HOW TO TAKE UNIVERSITY NOTES // WRITING NOTES FOR LECTURES, READINGS & SEMINARS
Summary
TLDRIn this video, a third-year geography and German student from the London School of Economics shares her top tips on effective university note-taking. She discusses the best devices (laptops, tablets, pen and paper), tools (Microsoft OneNote, Google Docs, Notion), and techniques to streamline the note-making process. Her main advice includes writing lecture notes before attending class, focusing on value-added information, and integrating reading notes into lecture notes. She emphasizes working smart, being selective, and actively engaging with content rather than passively highlighting. The goal is to create concise, exam-ready notes while adapting methods that work best for individual students.
Takeaways
- 📒 Writing notes effectively is key for university success, and it can vary based on individual preference.
- 🖊️ Students in STEM fields might prefer traditional pen and paper for diagrams, but social sciences students often benefit from using laptops or tablets.
- 💻 Cloud-based note systems like OneNote, Google Docs, and Notion are excellent for organizing and accessing notes from anywhere.
- 🖥️ It's not necessary to have expensive equipment; a basic laptop can perform just as well for most students.
- 📝 Preparing notes before a lecture by writing up PowerPoints or materials ahead of time can help students focus better during class.
- 🔍 Modify difficult or unfamiliar terms in the lecture slides to simpler language before attending the lecture to aid understanding.
- 🎯 During lectures, concentrate on slides or topics that are harder to understand, as it's impossible to give full attention for the entire session.
- 📚 Doing lecture notes before the readings helps frame the content and makes the readings easier to understand.
- 📝 For readings, focus on summarizing the overall message and extracting key points rather than trying to digest every word.
- 🎯 Keep your notes concise and relevant to what could be examined or useful for essays, rather than overwhelming yourself with excessive detail.
Q & A
What are the main challenges students face when taking notes at university?
-Students often feel overwhelmed by the volume of information, including lectures, readings, and assignments, and struggle with finding efficient ways to take notes.
What are the different methods of note-taking mentioned in the script?
-The script mentions traditional pen and paper, digital note-taking using laptops or tablets, and specific software like OneNote, Google Docs, and Notion.
Which note-taking method does the speaker recommend for social science courses?
-The speaker recommends using a laptop or a tablet for social science courses because they tend to involve more text-based content rather than diagrams.
What are the advantages of using OneNote for note-taking?
-OneNote acts like a digital notebook where students can search through notes and readings simultaneously, making it easier to find information. It also allows students to store readings and notes in the cloud for easy access.
Why does the speaker find Notion too complicated?
-The speaker finds Notion difficult to set up and too complex for their needs, though they acknowledge that some students use it successfully.
Why does the speaker recommend writing lecture notes before attending the lecture?
-Writing notes before the lecture helps the student gain an initial understanding of the material, making it easier to focus on the lecturer's additional insights during class.
How does the speaker deal with unfamiliar terms in the lecture notes?
-The speaker Googles unfamiliar terms and replaces complex words with simpler ones that they understand, which helps them better follow the lecture.
What is the speaker’s opinion on the importance of reading before lectures?
-The speaker suggests doing the reading after the lecture, as the lecture provides a general outline that helps frame the reading and makes it easier to understand.
How does the speaker organize reading notes to be more efficient?
-The speaker advises summarizing readings as much as possible, focusing on key points and the overall message, and avoiding extensive highlighting of texts.
What is the main takeaway from the speaker's note-taking strategy?
-The speaker emphasizes the importance of working smart, not hard, by organizing notes efficiently, focusing on essential content, and making the note-taking process active rather than passive.
Outlines
📚 Introduction to University Note-Taking Challenges
The speaker, Imagin, a third-year geography and German student at the London School of Economics, introduces herself and discusses a common question: how to effectively make notes in university. She acknowledges the overwhelming feeling many first-year students experience, especially with lectures and readings, and offers to share her top tips for efficient note-taking.
✍️ Choosing Your Note-Taking Device
The speaker explains the importance of selecting the right device for note-taking. Traditional pen and paper are recommended for STEM subjects with diagrams, while laptops or tablets are better for social sciences. She highlights the pros and cons of various tools, including digital pencils and tablets, emphasizing that expensive equipment isn't necessary for success. She also mentions that basic laptops with word processing software work perfectly fine.
