The notes you take help you to synthesize and structure the content of a course, lecture, book or article. And they help you think about it and understand it better. If you make an effort to take good notes, you’ll find it much easier to remember them, and your thoughts on the subject will be more elaborate.

But there are very few scientific studies on the best way to take notes, and the theories you’ll find in popular books are often wrong or too general. And even if you try to apply the advice you’re given, which is quite common, you may not get the results you want.

1. Use summary notes

They help you better understand and retain the content of a course or document.

What’s more, wherever you go, notes are printed in a standard format that varies little from country to country. This format doesn’t give you much scope for flexibility in the way you take notes, which you may need if your situation changes.

You can start taking notes earlier. This will save you time during the exam and give you more time to study.

Why not give it a try?

It’s one of the easiest ways to learn, and it’s what most children do.

When you’re reading a book or document, underline both the important passages and the sentences that seem important to you. You don’t need to write down the details in a document, and you won’t be able to do it anyway. Just note the main ideas.

When you’re reading, you can also take notes on a sheet of paper. Make a note of the book or course you’re reading and the page on which the information you need can be found.

That way, when you take the time to read again, you can find the important passages and rewrite them on your note sheet.

This method is very simple and can be useful for people who have difficulty reading much faster or retaining what they have read.

If you’re a fast reader who likes to write down everything you read, this method won’t be much use to you.

Quick reading method

You can learn to read much faster. It can be time-consuming, but if you do it, you can save an enormous amount of time by reading several books, magazines and documents during the day. People who use the speed-reading method can read a book in a day.

This method is not for everyone. Many people don’t want to spend time learning to read much faster. However, if you read a lot and prefer to learn to read much more quickly, you should try the speed-reading method.

This method is different from the slow reading method, which involves learning to read more slowly.

You’ll learn techniques that will help you learn to read much more quickly.

When you start, you’ll read the Quick Read manual. This will provide you with a list of the features of the Quick Play method. You’ll read them and see that there’s a lot to learn.

If you read the list of features of the speed-reading method, you’ll be discouraged.

However, if you look at all the information in the manual, you’ll see that it’s not that difficult. Most people are not put off by the lists of features of the speed-reading method. This is much larger than the slow reading method.

The speed-reading method is made up of several techniques and strategies that you’ll learn to use to read much faster.

You’ll learn how to read at high speeds effortlessly.

You’ll learn to use your visual memory to read much faster.

2. The roadmap

You’ll learn around 12 techniques and strategies for reading as quickly as possible.

When you start reading the manual, you’ll see that these techniques and strategies are even more complicated and difficult than the slow reading method.

You’ll want to give up. But you won’t, because you know you’ll learn to read much faster. What’s more, you’ll be proud to learn to read faster.

In the beginning, it will take time to learn these techniques and strategies.

If you can’t apply the techniques and strategies correctly, you’ll keep reading slowly. That’s why it’s important to be patient and follow the instructions carefully. Because if you’re not reading a technique or strategy correctly, chances are you’re reading slowly.

Once you’ve understood the technique or strategy, you’ll repeat it again and again, until you’ve done it perfectly.

Next, you’ll apply this technique or strategy when reading a book.

You may need to use several techniques and strategies to read easily, but it will take you less time to learn to read much faster.

Why?

Because you’ll be applying techniques and strategies that you’ve already learned and mastered.

Over the next few months, you’ll learn many more techniques and strategies. You’ll be able to apply them easily, because you’ve already learned to read quickly.

Ready to start training to read faster?

3. Key words

You can learn to read much faster by memorizing key words. Don’t try to read every word in a book. Use keywords to search for important passages.

Why?

Because you need time to remember the key words and reread the book later.

When you’re trying to read a book, you can focus on the keywords. You can store these keywords in your visual memory.

When you reread the book, you’ll already know that the important passages are in the passages that contain these keywords.

Over time, you’ll learn a lot of keywords.

You won’t need to read every word in the book to retain the important passages.

