1. NOTE TAKING IN LECTURES-PRACTISING STRATEGIES
ROBERT BLAKE
Effective Learning Programme for International Students,
Student Learning Development Centre

2. Note Taking In Lectures: practising Strategies- outline
This session will help you with ways of recording what you hear in lectures:
A strategy for listening & taking notes in lectures
How to lay out notes
How to use symbols and abbreviations
Questions for clarifying points for note taking

3. Practising Note Taking Strategies- Introduction
Taking notes in lectures can be a difficult experience. One student commented:
‘We have lecturers who talk at us non-stop, scribbling stuff on the whiteboard all the time, and we’re still trying to get it down minutes after they’ve left the room…’
[quotation from Rowntree, slightly adapted 1998:119]

4. Practising Note Taking Strategies in Lectures- Introduction
What has your experience been of lectures so far?
How successfully have you been able to take notes?
Has Powerpoint been used in your classes?
Has it helped you to take better notes?

5. Practising Note Taking Strategies in Lectures- Introduction
How can we take more effective notes from lectures, whether Powerpoint based or not?

6. Practising Note Taking- SQL2R
To use lectures creatively, a balance between listening carefully and taking notes is needed.
One way to take more effective notes in lectures is to adapt the SQ3R strategy used for effective reading [Survey, Question, Read, Recall, Review] to SQL2R:
Surveying
Questioning
Listening & Note taking
Recall
Review

7. Practising Note Taking Strategies- Surveying
Surveying: listening for signposting.
Signposting language explains the overall structure of the lecture, and how the parts of the talk are structured.
Surveying the lecture for signposting signals can help you plan the layout of your notes. In Powerpoint based lectures it involves surveying the overall structure from the handout.

8. Practising Note Taking Strategies: Surveying-Signposting
Some examples of signposting language
I’ll begin by
Well,
The first of these settings,
One of the key questions
So now we’ve come to ….
To sum up, what we’ve looked at so far

9. Practising Note Taking Strategies- Questioning
Along with surveying, questioning can be helpful:
Before the lecture, ask:
-What do I want to get out of this lecture?
-How does it fit in with the course?
-What do I already know about this topic?

10. Practising Note Taking Strategies- Questioning
During the lecture ask yourself:
- what are the main points?
- What clues is the lecture giving about what is follow e.g. ‘There are 3 main theories….’
- What is informative?
- What is analytical?
- What is the lecturer's opinion?

11. Practising Note Taking Strategies- Recall & Review
After the lecture remember to Recall & Review. Unless you have a superb memory, you’ll forget much of what you’ve heard & made notes on, So it’s necessary to find ways of recalling

12. Practising Note Taking Strategies- recall
Quickly draw a quick mind map, spider diagram or flow chart summarising what you remember –
What are the main points?

13. Practising Note Taking Strategies: Review
Review involves assessing how well you’ve been able to remember the lecture information during recall
Make questions about the parts you couldn’t remember.
Review your notes to answer the questions & fill in the gaps.
Make a list of those bits you did not understand & reread your notes to understand

14. Practising Note Taking Strategies- types of notes
You can record your notes in a number of ways including:
Linear notes
Flow diagrams
Mind maps

15. Practising Note Taking Strategies- types of notes
You can record your notes in a number of ways including:
Linear notes: with headings & sub-headings; points are numbered sequentially
Flow diagrams: suit logical thinkers
Mind maps: suit visual thinkers. Put the lecture topic & aspects of the topic branching off from the central point See slide 17 for an example.

16. Practising Note Taking Strategies- linear notes
An example of Linear notes:
Taking notes from lectures
Prepare for the lecture
Use tape/buddy + good note taking
Look for organisation clues from lecturer
Taking notes from readings
Know what you want from the reading
Look for organisation clues from headings, sections, paragraphs
Don’t write down examples
SQ3R Approach
Survey – flip through & layout
Question – structure and relevance
Read – twice through quickly
Recall – main points, facts & biblio. Details
Review – repeat steps & relate to task
Example from Exeter University Web site

17. Practising Note Taking Strategies- mind map notes
An example of notes in the form of a mind map from Tony Buzan. Note the use of colour & space

18. Practising Note Taking Strategies- flow diagram notes
An example of notes in the form of a flow diagram
Liverpool Hope University

19. Listening To Lectures: Note taking
Useful lecture notes reflect the structure of a lecture by marking out the:
Introduction
Main points
Sub-points
Supporting detail
References

20. Practising Note Taking Strategies- mind map notes
You can use subordination to identify the importance of information:
key information on the left hand side
detailed points in the middle
comments & questions on the right hand side

21. Note Taking Strategies- lecture details
Also record on each page:
Course title- abbreviations
Lecture title
Lecturer name or Initials
Date
Page number
Sub topic? [Helps you locate topics]
This can help you to avoid plagiarism & keep track of your notes 6 months on

22. Note Taking In Lectures- Symbols & abbreviations
Symbols & abbreviations can save you valuable time: enabling you to write less & identify the main points more efficiently.
reducing the time you take writing notes
therefore giving you more time to understand lecture contents & to concentrate on the main points of the lecture
help you to take notes using you own words

23. Note Taking In Lectures-using abbreviations
imp important
sit situation
eval evaluation
analy analysis
diff/diff.y difficult/difficulty
diff.t different
e.g for example
i.e that is
etc etcetera: and so on
N.B note
Q question
No number
probs problems
p./pp page/pages
1st   first
max maximum
c about/approximately
ref reference
thro‘/thru through

24. Note Taking In Lectures-using symbols
What symbols would you use for?
therefore
because
statement/answer is correct
statement/answer is wrong
question; is the statement correct?
or (this/that = this or that)
and/plus
ditto (means the same as the words immediately above the ditto marks)
does not equal, differs from, is the opposite of
is/are/have/has/equals
leads to/results in/causes
does not lead to/result in/cause

25. Note Taking In Lectures-asking for clarification
To take notes more effectively you may need, if the lecturer allows, to ask questions for clarification
Think of some questions that you can ask to make a lecturer easier to understand

26. Note Taking In Lectures-asking for clarification
I’m afraid I didn’t follow your point about…Could you go over that again?
Could you go over [again] what you said about ..
Could you explain what you meant when you said that …?
Could you be more specific about..?
Could you expand a little on what you said about…?

27. Note Taking In Lectures-asking for clarification
Could you give an example of …
Sorry/I’m afraid I didn’t catch what you say about..
Sorry you speak a little louder please?
Sorry could you speak a little more slowly please?
Sorry to interrupt, could I ask a question about ..

28. Note Taking In Lectures - further help
For further help, see
Andy Gillett’s excellent UEFAP site at
materials/lectures.htm
Look under structure, to see many examples of language lecturers use to structure their talks and exercises.
See also the SLDC web pages on ‘What am I getting from lectures’