Note Taking 101 Practice Flashcards----------Brianna R. Duzan
Read the following statement from a lecture by a history teacher:
“When I went to Hawaii last year, I visited the Pearl Harbor Memorial. I was struck by the solemness of the displays and pictorials. Four battleships and two destroyers were sunk, many more were badly damaged, and there were more than 2000 casualties. It really made me consider the horror of war and how it must have felt to be there on December 7, 1941, when it was all happening.”
Reformulate this statement into an appropriate form which could be written in your notes.
This is what I said: I went to Hawaii last year, visited the Pearl Harbo Memorial, and felt the horror to be there on December 7, 1941, when four battleships and two destroyers were sunk, and many more were badly damaged, and also there were more than 2000 casualties.
Before class begins, Alma gets ready totake notesby reviewing last night’s reading assignment and the notes from the previous day. What is her next step?
b. Assemble any materials she might need for note taking.
Teachers and other presenters usually talk faster than we can write. For example, teachers in high school usually talk at a rate of about 100 to 200 words per minute. The average high school student can write about 15 to 20 words per minute. It is therefore important to do things that can help you write more quickly when taking notes in class. One way to write more quickly is to use the fewest words needed to capture the important information.
Look at the information provided by a teacher during an oral presentation:
Leaves help all kinds of plants to draw water up from the soil by a process that scientists call transpiration.
Now look at the shortened version of this information that follows. Notice that although there are fewer words, none of the important information has been lost.
Leaves help plants draw water from soil by transpiration.
For the following, rewrite the information using the fewest words needed without losing any of the important information.
Communication satellites receive signals from a transmitting station on Earth, amplify them, and beam the signals down to another Earth station, which may be thousands of miles away.
Communication satellites receive signals from a transmitting station and amplify and beam them to another.
What types of information should you include in your notes? What should you exclude?
Topics to include in notes are: Titles Main ideas Important dates Key pieces of information Anything written on the board Questions you might have Information that could possibly be on a test Topics to exclude from notes are: Personal anecdotes Irrelevant stories Word for word notes Complete sentences
Use the topic “mammals” to create a statement that should NOT be included in your notes. Explain why this statement is inappropriate to include in your notes.
This is what I said: Mammals (Mammalia) are a class of vertebrate homeothermic amniotes (of “warm blood”) that possess milk-producing mammary glands with which they feed the young. Most are viviparous (with the notable exception of the monotrematas: platypus and echidnas). A clear example of a mammal is man and his best friend, the dog. This should not be included in the notes, because it is scientifically approved that mammals have the capacity to produce milk and give this food to their young, which is vital for humans or dogs as in the example.
What should a student do with their notes after class?
c. Rewrite the notes to better understand and learn the information.
