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Effective Notetaking: Strategies to Help You Study Effectively
You can predict how well a student will do simply on the basis of their use of effective study strategies.
Effective notetaking is for college students who are serious about being successful in study, and teachers who want to know how best to help their students learn.
Being a successful student is far more about being a smart user of effective strategies than about being 'smart'. Research has shown it is possible to predict how well a student will do simply on the basis of their use of study strategies.
This workbook looks at the most important group of study skills - how to take notes (with advice on how to read a textbook and how to prepare for a lecture). You'll be shown how to:
- format your notes
- use headings and highlighting
- write different types of text summaries and pictorial ones, including concept maps and mind maps (you'll find out the difference, and the pros and cons of each)
- ask the right questions
- make the right connections
- review your notes
- evaluate text to work out which strategy is appropriate.
There's advice on individual differences and learning styles, and on how to choose the strategies that are right for both you and the situation.
Using effective notetaking strategies will help you remember what you read. It will help you understand more, and set you on the road to becoming an expert (or at least getting good grades!).
Successful studying isn't about hours put in, it's about spending your time wisely. You want to study smarter not harder.
As always with the Mempowered books, this thorough (and fully referenced) workbook doesn't re-hash the same tired advice that's been peddled for so long. Rather, Effective notetaking builds on the latest cognitive and educational research to help you study for success.
This revised edition comes in a new (slightly smaller) size, with new images, and an extended chapter on taking notes in lectures.
Effective notetaking is for college students who are serious about being successful in study, and teachers who want to know how best to help their students learn.
Being a successful student is far more about being a smart user of effective strategies than about being 'smart'. Research has shown it is possible to predict how well a student will do simply on the basis of their use of study strategies.
This workbook looks at the most important group of study skills - how to take notes (with advice on how to read a textbook and how to prepare for a lecture). You'll be shown how to:
- format your notes
- use headings and highlighting
- write different types of text summaries and pictorial ones, including concept maps and mind maps (you'll find out the difference, and the pros and cons of each)
- ask the right questions
- make the right connections
- review your notes
- evaluate text to work out which strategy is appropriate.
There's advice on individual differences and learning styles, and on how to choose the strategies that are right for both you and the situation.
Using effective notetaking strategies will help you remember what you read. It will help you understand more, and set you on the road to becoming an expert (or at least getting good grades!).
Successful studying isn't about hours put in, it's about spending your time wisely. You want to study smarter not harder.
As always with the Mempowered books, this thorough (and fully referenced) workbook doesn't re-hash the same tired advice that's been peddled for so long. Rather, Effective notetaking builds on the latest cognitive and educational research to help you study for success.
This revised edition comes in a new (slightly smaller) size, with new images, and an extended chapter on taking notes in lectures.
266 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2007
373 people are currently reading
409 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
November 7, 2020
Why is Fiona McPherson so underrated? Maybe it was just the right time for me to read this, but it really gave me the missing piece to the learning puzzle and helped me get back on my feet. A goldmine of rich information that helped me realise why I wasn’t understanding the content that I was reading and learning about beforehand. 5 stars.
March 16, 2021
A must for people trying to be more efficient and effective in their studies, of any topic.
However, it has its flaws. The two main ones that bummed me down quite a bit were:
- Lack of a solid mnemonics chapter. That's relegated to another of the author's books. It really does feel like an attempt at trying to sell you another product, which is ok in itself, but the topic is so inherent to the book that I just couldn't accept it.
- Lack of chapter on how to follow up on research on the topic. The book does feature a length references section, however it would have been much more interesting to have the author, the expert in the field, give us a map — ironically, maps are discussed thoroughly throughout the book — of where to go next.
- There could have been a chapter on tools/apps for better notetaking. Even though sections like this get outdated pretty fast, there are software which has been around for decades and decades. Notion and Evernote are fairly recent, but Vim and Emacs' Org-mode have existed for 30+ years already — that's also the case of the cmaps application she briefly mentioned in the book.
- Even though she mentions skimming right at the beginning of the book as another useful tool, she never dives deep into it. I generally hate speedreading, but there's some value to it.
- More and more people study from online media, not necessarily books or lectures. What are the optimal techniques then? The book doesn't offer an answer, but I guess that's mostly because this is a fairly recent development, so it's understandable.