💻 Recommended Programs for Digital Note-Taking
The speaker discusses the pros and cons of different software for taking notes, recommending OneNote, Google Docs, and Notion over Microsoft Word due to better organization and cloud-based accessibility. She briefly explains how these platforms allow students to access notes anywhere, thus making them more practical for university life. She also notes that while Notion is powerful, its complexity might make it unsuitable for everyone.
📝 Preparing Lecture Notes in Advance
The speaker's top note-taking tip is to prepare lecture notes before attending the lecture. By downloading and writing up lecture materials in advance, students can better understand the content and focus on the value-added aspects of the lecture itself. This strategy helps solidify the material and primes the student to focus on more challenging topics during the lecture.
🔍 Understanding and Simplifying Lecture Content
The speaker shares practical steps to understand complicated lecture content. She advises rewriting complex jargon in simpler terms using resources like Google. This method prepares students to engage more meaningfully with the lecture, as they are not encountering the material for the first time during class.
🎯 Active Learning and Attention Management During Lectures
The speaker emphasizes the importance of focusing on parts of the lecture that are difficult to understand, as it's unrealistic to give full attention to a two-hour lecture. She encourages 'smart' learning, focusing more on essential topics and recognizing that not all material will be equally important for exams or essays.
🎨 The Process of Layering Notes: Lecture, Then Reading
The speaker recommends taking lecture notes first, then doing readings afterward. She believes that lecture content provides a useful framework that helps students understand readings more efficiently. Doing readings beforehand can result in stress and wasted time, as students might focus too much on complex paragraphs that aren't central to the overall message.
📑 Effective Reading Notes and Summarization
The speaker advises against passive note-taking strategies like highlighting. Instead, she recommends summarizing readings and integrating them into lecture notes to make sure they are relevant. She stresses the importance of including page numbers for direct quotes to simplify essay writing later and keeping summaries concise, ideally no longer than one A4 page.
🗺️ Refining and Condensing Notes for Exams
At the end of the term, the speaker advocates for going through all notes and removing irrelevant information to create a concise, useful study guide. She gives examples from geography, such as removing maps from notes, since writing about trends is more useful than including visual elements that can’t be incorporated directly into essays.
🧠 Learning Efficiently: Work Smart, Not Hard
The speaker advises students to focus on efficient note-taking rather than writing excessively long notes. The goal is to develop a system that condenses information into manageable portions, and to tailor this system based on individual learning styles. She concludes by reassuring students that everyone’s process is different, and it's okay if it takes time to find the right approach.
👍 Final Tips and Reassurance
The speaker reassures students that it’s normal to take time to adjust to university note-taking. She encourages them not to worry if they feel behind or if their process differs from others'. She ends by inviting viewers to share their own note-taking strategies in the comments, while encouraging feedback and engagement with her video.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Note-taking
💡Digital tools
💡OneNote
💡Lecture preparation
💡Active recall
💡Reading notes
💡Efficient study
💡Cloud storage
💡Notion
💡Work smart, not hard
Highlights
Imagin, a third-year geography with German student at LSE, shares her top tips on effective note-taking for university students.
She emphasizes the importance of choosing the right device for note-taking, whether traditional pen and paper, laptop, or tablet.
For social science courses like geography, she recommends using a laptop or tablet over traditional paper as diagrams are less important.
She suggests free cloud-based programs like OneNote, Google Docs, and Notion for digital note-taking, as they allow for easy access from anywhere.
While Notion is considered one of the best, Imagin finds it too complex and prefers simpler programs like Microsoft Word, despite its inefficiencies.
Her top tip for note-taking is to prepare by writing lecture notes before the actual lecture using the provided materials like PowerPoints or PDFs.
By writing up notes in advance, she finds herself more engaged in lectures and able to focus on the lecture's added value.
She recommends typing out lecture materials manually instead of just copying and pasting, as it forces you to think about the content.
If any lecture content contains unfamiliar terms, she advises looking them up before the lecture to avoid confusion during the lecture.
Imagin stresses that students cannot give 100% all the time and should prioritize their focus on important content.
She suggests attending lectures first and doing readings afterward, which helps in framing the readings around what was taught in class.
For reading notes, she advises summarizing key points and avoiding overly long summaries, as most readings contain only a few relevant ideas.
Imagin prefers to limit reading notes to half an A4 page to a maximum of one full A4 page to ensure focus on the most important points.
At the end of the term, she condenses her notes by removing unnecessary details, such as content that cannot be used in essays or exams.
She concludes by encouraging students to develop their own note-taking system based on what works best for them, even if it takes time to refine.
