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Tips & Tricks: Taking Notes

I know in school a lot of kids have trouble with taking notes. This is a skill they will need for all of school, college and even some jobs they will need to take notes. So, it is important to learn and master a skill like this. I was a very studious child in school and took many notes in my time there. Here are some things I did.

  • Each class had its own section in a binder or even its own binder
    • loose paper with notes were in here
    • I used notebooks for notes as well with every class having there own
  • If your teacher says "this will be on the test" or "you need to remember this" then it is best to write this down
  • If there were any vocab words or bold/italicized words in the textbook I write those down and what they mean
  • Any equations get written down along with 1-3 example problem for how to solve or use the equations
  • Important people mentioned and what they did write those down
  • If something is mentioned a lot it is worth writing down
  • The main idea of each lesson should be noted
  • Be sure to look for any footnotes at the bottom of the pages. They often have extra explanations for things. 
Sometimes after getting a test/quiz back and comparing it to the notes that you made can help you better understand what the most important parts were. Not all information is important or needs to be noted but test/quizzes will give you a better understanding of the kinds of things that are important. Sometimes the worksheets that you do in class have information that is important as well and they need to be written down. Here are pictures of my actual notes I took from my Japanese textbook. Normally I would write the vocab words down but I did that on flash cards instead. 




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