Tips On Taking Notes For Your College Essays
Lectures are not like lessons at school
Lectures are not like lessons at school. When a lecturer gives a presentation on, for example, Weber's Theory of Social Action, you should be actively listening, i.e., engaging with the material by writing notes. You should also take notes when you're reading from the set text for any course that you're taking.
Many colleges and universities now offer modular degree, which means that a course is made up of a number of different modules or subjects. For example, if you were aiming for a sociology degree, Weber's Theory of Social Action could be a module on its own or part of a module on human agency. When you take relevant notes during a lecture, you're listening actively. Below are three tips for taking notes during a lecture.
*Tip One*
Note taking is very much an individual's choice in that there are any number of ways you can take notes. Nowadays some colleges require lecturers to have a Power Point presentation to accompany their lecture, which can be extremely useful to students. Lecturers may often give you a hand out at the start of the, with the main points of the presentation; this is really helpful because you can then take notes relating to each part of the lecture in their proper place.
When you enter your own notes, try to do it in line with what your lecturer is saying and number each point that you regard as relevant in the order that they were given. If you don't have this at your college then the two tips below should give you some ideas for writing effective notes.
*Tip Two
When you write a college essay, that essay should be written using the notes you took in lectures and the personal notes you've made from your reading and research. Over time you will develop your own method of taking notes in a way that will remind you what the actual note was about. Sometimes, when you go back to your notes, six weeks later you can have trouble remembering the context.
There are some things that are relevant no matter what way you structure your notes. Always, always, put the title of the lecture at the top of the page and the date and time of the lecture as these can act as memory joggers. Use a notebook that already has holes punched down the side and at the end of the day, read through your notes and then detach the page and put it into a file.
Each set of lectures should have their own file and subsequent notes should go behind the first set so that they are in the order the lectures were given, which also helps as a memory jogger.
*Tip Three
Although you'll develop your own method of note taking, here are a couple of ideas to get you started. Mind mapping is a useful tool when it comes to writing essays, for note taking you can use a modified version of mind mapping known as the spider version. You start out with a central theme in the middle, taking the example from above, your middle bit would say Weber, then you should have eight legs or lines emanating from that center.
Your legs will relate to Weber's work, so you might have, choice, Spirit of Capitalism, symbolic interaction, action, theory etc. Once you have your legs you can put any extra information below those titles.
If the above system of note taking sounds a bit complicated to you then use a modified version of the Power Point presentation above and number each note in order as you write them down. The most important part of note taking is that you should review your notes at the end of each day, add any extra notes from personal reading to the relevant section and review again at the end of the week.
When you stay on top of your notes this way, you'll be able to write a successful college essay.
by: Jason Bacot
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