Transcripts
hi everyone my name is imagin I am a
third-year geography with German student
at the London School of economics and
today I thought I would answer one of my
most asked questions that I get on here
and also in real life which is how on
Earth do you make notes for University I
know a lot of first students are feeling
very very overwhelmed by the fact that
they've started University and they're
getting lectures they've got readings
they've got all sorts going on and they
just don't know how to effectively and
efficiently make their notes so today I
thought I would address that hly I'm
going into my final year so I've had two
years of perfecting my notes and my note
taking skills so I thought I'd share my
top tips with you so when you come to
taking your notes the first thing you're
going to need to address is on what
device or how you're actually going to
take those notes are you going to opt
for the traditional pen and paper route
and I would say this is best for
students who study stem based courses or
courses where you might need to draw
diagrams so a lot of students at lsse
don't actually opt for this route unless
they're doing economics or they're doing
math or accounting because if you're
doing a more social science-based course
so something looking like geography
sociology politics international
relations where you don't have a lot of
diagrams but you have a lot of texts and
you're' going to have a lot of words in
your notes I would say your traditional
laptop is going to be better here um or
if you've got one of those tablets that
can have a keyboard that's also
fantastic however if you are going for
the pen and paper route you've obviously
got the very traditional write it on a
piece of paper um with a pen root or you
can opt for the slightly more expensive
option which is Maybe having an iPad or
a tablet with one of those digital
pencils this saves a lot of space in
your bag because obviously you're not
carrying around pen and paper you've
also got the benefits of it being backed
up however I do appreciate this is not a
financially accessible option for
everybody and these tablets and things
can be very very expensive I remember
when I first turned up to lsse I was
shocked by how many students had
MacBooks I honestly thought is this
University sponsored by Apple you do not
need the most expensive laptop I know so
many people who have got through three
years of University with a basic laptop
with word downloaded on it and they're
absolutely fine and they've still
managed to get just as good grades as
all those students who have got fancy
equipment so don't be put off by what
equipment somebody else is using for
their notes it does not necessarily mean
they're going to be better than yours in
terms of the actual program you're going
to use for making notes I will be the
first person to admit that I have not
got this sused out I am a grandma I use
Microsoft Word and it is wholly
inefficient if I was going back to first
year me I would say do not start on
Microsoft Word it's quite difficult to
switch between programs halfway through
your course and to be honest you don't
want to be doing that because you want
all your notes to be in one place so
instead of using Microsoft Word like I
have the programs that I would recommend
are if your University is on Microsoft
so I know that lsse is Microsoft based
in terms of email you can use one note
which is basically like a digital
notebook so you'll be able to search
through all of your notes at once um to
find anything on I don't know name a
topic uh gentrification in the case of
geography um and everything that is on
that will come up and you can also
download your readings literally into
the system uh if you are using onee if
they're in PDF format and then you can
search through all of your readings and
all of your notes at once which is so
useful however I know a lot of other
students use Google Docs um obviously
then you have your notes if you're doing
like week one on each document they are
separated but you can search across the
whole system the major benefit to both
of these programs is that because it is
stored online um and your notes are
actually in the cloud whatever the cloud
is um I'm such a grandma here um you are
able to access them from anywhere so if
you forget your laptop or you're going
to a friend and you suddenly need to do
some work last minute and access your
notes um you can log onto a computer and
you should be able to find your notes
online and I've forgotten to mention the
program that is considered the the
goddess of all of these which is notion
I'm going to be honest with you
personally I find it far too complicated
it is too complex to set up in the first
place and I just can't really be
bothered however I know some students
and I've seen some students use this so
successfully so if you've got a bit of
time in your hands and you're prepared
to dedicate it to setting up a really
useful system that's going to function
for you for all three years then I would
say notion is another great option it is
also free for students the same with uh
Google Drive that is free for students
and I'm not entirely sure about how
you'd go setting up your own Microsoft
account so that you can use one note um
but I believe if you have a Hotmail
account you have access to that so again
that should be a free option so all of
those three options that I've talked
through are free uh Microsoft Word
however you do actually have to pay I
think um for the like office suite so I
would say considering we're in the
digital age you can get cloud-based
systems um they're probably going to be
a much better option anyway so don't
worry about getting word downloaded on
your laptop if you don't already have it
you sorted out the Practical things of
on what device you're going to take your
notes and on what program you're going
to use but what are you actually going
to write on that document or what are
you actually going to write on that
digital notebook the one thing that I
would say and this is my top tip on note
taking and I know it's slightly
controversial not everybody does it is