- The whole book is overall about understanding and not really memorizing. Memorization techniques are mostly relegated to others of the author's books. However, they would greatly improve the effectiveness of the student's notetaking.
Don't expect to be the master of effective notetaking after reading this book. Taking notes requires a ton of practice, and varies a lot whenever you change topics. I won't penalize the book so severely as to give it 4 stars — 4.5 stars would have been accurate to me —, it's shame it takes so long to find a book like this in a society that's more worried about chemistry than better study techniques.
That all said, when it comes to price, the last chapter itself, with a summary of the book, is worth every penny.
Spoiler: Don't forget: the moral of the book is: knowledge is about connections. (And don't forget: spoilers offer entice more than really spoil.)
However, it has its flaws. The two main ones that bummed me down quite a bit were:
- Lack of a solid mnemonics chapter. That's relegated to another of the author's books. It really does feel like an attempt at trying to sell you another product, which is ok in itself, but the topic is so inherent to the book that I just couldn't accept it.
- Lack of chapter on how to follow up on research on the topic. The book does feature a length references section, however it would have been much more interesting to have the author, the expert in the field, give us a map — ironically, maps are discussed thoroughly throughout the book — of where to go next.
- There could have been a chapter on tools/apps for better notetaking. Even though sections like this get outdated pretty fast, there are software which has been around for decades and decades. Notion and Evernote are fairly recent, but Vim and Emacs' Org-mode have existed for 30+ years already — that's also the case of the cmaps application she briefly mentioned in the book.
- Even though she mentions skimming right at the beginning of the book as another useful tool, she never dives deep into it. I generally hate speedreading, but there's some value to it.
- More and more people study from online media, not necessarily books or lectures. What are the optimal techniques then? The book doesn't offer an answer, but I guess that's mostly because this is a fairly recent development, so it's understandable.
- The whole book is overall about understanding and not really memorizing. Memorization techniques are mostly relegated to others of the author's books. However, they would greatly improve the effectiveness of the student's notetaking.
Don't expect to be the master of effective notetaking after reading this book. Taking notes requires a ton of practice, and varies a lot whenever you change topics. I won't penalize the book so severely as to give it 4 stars — 4.5 stars would have been accurate to me —, it's shame it takes so long to find a book like this in a society that's more worried about chemistry than better study techniques.
That all said, when it comes to price, the last chapter itself, with a summary of the book, is worth every penny.
Spoiler: Don't forget: the moral of the book is: knowledge is about connections. (And don't forget: spoilers offer entice more than really spoil.)
January 8, 2021
The reason I came to this book is to refine my skill in note-taking.
Overall, it's a concise and informative book, which may very helpful for students and also adults.
What I got after reading this book:
- For effective learning, things should be well organized, both your mind and materials you learn from.
- Good learning materials like textbooks or lectures often have good strategies in presenting the information.
- The strategy you choose to use in notetaking affects how you can understand, remember, and revise information.
- There's no silver bullet, choose the notetaking strategy that best fits the material.
- When taking note, you don't write down everything, just take the important and ignore the unimportant part <- this is hard and need practices
Overall, it's a concise and informative book, which may very helpful for students and also adults.
What I got after reading this book:
- For effective learning, things should be well organized, both your mind and materials you learn from.
- Good learning materials like textbooks or lectures often have good strategies in presenting the information.
- The strategy you choose to use in notetaking affects how you can understand, remember, and revise information.
- There's no silver bullet, choose the notetaking strategy that best fits the material.
- When taking note, you don't write down everything, just take the important and ignore the unimportant part <- this is hard and need practices
January 15, 2024
Superb book on note taking and more
This book has so many interesting points on effective ways to acquire knowledge. It describes lots of methods to better highlight text, take notes on lectures, build concepts maps and design good strategies personalized to learn something. It has been the most comprehensive book I read on the subject. Recommend!
This book has so many interesting points on effective ways to acquire knowledge. It describes lots of methods to better highlight text, take notes on lectures, build concepts maps and design good strategies personalized to learn something. It has been the most comprehensive book I read on the subject. Recommend!
April 20, 2023
Definitely full of effective note-taking strategies however not structured in a friendly manner. It's very much like I am reading a school textbook. I'm not sure if the author intentionally wrote the book like this but it could have been structured in a much better way. Other than structure, the takeaways are valuable but not powerful. What I mean by this is the author fills the book with several strategies that if implemented in full would not be effective. What a reader needs to do is pick the strategies that work for them and go full in on those particular ones.
