Introduction

How to retain information

Guide to notemaking

 

What should students do during their lectures? Or to put it another way how can students retain all of the useful information that they are being offered. The simple answer is that they should prepare befroehand and make notes, but how? and what for?

  1. Before the lecture - prepare
    • Read the guide to your course and ask yourself where this particular lecture fits in to the overall scheme of work, how does it relate to the work that you have already done, does it begin a new topic?
    • Check past essay questions, assigments or exam papers and see what aspects of this topic are examined and how?
    • Do some preliminary reading.
    • Think: what do you already know about this topic?What would you like to know? How are you going to use the information?
  2. During the lecture - an active learning approach to note making
    • Listen actively:
    • Note keywords, make connections.
    • Note questions you may want to ask (then, later in seminars or in your reading).
    • Note names, dates, details of reading or sources you will want to refer to later. (The skill of listening, selecting, writing and listening again takes time - but can only be developed with lots of practice. Start with your first lecture)
  3. Make sure that you have all of the hand-outs given before, during & after the lecture.
  4. After the lecture - using those notes
    • It is generally thought by psychologists that 98% of the information we are told is lost within three weeks unless that information is used.
    • As soon as possible after the lecture rewrite your notes into a shorter, neater version, with clear headings.
    • Consider using different coloured pens for underlining and headings to produce a good clear structure.
    • Try to write down the key points and connections from memory (Always recheck after this exercise; there is no point remembering information which is incorrect)
    • Compare your notes with other students.
    • Discuss the lecture with fellow students and the lecturer (why not?)
    • Do you agree with what you were told?
    • If not, why not? What is the evidence for your agreement or disagreement?
    • Engage in some follow up activity - link the lecture with other information or other topics.
    • Do some follow up reading. Make sure that it is active reading: why are you reading?
    • Which sources will supply the information you need?

Organise your notes. This process itself helps you to retain the information - it also means you can find and utilise your hard earned knowledge at a later date (e.g. for exam revision).

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