up: [[Studying MOC]] Tags: # How to write lecture notes Most students take notes by opening up a google doc or the slides and writing down exactly what the professor says verbatim like caffeinated zombies. ###### Why is notetaking like this bad? It's a form of passive notetaking. Writing down exactly what the professor says doesn't take any effort. Worse yet, each student that takes notes this way becomes a identical mold of each other. Because you put none of your own personality and interests in your notes, your knowledgebase you create at University becomes remarkably similar to every other student taking the same classes. # How Should You Take Notes? To take better notes you have to change your mindset toward why your taking notes in the first place. Instead of taking notes purely to be able to regurgitate it on a test later on, take notes to grow your own personal unique body of knowledge. ## Use Conceptual Notetaking Use [[Conceptual Notemaking]] to take notes rather than sequential notetaking. This allows you to create a unique personal body of knowledge built up of individual [[Concept notes|atomic conceptual notes]]. Another part of conceptual notetaking comes with understanding how to link notes. Learn [[How should you link your notes]] here. A difficult part of conceptual notetaking comes with learning about [[What should you take notes on]]. This will change depending on the class you are in. You won't take notes for math class in nearly the same way you will take notes for your History class. #### Add Friction As discussed earlier, one of students biggest problems is taking notes on too much. Because of this they should [[Add friction to notetaking]]. #### Predict answers to questions Especially in math classes, the professor will often go through example problems on the board. It's useless to write down what the professor writes and save these examples in your notes. Simply looking at a example that's already completed doesn't show you understand how to solve a problem but it might make you think you do because of the [[Psychology of Overconfidence]]. Instead, make your notetaking during lecture active by trying to predict how the professor will solve a problem while they are going through it. During this process, if you stumble across something you don't understand than that's the perfect thing to take a note on. ^181a48 ### Make it a game One of the best ways to make yourself want to do hard things is to apply game principles in real life through a process called [[Gamification MOC]]. You can do this with your lecture notetaking by making a game out of the process. When you walk into that lecture hall it's a battle between you and the professor to make your notes unique. You need to fight off the urge to let your brain go and write down what the professor says verbatim. Related: [[Memory MOC]] [[The Problem With Active Recall and Spaced Repetition]]