Making good study notes (1 Viewer)

[dan964]

A thread for suggestions on good note making practices.

How to approach each of the subjects:
English:

• Since it is a bad idea to rote learn essays, because you don't actually learn how to craft responses that fit the question. Rote learn content from the texts you studied instead.
• Litcharts is a good resource to start you off.

For each text (core + related), prepare minimum 6-7 examples; for each theme/reading. (For each poem, just take one reading). (you can structure examples under themes/readings). Aim for 3-4 different readings.

Pick examples that are applicable to a wide range of themes, and add relevant techniques. Try to pick actual techniques that showcase particular ideas or aspects of the text (or the text type). With the exception of film, it is recommended to include a quote from the text (for film a description or quote). With the exception of poetry, typically you can relate literary or cinematic techniques to more broader things like plot or characterisation (not all texts have a plot though). Some narratives follow a particular structure, so the structure of the text can also complement and add effect.

For comparative study (whether 2 core, or a core and related), try to pair up similar or contrasting examples. This will make integration work easier.

For critical study, explore different readings. Consider especially interwoven secondary material (such as other's people's opinions).

For contextual study, write up notes on context. Take a more applied approach to the themes, by selecting contemporary events and issues to when the text was written, and how they are commented on, reflected on and developed in the text.

Do all practice papers by hand not typed, so that you can learn to prepare yourself.

HSIE
I didn't do these subjects but based on what I understand would be helpful, here are some suggestions:

• For economics and business studies, make use of fact sheets, and definition lists. Fact sheets contain the latest statistics and info. Keep it concise so you can recall it easily in assessments. Definition lists are just key concepts. And then you might have a process sheet on any calculation related things.
  You may decide to make proper notes for economics concepts. You can make use of coloured boxes for key definitions and formulae.
• For legal studies, fact sheets covering different legal areas may be helpful; as well as definition lists.
• For ancient/modern, you could approach it similarly to English, however instead of focusing on quotes and techniques, you are looking at events and people.

Science
Science is one of those subjects tricky to work out how much notes to write imho.

• I generally avoided putting in any worked examples for calculations, as it is better just to actually practice papers rather than read over worked examples. Although I would make exception, and put in the steps for how to calculate titrations.
• For Chemistry, highlight and focus particularly on chemical equations as examples; especially when they crossover with theory content.
• Make use of diagrams, tables, coloured boxes for definitions or formulae.
• If you do decide to use dot points, practice writing complete sentences explaining key concepts as you may have to regurgitate content in the exam.
• Science is one of the few subjects where it is actually recommended to rote learn content.
• I would suggest doing it per syllabus point as one approach (although with the new syllabus this may be less clear cut) and you can structure your notes either via dot point or thematically (with the latter try to avoid adding additional content beyond the syllabus as much as possible so not to waste time when revising).
• Chemistry notes are good typed especially if you can do the subscript and superscript for equations.
• Biology notes have a lot of diagrams it may be easier to hand-draw these diagrams as you may have to reproduce them in an exam.

Maths

• This is my personal opinion, generally for high school level maths, I don't find that you need to make notes (separate to any note taking of stuff the teacher puts on the board) As long as your teacher is taking you through examples in class and you have a good textbook to have a read, you don't generally need notes (except for general maths, it might be helpful to develop a cheat sheet).
• Your best bet with maths is to get straight into doing problems, exercises and past papers.
• If you do decide to make notes, you can try Latex only if you have the time and are able to do it quickly. Otherwise you are better off handwriting (Maths is one of the few subjects I would not recommend typing, I tried that in first year uni and it was not fun).
• Don't use A5 books. Use A4 books, with lined paper not the graph paper.
  • Bound books for class notes and worked examples done in class. I generally recommend keeping any homework or textbook exercises separate.
  • Non-bound Lecture pads (with margin) with removal pages for assignments and practice papers. (This is so you can remove a page with any mistakes); and get a nice fine liner for neatness.

Languages:

• This approach isn't perfect. But there is a couple of ways you can structure it.
  • Make use of colours to colour but be consistent, e.g. grammar structures in pink, new vocab in purple, verb conjugation in orange, new characters in green etc.
  • Three column tables, where the first column is the language studied, the second is the English column and the last column is any notes, vocabulary. For some languages, one of the columns could focus on pronunciation or romanization of characters.
• Just use the examples provided by your teacher for revision or the ones in the textbook (if the textbook is good like Wakatta) - no need to craft your own for every grammar point when making notes (keep such an exercise for practice)
• Go hard on vocabulary. For this, Quizlet is your friend as are flashcards. Make a spreadsheet if you need it.
• Use grid paper for practicing writing characters (there is A5 character grid for Chinese/Korean/Japanese here: https://thsconline.github.io/s/v/4200/Character Grid for Asian Languages (A5 Size) )
• Some of my Japanese notes are on BoS for reference on how to approach
  Another method is I generally coloured coded which language (black for language of study, blue for English).

For verbs and adjectives, rote learn a set of standard verbs and adjectives and how they conjugate may be better approach then writing out the rules themselves. Depends on the language.

TBH, other subjects I have no clue.

 

[dan964]

Share your tips below...

 

[jimmysmith560]

First of all, this is a great contribution and I really hope it helps a lot of students

Here's what I can add,

HSIE - Business Studies:

- Make notes for each syllabus dot point, as this helps in making organised notes, which in turn makes studying easier.
- Add links to or information about case studies under each dot point where applicable, that way you have a better idea of what kind of questions you may be able to utilise them for.

Non-Asian (e.g. European, Middle Eastern) Languages:

Beginners and Continuers:

- As mentioned above, make sure you have separate notes for vocabulary, grammar and spelling. There must be a clear distinction between each of those components as that will increase clarity, which is very important when learning a language, especially at Beginners level.
- In addition to that, make a separate section for irregularities/exceptions to a grammatical rule.

Extension:

- Make extensive notes about your prescribed text, including the significance of important events, meaning of quotes as well as an accurate translation of those quotes to English.

 

[jimmysmith560]

ive been trying to make study notes using the syllabus and like 2 textbooks combined but the thing is idk wat information is necessary so my notes end up being so lengthy and not concise. how do u differentiate between irrelevant information and necessary ones bc at this point my notes look like an entire textbook

A good approach to determine which concepts are important and should be part of your notes is to access a set of pre-made notes (that must be under the current syllabus for the subject for which you are making study notes) and use it as guidance to create your own set of notes, which you will likely be able to understand to a greater extent, thus allowing you to prepare for your assessment tasks/exams more effectively. For example, you may use a set of high-quality notes to identify which concepts were highly emphasised in addition to which concepts were not highly emphasised (if mentioned at all) throughout the different relevant chapters/modules/topics. This may vary depending on the particular subject(s) but the approach itself should be relatively similar across different subjects where knowledge and understanding of the content are essential.

I hope this helps!