To understand and remember what you read taking notes is a valuable exercise. But note taking has other benefits to. If you need to reference a quote directly you can write that down along with a page number that can be used as a citation. It serves as a good summary on what you have previously read without having to read the entire text again.
Today we can read either printed materials in a physical book or magazine; or digitally on an eBook device like an iPad, Kindle, Kobo, Laptop. How we take notes can also be done on paper or digitally.
Just a few techniques that I have used for note taking are:
- Highlight sections with texta or pen in printed materials
- Writing in a Notebook
- Digital highlighting on devices like Kindle, iPad, Kobo
I will delve into each of these techniques and then describe what I do with all of these notes.
Highlight sections with texta or pen to take notes
A commonly used technique is to use a highlighter texta or pen to draw attention to text on printed materials that you want to remember. I don’t know about you but I hate damaging books so I never use a highlighter in books. As a frequent borrower of library books it’s not an option either. However, I do use a highlighter on materials that I can print out myself, so if I do want a copy that hasn’t been highlighted I can just print it out again.
Taking notes in a Notebook
Taking pen to paper for note taking has been used forever, and even today I feel it’s the ideal method. I do like to use a notebook rather than scraps of paper. As most of my note taking is done on a comfy couch I have found after trial and error that a spiral bound A5 notebook with a solid cardboard back is ideal. I also like them to be plain, so I can write wherever I like. I might go a bit wonky when writing, but I don’t feel as restricted as I do with lined paper.
The process of taking notes in my notebook involves writing the Chapter number and name at the top of a new page. I then read each paragraph and if there’s anything important that I want to remember I write it down. If it’s a quote that I want to remember word for word, then I’ll add quotes around it, otherwise I write it down in my own words. If there is nothing of interest I continue reading.
I use bullet points a lot in my note taking. And they even get nested when necessary. I find that it’s really easy to comprehend what is written by just scanning down the list of bullet points.
Using Digital Highlighting to take notes
Reading books digitally enables highlighting text and optionally adding a note. I tend to just highlight text as this is enough for my purposes. In the rare case when text highlighting doesn’t work (usually PDF’s) then I do resort to writing in my notebook as previously described.
I use Marvin on my iPad for all my reading. It is the one place where all by books are kept and it has excellent highlighting features. So my process involves reading the paragraph and if anything is interesting I highlight it.
Highlighting methods differ between devices and the app being used, but with Marvin:
To highlight the word: Click on the pen image (third from the left).
To highlight block of text: Drag the blue line at the start or end of the highlighted word to desired text. Then press the pen image (third from left).
To highlight the sentence: Press the word “Sentence” and it automatically highlights the entire sentence. Such a time saver. Marvin doesn’t come with sentence highlighting automatically, it needs to be setup. But it’s so easy to do, just see the explanation on this Marvin blog post.
Highlighting digitally is a lot quicker than using a pen and a notebook, but there’s a catch. When you go on to the next step of storing these notes permanently extra thought does need to be made into putting content into your own words.
Now, what to do with these notes…
After you’ve taken these notes, either in a notebook or digitally; it’s best to store them somewhere so that you can access them again. Of course you could just look through your notebook later down the track, but I prefer to put everything into Evernote. I have a notebook in Evernote called “Books” that I use to store all my notes on books that I’ve read. For each book I have a note with the title set to the book title and the author. So for example one of my notes is titled “Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg” (By the way, I’ve reviewed this book take a look at this blog post).
I have quite a few different types of notes that need to be input and they involve the following:
For my notes made in a notebook: I copy them word for word into Evernote.
For diagrams that I have referenced: I get a screenshot of the diagram from the book and paste it in as an image.
For large amounts of text that I have referenced: I will get the book and set it up next to my computer and type it in word for word (with quotes of course).
For highlights on my iPad: I actually set up my iPad next to my desktop machine and re-read what I have highlighted and then I either quote word for word what is written, and identifying as such with quotes. Or else I summarise what was highlighted using dot point notation.
And that’s it. Now that my notes are in Evernote I have one place where I can search for information on a particular topic, or browse through a note to remind myself of a books content. As for the notebooks? Well at present I stack them on a bookshelf. Whether I’ll hang on to them or not only time will tell.
Conclusion
Note taking is a really useful skill that takes a bit of time and practice but is definitely worth while pursuing as it does assist in understanding the books content more. As a side affect, I have found that my typing speed and accuracy has improved too.
So I’d like to hear your thoughts on note taking, how you do it, how it helps (or not). It’s something that I am continually improving over time, but I can see the real benefits of it.
Now, if only I can figure out how to take notes on Audio books or podcasts. Any ideas, drop me a line.
0 Comments