You can focus on keywords and concentrate on the sentences and paragraphs that contain those keywords.

You can also learn to read faster by reading short books.

4. Clustering involves putting words together in groups to make them easier to remember.

Why?

Because clustering helps you remember important words.

When you read a book, you can remember key words from a passage. You can leave these keywords on your desk and look at them during the day.

By looking at these keywords during the day, you can remember the sentence or paragraph that contains them.

You retain the passage because you’ve managed to remember the important words.

When you reread the book, you can remember important passages thanks to the key words.

How do I cluster?

To cluster a book, you can :

• Take the book and place the keywords on your desk.
• Take a piece of paper and write down the key words.
• Keep the keywords on your desk to look at during the day.
• You can retain the passage because you’ve managed to remember the important words.
• You can then reread the book more quickly if you know the important passages.

If you don’t have a book to read, take an article from a newspaper or brochure and do some clustering.

For each sentence, write the key words on a piece of paper. When you do this, you retain sentences more effectively.

When you reread the book, you can use keywords to help you remember important passages.

You can also cluster a recorded conversation. You can listen to the conversation and write down the key words on a piece of paper.

When you reread the conversation, you can remember the important phrases thanks to the keywords.

How do I cluster?

To cluster a recorded conversation, you can :

• Take the conversation and place the keywords on your desk.
• Take a piece of paper and write down the key words.
• Keep the keywords on your desk to look at during the day.

You can also :

• Listen to the conversation and take a sheet of paper.
• Put the key words on the sheet of paper and circle them.
• You can cluster a book or article by writing the keywords on a piece of paper.

5. Mind-maps

are mind maps that are very useful for writers. Mind-maps allow you to create mental maps, which can help you retain the content you read.

To make a mind-map, you can use :

• Software like XMind or Freemind,
• A word processor like LaTex,
• Your own system, such as a whiteboard or notebook.

The great thing about mind-maps is that you can generate ideas for scenarios, characters and other story elements using your mind-map. You can also create mind-maps of your book’s structure.

How do I make a Mind Map?

To create a Mind Map, you can :

• Take a whiteboard, a sheet of paper or a text document.
• Place it at the top left of your document.
• Create branches to divide your mind map into sections.
• Create nodes on branches.
• Write your ideas in the nodes as you come up with them.

Often, you can use several colors to give meaning to each idea you’ve written down. For example, you can use one color for ideas you want to keep, another color for ideas that are just ideas, and another color for ideas you want to remove or eliminate.

It’s important not to rush into creating your mind map. Your mind map should resemble the story you want to write. Don’t forget that you don’t have to build a complete mind map in one go. You can also generate ideas, nodes and branches from another mind map.

How do I use a Mind Map?

Mind Maps can be used to create a mental map of your ideas. If you need to create a mind map simply to set out your main theme, you can use the Mind Map principle in a whiteboard to create your mind map. This way, you can think about what you want to say and write the ideas directly on the whiteboard.

Mind Maps can be created on paper, but most people use computer tools to create their mind map. There are several software programs available to help you create a mind map. The three most common software packages are: XMind, FreeMind and CmapTools. If you want to use free software, you can try XMind, which is open source.

Using these tools, you can create a mind map simply by indicating the nodes and their branches. You can also change knot size and color. Mind Maps can also be enhanced with images and visual elements. For example, if you want to quote a book or website, you can add the image of the book or website when you add a node.

Conclusion on note-taking

Note-taking is a very important step in the completion of any academic or professional project. This is a crucial step, and one for which you need to be highly organized. If you’re organized, you’ll be able to work quickly and efficiently. If you don’t take notes, you’ll spend a lot more time thinking and researching to find the information you need for your work.

What’s more, if you don’t take notes, you’ll have trouble finding and organizing the information you need. You can use whatever method of note-taking suits you best, but it’s absolutely essential that you take notes when you’re in the library, study room or office.

Office source: www.instants-web-learning.fr