if you get your lecture materials before
the lecture itself so you get your
PowerPoints released online or you get a
PDF released online with all the notes
of what you're going to cover in the
lecture write this up before you even
walk into the lecture theater the
process of writing up these notes before
I go into the lecture theater is hands
down the most useful time I will spend
on writing notes in the entire week
forget the reading forget the lecture
itself that time where I actually sit
down and focus on what my lecture is
going to cover and start thinking
through it myself really helps to
prepare me for what I'm then going to
see in the lecture and means when I go
and sit there I actually have a little
bit of background knowledge of what's
being covered so that I can actually
focus on the value added that that
lecture is giving me and it also really
helps it embed what I'm actually
learning because I'm not seeing that
content for the first time I'm actually
looking at it maybe a day or even a
couple of hours befor hand i'm then
doing something else and coming away
from it and then I'm going back and I'm
having to rethink through that content
again again it's very similar to if
you've heard about active recall as a
study technique it's very similar to
that but in terms of your lecture notes
but how does this look practically for
me about 2 hours before my lecture I
will go onto Moodle which is our online
learning platform at lsse I will
download my PDF lecture it will be in
PowerPoint but it'll be saved as PDF
form so download that put that on one
side of my screen now I want to say here
there are programs that you can use
which will turn your PDF into a Word
document with all of the notes on which
you can just copy and paste there are
also um other programs that you can use
online or other websites that you can
use to make a PDF PowerPoint into an
actual PowerPoint that you can edit and
whilst I would say these are really
beneficial the actual process of me
having to go through read what my
lecture has written and then type it out
myself I find is a really good way of
actually forcing myself to think about
that content because you can't just
mindlessly copy text from one document
to another um you actually have to
consciously think about what you're
writing whilst I'm doing this I will
also look at any words that I don't
understand because some of my lecturers
talk in absolute jargon and what I'll do
is I'll Google the word I'll say oh what
does name a word mean and it will come
up with another word that I'm actually
familiar with and I'll think well why do
we need to use this really complicated
language so then I will change any words
that I don't understand in those lecture
notes to something that I'm more
familiar with this means instead of
turning up to the lecture then
downloading the PowerPoint looking at it
whilst my lecture is talking away in
language that I just don't understand
and I'm sat there thinking I don't even
understand what the sentence on the
slide means so I don't understand what
you're actually saying about it I've
actually thought about that beforehand
I've changed it into language I
understand which means when my lecture
starts talking in my head I can be
replacing that word and actually
understanding what they're talking about
so I change any text that I don't
understand and by the end it will take
me about 20 minutes half an hour I will
have a complete set of notes and in my
head I'll also have a bit of an
understanding about what we're going to
talk about now if there's any particular
topic so if there's whole slid that I
don't understand anything about I'll
sometimes type in um the title of the
slide into Google so for example if
we're learning about something called
accumulation by dispossession I will
type into Google what is accumulation by
dispossession and I will get a sentence
about what it's about now often this
won't make a lot of sense but just that
process of having a little bit more
thought put into the topic will really
help so that when I come into the
lecture I know those are the slides that
I really need to listen on because let's
be honest you're sitting in a lecture
for 2 hours you are not going to get
100% of your attention for two whole
hours when it gets to the slides that
you do not understand the content of
that is when you need to be giving 100%
And whilst this is making me sound like
I am being a bit of a lazy student I
think what you really need to understand
is with University you cannot give 100%
all of the time you are having so much
information thrown at you all the time
and not all of it is equally important
there will be certain weeks which you
will write essays on which you need to
know everything about that topic and
there'll be other weeks which don't get
examined you're never going to know
which weeks these are going to be but at
least by working smart and getting the
overall gist of what is going on each
week you are going to have a better
understanding of the course as a whole
by the end of that module I always think
of taking your notes for University a
bit like drawing a picture before I even
go into the lecture by writing those
notes beforehand I'm drawing an outline
of that picture then when I go into the
lecture I can focus on what my lecturer
is adding to those lecture slides that's
like adding more detail to the picture
then when you go in and do your reading
that is like adding color to a picture
and that's the next thing that I want to
draw your attention to I personally will
always do lecture notes first and then
I'll go to the lecture add anything that
my lecture says that's of particular use
then I will do my reading because with
University you don't have a set syllabus
like you do for gcc's or a levels where
you can print off what you're actually
supposed to be learning instead a lot of
the time it depends on what you're
taught in the lecture and that is the
general content for the week then your
reading is there to supplement what you
are learning in the lecture now a lot of
lecturers and I know that in my first
year the message that I was always given
