Note-taking that works: thinking, not transcribing

Most students' notebooks are really transcription archives: whatever is on the board or in the book is copied down as it is. Writing produces a strong feeling of "studying", but word-for-word copying flows from eye to hand with almost no stop in the mind. The measure of good note-taking is not how much you write but how much you think while writing.

The golden rule: write it in your own words

To write something in your own words, you first have to understand it. So the simplest and most powerful note-taking rule is this: write the sentence as you would say it, not as the source says it. Pausing where you get stuck and asking "how would I explain this" is worth more than the note itself; the exact point you half-understood surfaces right there.

Formulas, definitions and dates are of course copied exactly. But adding one line under the definition in your own words, starting with "in other words...", is what makes that definition retrievable in an exam.

The Cornell method: a three-zone page

Divide the page into three: a wide note area on the right, a narrow question column on the left, and a few summary lines at the bottom.

1. During the lesson, write only in the right area: short sentences, arrows, your own abbreviations.
2. After the lesson, fill the left column with questions that interrogate each part on the right: "What does osmotic pressure depend on?", "What is the condition of this theorem?"
3. At the end of the day, cover the right side and try to answer using only the left-column questions. This turns the notebook into a self-testing question bank.

Use the bottom strip to summarise the whole page in two or three sentences. If the summary will not come, the topic has not settled yet, and that too is a valuable signal.

For those who "can't keep up" in class

Trying to catch everything is the most reliable way to understand nothing. In class, note the key words and the flow of logic; leave completing the sentences for after the lesson. Going over the notes in the first hours after class and filling the gaps is far easier than decoding lines that have lost their meaning weeks later.

The invisible half of note-taking: coming back

A notebook that is never reopened is the same as a note never taken. Notes need a place inside the weekly plan: a 20-minute block at the weekend, answering that week's left-column questions, is enough. The questions you cannot answer write next week's study list by themselves.

In one-to-one lessons we look at the student's notebook together, because the notebook is the most honest photograph of how a student thinks about a topic. The week the notes turn from copies into thinking is usually the week the scores start to move as well.