Hey guys
Today's video is about the evolution of my note-taking style
I'll be showing you all of my notes starting from February of 2016 until the present
February of 2016 was during my second semester of eighth grade and
That was when I started taking what you might call pretty notes since I had joined studyblr in
January the same year and in February, I started imitating those note-taking styles and
Taking pictures and posting them on the Internet
most of these I don't have anymore which is why I'm showing pictures instead of the actual notes if
You'd be interested in looking at my biology notes and algebra 2 notes, which are currently what are being shown
I'll link those videos in the cards
The main change in my note-taking style has been
first of all the development of my calligraphy
I started learning how to do it in December of 2015 and you can really see the improvement
From the beginning of this video until the end
Also, my note-taking style has gotten much simpler
I am currently a sophomore in high school and I started doing these back in eighth grade and
As an eighth grader and a freshman. I had some extra free time that I could use to make my notes really
Extra, but now I really do not
Also, I find that extra things don't really make them any more effective since they're just a vessel to contain
information
just keeping my notes neat legible and fairly organized is
good enough for providing the benefits of pretty notes which are to motivate me to study using them now that the
Explanation of this video is pretty much over
I'll be answering some questions about note-taking which I got from the community tab on my youtube page
so the first question which showed up quite a lot is
How do you choose the most important information to note down from lectures or textbooks?
This really depends on the context of your class and the subject material
for example for AP euro
The most important information would be cause and effect and the relationships between historical events
Not necessarily the exact details of the date and who was involved
On he other hand for math the most important thing would be writing down the examples and the steps that were taken
And an explanation of why certain steps were taken
This will all really require you
Practicing and getting a feel for what's tested in your class and what you need to know
The next question is when taking textbook notes. Should I read through the entire section before taking notes.
I don't think doing a detailed close reading of the entire section is necessary before taking notes
Just skimming over the headers any
sidebar vocabulary key concept summary things would be helpful to get a general idea of the structure of the
Section then do a detailed close reading while you are actually taking notes, not beforehand
The next question is how to take notes while the teacher is giving a lecture
This requires I'd say two main skills that you'd have to work on
number one is writing and listening at the same time and not accidentally writing the word that you're listening to and
I don't know any secret trick for this. I've just learned to develop it through practice
Also it helps to be able to paraphrase summarize
Abbreviate all of those things to shorten the amount of words that you need to write and be able to do that quickly
Being able to write very quickly but still legibly is also pretty handy but I write quite slowly
So I personally just work on summarizing
And making things more concise instead of practicing writing quickly
The next question is what stationery is required to take notes
This really depends on individual people and their preferences for how they take notes and summarize information
And emphasize what's important
my personal essentials would be a black pen to write everything down and
A highlighter to emphasize the section titles or any super important information
I only really need one color since I personally don't color code
Except I like to color code for AP classes
I'll use a different special color to highlight the things that correspond to the key concept course framework
and of course I need paper
I don't have a strong preference between loose-leaf and notebooks because they both have their pros and cons
Currently, I mostly use loose-leaf just because it's more portable and easier to carry around in the organizational system
That I have which is an expanding file folder
something I'd like to have but is not an absolute essential is
a black brush pen because with my note-taking style
I personally like to do the calligraphy header on the top with a black brush pen
Honestly if you wanted to strip it down to the absolute bare minimum
you need paper of any sort in the binding that you prefer and
One writing utensil whether that be a pencil or pen
The next question is bullet points or mind maps.
I pretty much never use mind maps since most of my notes are from lectures and
With lectures, you can't preview things beforehand and know what the structure will be. So it's really not possible to do a mind map
Also, even when I take notes at home
I just am not really drawn to mind maps my own personal learning style doesn't really mesh with them
I like for things to be in a somewhat
Chronological order I know that doesn't really make sense for every subject
But that's just the way I personally like to process information
So I definitely prefer a bullet point. The next question is how do you organize your notes?
I take most of my notes on loose leaf paper
Which I put in my expanding file folder and that's how I take things from home to school and vice versa
once the unit is over or just at a stopping point where I feel that I don't need to reference those notes at
School as in in class or while working on homework, then I'll transfer them to a large binder
that's in my room and
I'll keep it just at home and not take it to school with me
and the way this binder is organized is there are tabs for each subject and then I put the notes in
chronological order from when I took the notes
a question that I get all the time is do I rewrite my notes
and the answer to that is no I don't
All of the notes that I post on Instagram or tumblr or that I show in my videos are all either
From in class or I just take notes from the textbook one time and I don't rewrite them
I just don't have time to rewrite my notes, especially not just to make them neater
rewriting notes can be a helpful study technique for some people especially if you are reorganizing or
synthesizing the information in some way
but I personally find that more active retrieval methods of studying are more effective for me and a better use of my time
and on a similar note. The next question is how exactly do you study from your notes
so, what I do is my notes are used as a source of information
Kind of like a textbook but a much more concise version
so I'll take that information and make flashcards or practice quizzes or
Anything like that. I'll have a video about my top ten studying techniques, which I'll link in the cards right now
And those are the methods that I'll use to study based on the information from my notes.
I hope you enjoyed this video and if you'd like to see more about note-taking
I'll link some videos on the screen and in the description
I'll also link my Tumblr and Instagram where I post pictures of my notes and
I upload new videos every Monday and Friday
See you next time