Cuesta College's
Study Skills
Listening and Note Taking
Anything done well is the result of
persistency, consistency, and practice!
Listening To Take Good Notes:
Hearing is a spontaneous act. Listening, by contrast, is
something you choose to do. Listening requires you not only to hear
what has been said but to understand as well. Understanding requires
three activities:
- dynamic listening;
- paying attention;
- concentration;
The best way to concentrate is to start with anticipation.
Review your notes from the last lecture and make sure you go to class
having read the assigned material. Use this method to cultivate a
mindset that is needed for 100% concentration during a lecture.
Be a comprehensive listener! Comprehensive listening has to do
with the feedback between speaker and listener. The speaker has an
obligation to make his/her words comprehensible to the listener. The
listener, in turn, must let the speaker know when he/she dose not
understand. Both parties must make a conscious effort to accept their
individual responsibilities. You may think this is a 50/50 proposition,
which in part it is; however, both parties must be willing to give a
100% for effective listening comprehension to be achieved.
The best way for you to let the speaker know that you don't
understand is to ask questions. A surprising number of students are too
embarrassed to ask questions. The only dumb question is the one that
goes unasked.
Twelve Guidelines to Effective Listening:
- Sit where the instructor will always see you, preferably in
the front.
- Pay attention to content, not the lecturer's appearance or
distracting habits. Judge the material, not the delivery.
- Put
aside emotional concerns. If you disagree with what is being said, hold
your judgement or fire until after class, then see the instructor.
- Find areas of interest; listen for ideas, not just facts,
and words; put new ideas to work during the lecture by using your
imagination.
- Intend to get down a good written record of the lecture
material; be a flexible note taker.
- Listen
for new rods and watch for signals of important information; listen for
examples the instructor provides to define or illustrate main ideas.
Note these examples with "EX" in your notes or textbook.
- Read in advance about the topics to be discussed in class
and relate them to something you care about.
- Exercise your mind with challenging material; keep your
mind open even if you hear emotional words.
- Be
prepared to ask questions in class. Use facial expressions to let the
instructor know that you don't understand an idea completely or you
would like the information repeated.
- Don't stop listening or taking notes during discussion
periods or toward the end of the lecture until the instructor
concludes.
- Work at listening instead of pretending to listen.
- Resist
external distractions such as someone coming in late to class, a pager
going off, maintenance mowing the grass, other students talking.
Taking Good Notes:
Learning to take notes effectively will help you improve your
study and work habits and to remember important information. Often,
students are deceived into thinking that because they understand
everything that is said in class, they will therefore remember it.
As you take lecture notes and make notes from your textbook,
you will develop the skills of selecting important material and
discarding unimportant material. The main secret to developing these
skills is practice. Check your results constantly. Strive to improve.
Notes help you to retain important facts and data and to develop an
accurate means of recording and arranging necessary information.
Here are some hints on note making:
- Don't write down everything you read or hear. Be alert and
attentive to the main points. Concentrate on the "meat" of the subject
and forget the trimmings.
- Notes should consist of key words or very short sentences.
As a speaker gets sidetracked, it is often possible to go back and add
further information.
- Take accurate notes. You should use your own words, but try
not to change the meaning. If you quote directly from the author, quote
correctly.
- Think a minute about the material before you start making
notes. Don't take notes just to be taking notes! Take notes that will
be of real value to you when you review them at a later date.
- Have a uniform system for punctuation and abbreviation that
will make sense to you. Use a skeleton outline that shows importance by
indenting. Leave lots of white space for later additions.
- Omit descriptions and full explanations. Keep your notes
short and to the point. Condense your materials so you can grasp the
main points rapidly.
- Don't worry about missing a point. Leave space and pick up
the material you missed at a later date, either through reading,
questioning, common sense, or looking at a classmate's notes.
- Don't keep notes on oddly shaped pieces of paper. Keep
notes in order and in one place. A three-ringed or spiral notebook is
preferred.
- Shortly after taking your lecture notes or making textbook
notes, go back and edit (not copy) your notes by adding extra points,
spelling out unclear items, etc. Remember, we forget rapidly. Budget
time for this vital step just as you do for the class itself.
- Review your notes periodically; three types of review are
daily, weekly, and a major review just before a test. This is the only
way to achieve lasting memory.
Lecture Notes:
There are many note-taking techniques available to help you
become a more efficient note-taker. The following are two very good
examples. The first example deals with taking good lecture notes and
the second with textbook notes.
The notes you take in class are really a hand written
textbook. In many instances, your lecture notes are more practical,
meaningful and more current than a textbook. If you keep them neat,
complete, and well organized they'll serve you splendidly. The Cornell
System of taking lecture notes is a prime example. The keystone of this
system is a two-column note sheet. Use 8 1/2 by 11 paper to create the
note sheet. Down the left side, draw a vertical line 2 1/2 inches from
the edge of the paper. End this line 2 inches above the bottom of the
paper. Draw a horizontal line across the bottom of the paper 2 inches
above the paper's edge. In the narrow (2 1/2") column on the left side,
you will write cue words or questions. In the wide (6") column on the
right, you will write the lecture notes. In the space at the bottom of
the sheet, you will summarize your notes. NOTE: You can use this system
if you use lined notebook paper too. Disregard the red vertical line
and make your own line 2 1/2" from the left edge of the paper. Refer to
the Textbook Study Strategies for a complete description
and illustration of the Cornell System.
Textbook Notes:
The second example of efficient note taking deals specifically
with taking textbook notes and preparing for exams. The Soprano
Study/Reading Technique involves six steps for accomplishing this. This
system, in contrast to the SQ4R system in the Study
Skills package, is another method for note taking. You should look at
both methods carefully, try them both, and then decide which will work
the best for you.
The six steps of the Soprano Technique are:
- Read your textbook paragraph by paragraph without a pen or
highlighter in hand.
- After
you finish a paragraph, decide if any information in that paragraph is
worth highlighting or underlining. Ask yourself, "Is this really
important? Does it support and define the main topic?
- Pick up your highlighter or pen and highlight or underline
the most important key words or phrases of that information, or write
"key words" notes in the margins.
- Then put a number in the margin of the text next to the
highlighted or underlined material. Use numbers in ascending order to
note the importance of the highlighted or underlined material.
- Put the same number and page on a separate sheet of paper
in your notebook. Then write out a question based on the information
you have just highlighted or underlined in the textbook. Essentially
the information you have just highlighted or underlined in the text
should answer your questions.
- Proceed with your study/reading of the text. Every time you
decide to highlight or underline text material, assign it a number in
the margin of the textbook next to the highlighted information. Put the
same number in your notes and create a question about the information
you have just highlighted or underlined.
