhaps these only work for me!

[owend]

At university, I was taught a method using "rich pictures" - why simply copy down the lecture when often it's lifted from the lecturer's published book, course notes or other available course material?

 

We were taught to use keywords, speech bubbles, clouds, Venn diagrams and other graphical elements to illustrate the points the lecturer was making and link them. The idea was to create a (sometimes vast and confusing) picture of the lecture's theme. Often it wasn't correct or complete, but simply creating it made us think about what was being said and gave starting points for further reading and research.

 

My point here is that the best efforts came from very freehand scribbling, not neat lines of text, and I found a FP was better than a BP because it didn't cause as much physical damage to the paper.

 

As a follow-up, I used to tell my own students (only slightly tongue-in-cheek) that their class notes and essay plans were theirs, and if I could read them they'd failed . A lot used to pride themselves on neat handwriting, which took ages and then they missed the next point! Mostly the girls, the boys were too busy discussing last night.

[kidde]

David, are you provoking thought again? For me (maybe only me), taking notes by hand creates a memory that stores. Even without rereading them my comprehension and recall of the event are more vivid if I take notes. But I am also the guy who finds mowing the yard relaxing, as that repetitive act (back and forth, I mow in straight lines) frees my mind to wander.

Now David, quit promoting the free exchange of ideas. What are you trying to do? Increase the IQ of the whole board? Nothing good ever comes from debate with the public squares.

 

Paul

[WaskiSquirrel]

In my early years of teaching, I was teaching a lesson in Chemistry, and got annoyed with one of my students. At that time, I tended to write all my notes on the board rather than have students take responsibility for writing their own notes. So, I started writing a description of that student's particular behaviors at that moment. He laughed and stopped the behavior. To get a further laugh, I kept describing what he was doing: touching his nose, etc. Then I noticed a girl in the class was still writing notes. So, I started describing what she was doing. It actually took 2 minutes of this before she realized she was copying down silly nonsense.

 

This was when I realized that my way of teaching at that time was ineffective. I'm still refining my teaching, but what a lesson both for that class and for myself! My teaching style took a huge leap forward that day, and it started with just trying to be funny.

[Cryptos]

That's a great story!

 

Paul, yeah I know, sometimes I just can't seem to stop myself from asking questions that have the potential to provoke thoughts. Of course 98% of the time they are just the usual run of the mill dumb questions... yet every now and then...

 

My problem is that I have no formal education. I don't gel well with the system and find it limiting. Although I do obviously see the benefits of learning fundamentals and methodologies and so on. In fact I am registered as a Uni student now - a first for me. Struggling with it a bit quite frankly. Thing is, sometimes knowing stuff, or thinking you know stuff, prevents you from asking unrestricted questions. A tricky balance really.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Cryptos