1. Tomas Rivera Center for Student Success
Take Better Notes
Tomas Rivera Center for Student Success

2. WHY TAKE NOTES? Taking notes helps students to concentrate in class.
Taking notes develops a sense of listening, allowing the reader to recognize main ideas.
Makes student an active part of the learning process rather than a passive listener.
Helps prepare for the exams, quizzes.

3. WHY TAKE NOTES?
Notes often contain information that generally cannot be found else where (i.e textbooks).
Notes are often a valuable clue for what instructor or writer think is important.

4. Tips for Reading

5. Detailed reading Detailed reading is a close analysis of a text.
Steps to Read the Article
Look at the structure of the article (most scientific articles follow the same specific format)
Abstract (summary of the whole article)
Introduction (why they did the research)
Methodology (how they did the research)
Results (what happened)
Discussion (what the results mean)
Conclusion (what they learned)
References (whose research they read)

6. Detailed reading
Read the abstract and conclusion first (these have the main points)
If you find anything in the abstract or conclusion that is important for your paper, search for the information
If you need more information, then read through whole sections (usually discussion or results section

7. TAKING NOTES
To write a little faster use abbreviations & symbols to record the information.
W/ with
W/O without
Page
< less than
b/4 before
= equals
% percent
Vs versus
C/o care of