If you’ve been watching studying videos for like 5 minutes, then you’ve already
heard of the Cornell Method, mindmaps or the famous outline technique.
These are all proven ways to take effective notes in class or during revision because
they provide a clear structure for ideas, facts and arguments and have been used by
top-scoring students all over the world.
But even if they are great, you’re probably sick and tired of hearing about those three.
So today we’re going to cover note taking methods that usually no one talks about and
are also incredible ways to organize information and ideas without resorting to the traditional
note-taking methods.
**Split page method**
The split page method is a great note-taking method for factually dense subjects and is
used as a more condensed version of flashcards, promoting active recall after your lectures
or in preparation for evaluation.
You can adapt it according to your class by using facts, topics or questions.
Dividing the page in half, you can insert the name of the topic or the question that
needs to be answered in the left side of the page and the corresponding answer or definition
on the right column.
You can either study these notes normally or by folding the page to create an added
challenge and quizzing yourself on these topics.
This type of note-taking method can be easily recreated in digital format and I will below
an awesome video that explains how you can do it in Google sheets.
**Q/E/C method**
The Q/E/C method is another study method that Cal Newport talks a lot about in his Straight-A
book.
Q/E/C stands for Question/Evidence/Conclusion, and the main purpose of this system is to
structure all of your lecture into question, evidence and conclusion formats that you can
then compile into one big study guide.
Besides reducing the amount of unnecessary information transcribed into your notes, the
Q/E/C system creates a clear and obvious interrelation between topic, conclusion and the stream of
facts and arguments that connect the two.
Furthermore, this note-taking system is two-in-one, since, besides helping you organize information
while you are reading or attending your lectures, you’re also creating valuable study materials
to use during revision.
**Morse Code Method**
The Morse code method is a note-taking method envisioned by Cal Newport and focus mainly
on taking advantage of written materials.
Whenever you find a sentence that seems to be laying out a main idea, you should draw
a dot next to it in the margin; if you then come across an example or explanation that
supports that big idea you should draw a dash next to it on the margin.
This allows you to record information without breaking your reading momentum so you can
then take notes.
The act of taking the dots you’ve written and transforming them into notes is called
the processing stage and it basically requires you to paraphrase the main idea in your own
words in a bullet point.
The author then encourages you to take all of these sentences and review them in the
format of a major question: [em fundo branco:] “What is the main question being asked in
the article?
What is the conclusion the authors point towards?”
**Flow Notes**
Flow notes are very similar to mind maps but they have no rules in terms of structure.
Although difficult to review, they allow you to incorporate a large amount of information
during your class, because they are a free pass for you to simply throw facts, arguments,
topics and dates on the page with no specific order while connecting and linking these ideas
as you hear them.
Flow notes are great for those who hate transcribing information and prefer to process what they’re
hearing into workable sentences or words; it’s an holistic method that works wonders
for classes with no clear structure, or discussion with interrelated components that aren’t
easily organized via outline or mind map format.
In case your class is highly dense on information, making it impossible to compress all of the
facts, you can still use flow notes as a hybrid system to comment and annotate original materials
and textbooks to create summaries or visual aids for complex chapters or topics.
**Sentence Method**
The sentence method is similar to the outline method as it relies on an expansive vision
of your notes, but instead of using indenting and topic formulation, it uses one-liners,
one per paragraph, to create a guide for each topic that is easily readable, workable and
memorable.
The other major difference is that while the outline technique uses indentation to hierarchize
the importance of different segments of the topic, by avoiding indenting the sentence
method considers every sentence of equal value, which means that topics with a high-level
of detail or information can benefit from this system as they force you to memorize
details as well as key ideas relating to the topic.
And if you want to reproduce these note taking systems in one place only and incorporate
your notes with all of the other information and materials related to your classes, you
should start using today’s sponsor, Notion, as soon as possible.
Notion is an awesome tool and I've made three videos about how I use it to organize every
single thing in my life and the good thing is that Notion is sponsoring today's video
to let you know that it's finally free for students and teachers!
Notion is productivity software that combines all your essential work tools in one place.
It's flexible, allowing you to organize everything in workspaces and move things around seamlessly.
Two weeks ago I showed you how I created an academic planner in Notion, which includes
class notes, a calendar, syllabi pages, task lists, project planners and so on.
With this free personal plan for students, you can now have unlimited space to organize
everything.
All you have to do is sign up using your school email address or, if you already have Notion,
you can change your account e-mail to the e-mail of your school and that's it.
You can also access a bunch of templates designed specifically for students and educators, which
will be linked down below.
And if you aren't a student anymore, that's not a problem → you can enter the promo
code "mariana" to get your own free notion Personal plan by following the instructions
in the description box below.
Also, if you're curious about how I've been using Notion, I will link my past three videos
as well.
I will list in the description box below detailed articles about these note-taking methods.
I hope you enjoyed this video and I will see you next week.
Bye guys!