The book also tries to be smart by including pages worth of reading examples that you have to try to analyze and use some of the strategies which is practical but the topics were irrelevant to many people. I could have done without those and just try to implement the reading strategies on the particular book that I had in my hands, Effective Notetaking!
Where is although it is a book that is trying to be a book about effective note-taking it is really a book about this strategy and that strategy and see which one works the best for you. It really does not go into depth into any one strategy so gives you a general overview of what you could do. I also would have added some aspects that dove deeper into specific strategies that work because of research based on neuroscience. The book could have been a whole lot more friendly and fun to read as well instead of being dry like a textbook.
The book also tries to be smart by including pages worth of reading examples that you have to try to analyze and use some of the strategies which is practical but the topics were irrelevant to many people. I could have done without those and just try to implement the reading strategies on the particular book that I had in my hands, Effective Notetaking!
Where is although it is a book that is trying to be a book about effective note-taking it is really a book about this strategy and that strategy and see which one works the best for you. It really does not go into depth into any one strategy so gives you a general overview of what you could do. I also would have added some aspects that dove deeper into specific strategies that work because of research based on neuroscience. The book could have been a whole lot more friendly and fun to read as well instead of being dry like a textbook.
August 1, 2022
I was expecting this to be a more general note-taking book, but instead it is mostly focused on students, especially when it comes to take notes from books.
While it is nothing revolutionary, it is a good set of ideas on how to collect and organize notes. Maybe the only really weak point was on mnemonics and about skimming a text, I was expecting something more detailed about both.
it would be interesting to see how these techniques are are used in a PKMS environment.
While it is nothing revolutionary, it is a good set of ideas on how to collect and organize notes. Maybe the only really weak point was on mnemonics and about skimming a text, I was expecting something more detailed about both.
it would be interesting to see how these techniques are are used in a PKMS environment.
November 22, 2022
Contains some well-written explanations, but it's a bit of a drag to get through. I realise that the many, exhaustive exercises are actually a good way to process it all, but it's a bit ironic that I felt that a book about stripping texts to their essence feels like it could have been trimmed down a lot.
July 7, 2020
Some interesting tips, nothing life changing.
September 20, 2022
This is the best book I've found so far on note taking, even though there are limitations. Some of the chapters were very helpful to the college student I was tutoring. Some were not as helpful, but they still gave us some things to think about. We jumped around in the book to to make sure we hit the chapters I thought were most useful.
October 1, 2024
The book has good content. I didn’t really like that it’s a workbook as I was interested in reading the ideas and concepts, I can put it to practice on my own texts.
Do not recommend reading it on Kindle for the same reason. Since it’s a workbook, you can’t do the exercises on Kindle and its navigation is harder if you’re looking to skip those.
Do not recommend reading it on Kindle for the same reason. Since it’s a workbook, you can’t do the exercises on Kindle and its navigation is harder if you’re looking to skip those.
March 14, 2018
Pretty good overall. It surely helps you take better notes.
Though the information is good, I think it's a bit too "technical" and it makes retrieval of the key points a tad difficult.
Though the information is good, I think it's a bit too "technical" and it makes retrieval of the key points a tad difficult.
November 17, 2020
Excellent
Concise, but very informative for anyone (including adults) who makes notes. Good value too. Will take a look at others in the series.
Concise, but very informative for anyone (including adults) who makes notes. Good value too. Will take a look at others in the series.
September 15, 2022
3.5: some useful tidbits here and there ...
October 29, 2022
A quick read
December 25, 2022
Really appreciated for students.
Less for other approaches, in which case I prefer pkm books like Tiago Forte or Sonke Arhens.
Anyway full of good suggestions for increase reading speed
Less for other approaches, in which case I prefer pkm books like Tiago Forte or Sonke Arhens.
Anyway full of good suggestions for increase reading speed
January 9, 2023
Loved it. It will take you from being a lost learner to a strategist learner.
May 1, 2017
Great Bang for the Buck
An awful lot of info for a small amount of money. I've looked at a number of books on note taking and this is the most comprehensive one yet. I'll cherish this volume as a great reference work.
An awful lot of info for a small amount of money. I've looked at a number of books on note taking and this is the most comprehensive one yet. I'll cherish this volume as a great reference work.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews