A Search For the Secret Behind Successful Notes

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Sarah Fishman

Contributing Writer

Good notes lay the foundation for understanding and retaining information, which is arguably the most important part of mastering course concepts. Countless studies have been conducted to answer the question: Is there a right way to take notes?

Research results are mixed. In 2014, Mueller and Oppenheimer showed that typing notes on a laptop is more likely to lead to simply transcribing lectures instead of truly processing the content. They found that handwritten notes led to better performance with conceptual testing, though there was little difference with factual testing. On the contrary, Fiorella and Mayer found in 2017 that laptop-users actually performed better on factual information recall—when allowed to study their notes. 

Long story short, there is no straight answer. The best note-taking style depends on many different factors, such as subject matter, course assignments, exam styles, and professor preference. Student personality could also play a role. One big divide, per usual, could come down to STEM subjects versus the humanities.

Fourth-year biopsychology major Gabriela Vasquez strictly uses her iPad to take notes. The Notability app allows her to write over diagrams as well as incorporate typing when necessary. She explains how some professors have their slides set up as notes already, so all she needs to do is annotate them. Similarly, fourth-year zoology major Reyna Shauman downloads slides from Canvas to Notability on her iPad: “There’s a lot of pictures that need to be annotated and drawn on so it’s easier than typing it up on my laptop!”

This indicates a common trend among STEM students, as computer notes simply cannot capture the range of content they need to comprehend and memorize. Is the same true for everyone?

Fourth-year film and political science double major Ellie Olsen explains how she used to take written notes but now types them out “because my professors speak too quickly and I can’t catch everything they are saying [otherwise].” She uses Google Docs to create an organized note-taking system complete with a table of contents and a heading for each lecture, allowing her to immediately access any lecture just by clicking on it. When visuals are needed, she takes photos on her phone and AirDrops them to her computer.

Olsen makes a good point: even if writing information down rather than typing it can aid in processing ability, as some argue, if it proves too slow to capture everything, it still might not be worth it. In fast-paced college classes, missing explanations entirely is worse than simply transcribing them — at least that way, you can go back later to understand more deeply.

This method most closely mirrors my own note-taking system as a communication major and applied psychology and civic engagement double minor. My classes center around written rather than visual information, which can be easily typed out on a Google Doc. When I do need a visual, uploading a picture or using the “drawing” function works just fine.

Olsen, however, noted that she uses her iPad for more creative academic endeavors, such as writing out screenplays. Notability’s “lasso” tool lets her move around story beats more easily. 

These studies and interviews demonstrate that finding the best note-taking style is all about tradeoffs — and of course, trial and error. College is for learning, which includes getting to know your learning style itself.

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