Hey guys!
Today's video is about how I take notes in class.
And yes, all of the notes that I'm showing right now are notes that I've taken in class.
I get a lot of questions about whether I rewrite my notes and the answer to that is no.
I just don't have time to do it simply for aesthetic purposes, and I don't find that it works as a studying technique for me,
so I just don't do it at all.
So now let's get started with the note-taking guide.
First, the main thing that I do in class is write down all of the information using a black pen.
The structure that I use is usually something like a loose version of bullet points,
but it does change depending on the material and the subject.
For math, I usually write down the definitions and any formulas and I draw a box around those.
Then, I write down all of the examples in just a loose jumble, maybe two columns if I need to.
For history, I usually use a bullet point system.
So I'll have a header that's highlighted,
A bullet point, and possibly sub points underneath that bullet point which will be further indented.
And, lastly, for French,
I don't really have a "usual" structure since grammar and language are so difficult to structure,
But I usually use some sort of bullet point system with highlighted vocabulary words and example sentences and things like that.
As far as actually being able to capture all of this information, I have a video about how to take notes faster, which I will link in the cards.
I think it's here. I think I finally figured it out.
But if you don't want to go watch that video, I'll recap some of my main points
First and most importantly, you do not have to write down every single thing that your teacher says or includes on their PowerPoint.
The way that you determine what's most important will depend on your learning style, the teacher you have,
the material of your class, the subject, and a whole bunch of factors.
So I can't really tell you exactly what you need to write down.
You'll improve at this skill with practice and as you get more experience with how tests are in that class,
so I wouldn't worry too much about this one
And my second tip would be to use a lot of symbols and abbreviations.
Again, this also depends on your class, the subject, and what personally makes sense to you.
You might be thinking, "These plain black notes don't look anything like those fancy things that you have on your Instagram."
The only things that I add to make them fancy are highlighting in one color and the calligraphy header.
For highlighting, if there is a pause in the lecture when I don't need to be frantically writing things down,
then I will start highlighting.
I use one color in each set of notes since I tend to get distracted by colors.
And, this year, I've decided that for each chapter, I'll be unifying them visually by using the same highlighter color for all of the notes in that chapter.
The things that I do are I highlight subheadings to make them stand out.
I'll underline, draw boxes, or highlight important facts and vocabulary words and formulas.
The most important things, like headings or super important vocab, I will highlight, and then the secondary things I will underline.
Boxes are usually just for things that are larger, like formulas, that I can't really fully highlight or underline.
Similar to picking out the important things from the lecture, I can't really tell you exactly what you need to highlight,
since this will depend on your individual circumstances.
But again, you can improve at this with practice.
And the final thing I do, usually not in class, so I guess this is slightly clickbait,
but I do a calligraphy header to make the notes look extra fancy.
This usually takes me about a minute or two outside of the class.
Basically, what I do is I write the title for the lecture using a calligraphy brush pen,
and then I use a highlighter to draw two lines on either side.
I hope you found this video helpful,
and if you'd like more note-taking tips, I'll have them linked on the end screen and in the description.
I upload new videos every Friday and you can see photos of my notes on my Tumblr and Instagram, which will be linked in the description.
See you next time!