Article Advise

submitted: Aug 25th 2008 | by: DrMarcR.Dussault | Total views: 1 | Word Count: 613 | |

If you're like most students, you often have the experience of having taken extensive notes yet still failing to remember everything your teacher says. Well, there's some good news in store for you - I've developed some techniques which will help you to remember everything your teacher says so you can be well prepared for the tests ahead of you. Ready? Lets go!

Use Coloured Pens and Pencils

Have a look at some notes you've taken in class. What is the common element in all of your notes? It's the color of your notes - no doubt all taken down in pencil or standard black / blue pen. When you've got this page after page , it's hard to scan your notes for the important points. Rather than always taking you notes like this, try colored pencils and different colored inks. If you make a habit of this, you'll find your notes MUCH easier to refer back to.

Remember that most people find it easier to recall facts when they have a visual cue to work from. This is why using different colors in your notes is so effective. When you try this technique, you'll find that some colors work better for you than others. You might find that some colors work better for specific types of notes.

I like to write the body of my text in a colour other than blue, usually black, with non-black highlights. I always correct it in red if necessary. This is due to the extreme contrast that black and red represent to one another. You'll end up being able to find it much easier on your pages cluttered with notes.

Accentuate and Underline Important Points

This is very important when taking notes. Be creative and explore different variations. Multi-stroke, underlining, boxes, circles, and shadows are effective in drawing attention to increasingly important items or definitions. Just be sure not to overdue it or these styles will be ineffective.

Draw Figures, Charts, and Graphs

Charts, drawings and diagrams make things like timelines and relationships (which are very difficult to get across in writing) readily understood. Using different colors for your text in diagrams, shading and the like will make these items even easier to follow.

Summarize Notes On Large Paper

For some reason, large sized paper works really well for note taking. You can get continuous computer paper in boxes of 5,000 sheets for as little as $25, making this a great investment - I've been using the same box for two years now! You can even do large diagrams and charts and simply fold them up for easy portability.

With these large sheets, you can get all the important topics from a day's lectures onto a single sheet, or divide each page by subject or concept. Depending on the course, one or the other may work better for you.

To illustrate, I had a course last year where I was able to place my notes from lectures on a single page (one page per lecture). I could fit notes for 17 textbook chapters and thirty articles on these pages as well. This let me study from 12 pages instead of a thousand - quite a time saver, and MUCH more effective.

Seriously though, creating these pages is "fun" for me. I know that when I am doing an exercise, it is all being filled up in my memory banks. When you try it you'll feel the level of confidence go up tremendously and literally feel like you're in control. In the end it's important to see the "big picture" as a visual. Taking these methods and integrating them into your note taking will definitely do the same for you.

About the Author

About the author: Dr Marc R. Dussault can show you how to easily improve your school grades using simple, effective speed learning techniques that anyone can learn. Visit his website for more great tips on speed learning.

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