Hello everyone,

I'm new here and would like to ask you for some tips on taking notes. I took a break from studying for a couple of years and am starting a part-time Masters module with the Open University soon. I'm struggling to decide on how I should take notes, and I would love to hear what you do :)

Thanks in advance,
Sarah

Do you mean how to write notes quickly? I can recommend recording the speech of your tutor during the lecture and then converting with the special mp3 to text converter https://audext.com/mp3-to-text/ It's a good way to save your time and get all useful information from the lecture.

That’s a fantastic tool, thank you! I will be studying online so probably won’t need it but will keep it in mind.

I am interested in how different students take and organise their notes on materials. During my undergraduate degree, I never really figured out which method I preferred, and ended up with quite a mess of digital and paper notes. I’d like to do it more efficiently this time around!

I know I am not the best example, or the best to advice, but I take notes on A4 papers and then note the book or paper that I read. I end up with huge piles of notes, but it suits me.
I have tried a lot of methods but I always got lost. This is more suitable for me.
At the end of the day, I would say do what you find more suitable to you!

Thanks for your reply! Handwritten notes would probably be my go-to. Do you have a system for organising them? And do you have any specific methods, like using a set template for a page, or colour-coding? I find it interesting to see what different people do!

I don’t use any system!!!!! I know how this may sound to others, but I just scribble what I think is important, or what questions are raised, or how it connects to my work. Then I write the reference at the top of the page, sometimes even at the bottom and that’s it!

I guess it is a system (or a “non-system”???) that depends depends a lot on the fact that I have a good memory and I remember where I put everything! E.g. If I need a reference from something that I read three or four years ago, I know (don’t ask how!) it is in that pile of papers on that table! So, I do a bit of searching and I find it!!!


Well, that’s me! It suits me!

I used to annotate printed sheets of the lecture notes.

I use coloured postcards. It works great for me, as I do History. I jot down interesting research findings according to themes and designate a colour to each one. When I'm looking for something, I spread them out on a table and usually spy what I'm after quite quickly.

Thank you all for your input! I am making notes on paper for know and filing them in the relevant place. Who knows how long before I just end up with a big pile of paper! I don't think I would ever find anything again haha

I use Evernote. It's a free program and it syncs to the cloud so your notes are never lost. I worked as a project coordinator in industry and it's sort of the standard in most corporate American environments for project management alongside a whole slough of other tools.