How Should You Take Notes? | Science Explains!

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

As a college student, I always find it difficult to take notes in the lectures. I always tried to write everything that the informant says and as you can imagine, it was always a failure. After starting to bring my laptop with me, taking notes to become much more complex. I did not know which note-taking method is the best, by hand or by computer.

Therefore, as a psychology student myself, I wonder whether researchers examined this issue and they definitely did plenty of research. Thus, I decided to highlight how we should take notes based on scientific research, and some misconceptions about taking notes so that you can learn tips for more effective note-taking and get higher results on your exams.

But first thing first, why we take notes?

In general, there are two main functions of note-taking:

• The first function is that, when we take notes, we might process and encode information in our memory easier. The reason is that while we take notes, we engage actively with the content of a lecture or class, which leads to a better comprehension of the presented material.
• The second function is that you can go back to your notes and use them to study the material which is called external storage effect in psychology.