As a history major, I'm doing a lot of reading in my college career. It's also especially dense. I don't know about you guys, but I personally need me-time, and reading all of my texts, synthesizing them, and being generally prepared for class the next day sucks up a lot of that time. It's also frequently hard to suss out the main points of my lectures when looking back on my scribbly notes a month later. Enter, my note-taking and skimming strategies!
IN CLASS
My note-taking process during class developed just this semester, and is a product of being too lazy to do Cornell Notes and having a lot of space in the margins of my notebooks (11 x 9 wireless two subject notebooks from Cornell School Supplies, Inc.).
I personally really like this method because it allows me to organize the major points my professors hit in class and which text was discussed (if any). My pages look something like this (sorry for the poor quality) :
TITLE:
The date-as-title is optional, I just hate not having a title on my notes and it's hard to know what to title a page before actually listening to the lecture.
STRUCTURE OF MAIN PAGE:
The structure of the main page is basically in an outline format, but instead of using numbers and letters I alternate between bullets and dashes. The most important piece of this, in my opinion, is the titling. By doing this, I think it makes sorting out what the hell is going on much better, and makes referencing easier. Usually, one of these titles will be the name of whatever text is discussed, just "lecture" for general concepts, and then sometimes "group work" if your professor is especially inclined to make you undergo that hardship.
MARGIN/"BIG IDEAS":
The margin section I use as a way to consciously be thinking about what the "main idea" of each part of the lecture is. This doesn't work for all of my classes (cough cough Astronomy) but I've taken to putting little tidbits and formulas there instead. For Humanities classes, however, I think this works really well. This way, when going back over your notes, it's easier to decide if that page is important to what you're studying for or writing about.
OUTSIDE OF CLASS--READINGS
For homework, I'm frequently reading either hard copies of books or PDFs, for which I've developed this technique.
They both, however, involve HIGHLIGHTING. I love highlighting. It's amazing. Just do it.
It's easier than underlining, but be sure to have a pen or pencil on hand to star important passages.
Knowing what to highlight is a different story though, which brings us to the base of the techniques--learning how to skim/how to pick out what is important in a text.
Last semester, one of my professors passed out worksheets, claiming that her students that have moved on will email her from graduate school asking for it. This is an abbreviated version of it, because the sheet is used primarily to figure out whether or not a source will be a useful research tool. The technique is called "gutting" a book, and while it sounds graphic, it's not that bad.
1. Technically you need to do this step in class, but it's good for guiding your reading. Usually, when discussing future homework, a professor will give you a few questions to consider for next time. It sounds tedious, but WRITE THESE DOWN. If a professor is nicer, they might also include discussion questions on the syllabus. Use these to help make Step 2 easier.
2. In order to figure out where the important bits of a book are, you need to understand its structure. This involves familiarizing yourself with the table of contents and index (if the text has one). While more useful if you're studying or rushing to read the whole book in one night so you can write an essay about it, this is good for knowing what to pick out if you're given huge sections/multiple chapters of reading. On a smaller scale, subheadings that break up chapters are also helpful.
3. Once you know which parts you think you should read, you can either actually read them, or do this next step: read the first and last sentences of every paragraph in the sections you're focusing on. Authors usually put their primary points here, and usually act as a summary of the paragraph all on their own, or, in the case of a final sentence, an explanation of how this paragraph relates to the next.
4. Highlight things that are especially grabbing, answer questions from Step 1, or just seem important! Try not to highlight big chunks, however, or else when you're going back over that page in class your eyes will glaze over and it will all have been for naught.
5. Here's where you exercise your own judgement-- do any of the paragraphs you're reading the "bookends" of seem especially relevant? Read that paragraph.
(DO THIS WHILE YOU'RE READING!) In order to snag as many participation points as you can, you need to have something to say in class! Grab a big stick note or an index card and keep it next to you, or tucked in the back of your book while you read. When new, relevant subheadings come up, or the important paragraphs mentioned in Step 5 appear, write down their page numbers and basic subjects on the note card or sticky note. Do the same with questions! If you have questions, professors want to hear them--it shows that you did the reading and were thinking critically too.
I hope I've armed you with at least a little bit of valuable knowledge to make it through this semester. I believe in us.
Unforch, I don't have a cure for procrastination.
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