Note taking

[Nick]

Hey guys,

Just wondering how some of you approach note taking and organising information you receive from tutes and lectures? Do you scribble down lots of notes during lectures and tutes and then go home and re-write the information so you retain it? Is it better to use lecture pads or binders with loose leaf paper so that you can elaborate/do further research on things that have been covered in lectures and tutes? How do you keep your notes organised and accessible?

Strange question but I'm interested to know how you guys approach it.

[enwiabe]

If you're doing primarily essay-based subjects, I'd take down the notes on a laptop. Much easier/faster if you can touch type and organisation is a cinch, just file the notes in a folder for whatever subject they belong to and name the file the date and sequence number of that lecture.

[Nick]

Brilliant idea- do many people take laptops into lectures and tutes?

[bubble sunglasses]

   Typically about half a dozen. Although, you'd only want to be writing shortish segments and possibly diagrams/flow charts to capture the gist of the content, for which pens would suffice.  Up to you though 'course.

[TrueLight]

i think the best option is to listen mostly to the lecturer or else you'll be writing notes all the time and not listening properly to the lecturer... so i just write notes on the side of the lecture notes... and keep a notebook just in case a lecturer does a lot of diagrams and writing and stuff and in case you need to write alot... but mostly just scribble notes on the side of the notes you print out

[ninwa]

Brilliant idea- do many people take laptops into lectures and tutes?

In my subjects most people have a laptop. If it's a languagey subject it helps because there's no way you'll write fast enough to catch everything the lecturer / tutor says.

[Nick]

Brilliant idea- do many people take laptops into lectures and tutes?

In my subjects most people have a laptop. If it's a languagey subject it helps because there's no way you'll write fast enough to catch everything the lecturer / tutor says.

Okay cool. Which subjects did you do last year? Would you take a laptop to tutes as well or just the lectures?

[Mao]

Brilliant idea- do many people take laptops into lectures and tutes?

In my subjects most people have a laptop. If it's a languagey subject it helps because there's no way you'll write fast enough to catch everything the lecturer / tutor says.

Okay cool. Which subjects did you do last year? Would you take a laptop to tutes as well or just the lectures?

A netbook is light enough to carry to anything.

[costargh]

How about security though. Added burden of responsibility and potential for theft or lostness

[gemgem49]

^ good point. im about to buy my macbook and have spent months saving (okay, one month. i worked a lot haha) and would die if it was stolen.
I think im just going to take notes from the lecture and go home and type/re write them and organise them into topics or whatever. I can write extremely fast (seriously, it's a talent) so i don't think i'll have problems.
I am doing a language though so maybe i'll take ninwa's advice and take my macbook to those lectures *shrug*

[ninwa]

Nooo wait I didn't mean language subjects. I'm doing French and German this year and I would definitely NOT take a laptop, simply because it's just a lot easier to handwrite, what with all the accents and weird letters and umlauts, which are really hard to find on a keyboard.

By languagey I meant English language-based, e.g. humanities subjects, as opposed to numbers-based like sciences and maths etc.

Nick: I did 2 law subjects, French and international studies. I took my laptop to everything except French classes for the reasons above, and international studies tutes (because they were useless and there were no notes to take, lol).

costargh: I carried my laptop around with me in a bag to every class. You don't have lockers or anything to leave them in anyway (unless you hire one) so you just carry all your stuff around, so usually you'll only lose something if you took it out and put it on a desk and forgot to put it back in your bag. I haven't had anything stolen yet.

[ed_saifa]

If you are worried about a laptop getting stolen, you might want to consider a Digital Pen. It could be more time efficient.

[Mao]

If you are worried about a laptop getting stolen, you might want to consider a Digital Pen. It could be more time efficient.

which is a lot easier to be stolen/lost

So long as you don't just wonder off leaving your laptop unattended, no one is going to steal your stuff. When you are in the library, you are usually with friends who can look after it for you, and you can always ask people nearby to keep an eye on it.

[ed_saifa]

which is a lot easier to be stolen/lost

Put it in your pocket.

[AppleXY]

Where do you purchase Digital Pens and how do they work?