was do your readings before you go to
the lecture because it gives you this
base understanding but I'm going to be
honest the way that readings are often
written they are super complicated so
actually I find that going to the
lecture first listening to what the
general outline of the topic is then
helps to frame my reading so that I
really know what the message is that I'm
trying to take out of that reading and
it means I can do it so much quicker for
the first 6 months of University I used
to do my readings first and I would
spend hours literal hours reading the
same thing over and over again and I'd
be so stressed because I didn't
understand this particular paragraph in
this reading but it wasn't important it
wasn't the main focus and it didn't help
with the overall message of the reading
which is what you're really trying to
take out of it which again brings me on
to the next section which is how on
Earth you write your reading notes first
of all I do not want to see any
highlighter pens you need to be actively
looking at that reading by highlighting
half the reading you are not actually
thinking about what has been written
there you that is very very pass you
want to be adding your reading notes
into your already created lecture notes
because then you're going to be making
sure that what you're taking out of the
reading is actually directly relevant to
the points that are being made that week
and that is what's basically forming
your syllabus you also want to make sure
if you are doing direct quotes from the
reading you are writing down the page
numbers because when you want to go back
to that and you want to use that quote
in an essay you do not want to be
searching for a 28 page reading for a
particular sentence where possible you
want to be summarizing your readings as
much as you possibly can uh during first
year some of my summaries of readings
tended to be as long as the readings
themselves this is not beneficial it's
not helpful it used to take me hours to
write them um but now I try and kind of
limit myself to half an A4 page and Max
one A4 page per reading because even if
the reading is 20 30 pages long there's
not going to be that much useful content
in there you need to get the overall
message of the reading and then you need
to get four or five maybe key points
that are coming out of that reading
because when you come to talk about
about it in an essay unless the entire
essay is on one particular reading in
which case you'll need to read the text
more closely um you are just going to
need the overall message of what is
being said and then at the end of the
term I'll take my lecture notes I'll put
them all together in one big document
and then I will take out anything that I
think is irrelevant and this is where
you need to be really ruthless anything
that you don't think you're going to use
directly in an essay just take it out
and you will hopefully by this point
have developed a bit of an understanding
hopefully you'll have done some
coursework you'll have written at least
least one essay so you'll know what sort
of thing is going to be useful and what
can actually be examined because there's
going to be some content that cannot be
examined and one prime example I'm going
to give of this is Maps so in geography
a lot of the time some of our lecture
slides will literally just be a map and
how on Earth are you ever going to
include an entire map in an essay you're
not you're going to talk about the trend
that comes out of that map you'll only
need to know one sentence you don't need
to know everything that that map
possibly shows so adding it into your
notes is not particularly beneficial
because you've then not done the work of
trying to work out what the overall
trend is so hopefully by the end of the
term you'll be able to go through your
notes and anything like a map or um any
content that's like a very specific
example that clearly your lecture has
added in for your understanding but not
necessarily that would be used in an
essay or be used in your answers for an
exam you can then take that out and you
will have a more condensed and more
useful set of notes the main aim with
your notes for University really is work
smart not hard we don't want 5,000 words
on a piece of paper when 500 would be a
lot more useful and would suffice and
the last thing I want to say is I want
to just reassure you I have had two
years of developing a note system that
works for me and what works for me isn't
necessarily is going to work for you
there are going to be different ways of
taking notes which are equally as
effective and equally as useful but
hopefully by giving you a bit of an idea
of the things that I think about when
I'm writing my notes so what can be
examined what is actually going to be
useful and how can I make this an active
process rather than a passive process
will help to guide you in working out
what note system is going to work best
for you and even if you do decide to go
down the same route as me and you decide
to use this note system I again have had
time and experience to work out what is
useful and what is not and I've sped up
this process massively from where I was
in first year if you are spending hours
doing your reading and everybody else is
like oh I finished that in 20 minutes
don't worry don't be afraid to ignore
what other people are saying because
going to University can be really
daunting there are going to be people
who just get it like that and it seems
really unfair and then there's going to
be people like me who took six months to
a year to really settle into University
really work out what the style of
learning was and how I was going to make
that work for me anyway with that I'm
going to stop waffling on I hope that
you found this useful if you've got any
comments any ways that you write your
notes that you think would be useful for
other people please do leave them in the
comments section down below if you have
found this useful or reassuring give it
a big thumbs up so that I know to make
more videos like this and I will see you
next time with a new video bye
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