Taking Notes in the Classroom - Improving Notes after Class

Note taking is one of the most common and most useful study methods that an individual might use to study for a particular exam, interview, or other similar purpose. However, it is important for an individual to make sure that his or her notes are as complete and accurate as possible. This can often be difficult, however, as an individual only has a limited amount of time to take notes on each topic covered in a specific lecture. In fact, in order for an individual to take accurate notes on most of the information that he or she learned during class, the individual will have to take notes quickly and may only be able to write a few key ideas down for each topic that is covered. As a result, it is extremely important for an individual to go back over his or her notes after the class is over and expand on the material that was covered. This can be done by following a few simple steps.

First, the individual should go back and remove any abbreviations or shorthand notations that the individual used and replace those abbreviations and notations with complete thoughts and sentences. This will allow the individual to make sure that his or her notes are easy to understand while the information is still fresh in the individual's mind. Secondly, the individual should check his or her notes against the notes that other students have taken in order to make sure that the individual hasn't omitted any information or made any obvious mistakes. Then, the individual should attempt to answer any questions that the individual had while he or she was taking notes during class and write down the answer to each question within the individual's notes. The individual should be able to find facts related to any material that he or she did not understand by looking up the information in a textbook, asking another student, asking the professor, or by using some other similar method. Finally, if the individual realizes that his or her notes appear to be out of order or disorganized, the individual should attempt to go back and organize all of the information covered in his or her notes by topic. In fact, the individual may want to go back and put any notes that he or she just took with any notes that the individual had taken during previous classes related to that specific topic.