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A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

• shishy 7y ago
  (FYI -- article is from 2014 -- I was wondering why this was being studied again, when it seemed well established, both anecdotally and in literature). Anytime I took notes by typing, I'd forget it seconds after finishing. But writing by hand forced me to think about what I was writing. The only thing that trumped that in cementing my understanding was actually having to explain what I learned to my classmates/peers. I wonder how recall from writing compares to typing out flashcards (e.g. Anki) and then using spaced repetition techniques to memorize concepts.
  • Spooky23 7y ago
    The only exception that I have found has been building mindmaps.
  • rgoulter 7y ago
    The kinds of questions I ask when writing flashcards: How can I split this info up into different facts? What facts do I care about / will I care about? But I think I wouldn't make flashcards for something if I understood it. I've found practicing recall with flashcards highlights what I don't understand. e.g. sometimes I've been confused between similar cards, and it's not obvious when looking at the cards the similarities/differences. I think this complements rather than replaces things like the manually writing notes or explaining concepts.
  • kendallpark 7y ago
    I've done classes where I've typed out flashcard questions whenever the lecturer said something that I considered "testable." The system works okay. Forces you to pay attention. Unfortunately, it quickly devolves into spending the entire class copying and pasting between the digital slides and Anki (or sometimes I would use Workflowy as an intermediary). It feels like a chore.
  • LoudogUno 7y ago
    "actually having to explain what I learned to my classmates/peers" isn't that what well typed/formatted notes should. unless your explanation always involve a bunch of bak-and-forth?
• acconrad 7y ago
  What if I want to take notes but not contribute to deforestation and issues with the environmental impact of using paper in 2019?
  • viraptor 7y ago
    iPad + their pen. It works unreasonably well.
  • ryannevius 7y ago
    Is the environmental cost to produce and run your electronic device over its lifetime less than the "cost" to use paper over that same amount of time? Honest question; I don't know the answer.
  • lstamour 7y ago
    Study of one, here, but I find typing notes on my touch screen phone causes me to think a bit more about what I’m writing because I can’t go as fast. So I end up having to summarize to take notes. If I manage to flesh out the notes later, it’s not bad. The problem is when I try to take shortcuts by just taking photos or recording audio. You can do either of those things, but it won’t help the message sink in. Only thought and repeated usage/reference will cause it to eventually stick. Active research can help too, if timeboxed. I only learn passively when I can repeat something at least twice, like an audiobook.
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    iPad?
  • grecht 7y ago
    Nearly everything has an environmental impact. And do you really think a Laptop compares favorably to thousands of pages of paper? But I guess you could get a used iPad with the Apple Pencil or something similar.
  • mamon 7y ago
    What deforestation? At least in my country there's more forrest planted each year than cut out for all the purposes, including paper production. And given that, the rest of paper production process is pretty environment-friendly compared to producing a laptop.
• ergothus 7y ago
  My issue with this has always been that my longhand is terrible, and writing under pressure makes it worse. Longhand notes (which I do frequently for the RPGs I run, so practice isnt the issue) are nigh unreadable. I literally have dozens of notebooks (not full, but at least 30 - 50 pages each is pretty common ) of notes I struggle to read and organize. Being able to write with speed and br able to read them is why an elementary school teacher recommended that I try using a computer to write on back before laptops were a thing, and it remains a big reason I rely on them for work notes now.
  • funwithjustin 7y ago
    I wonder if adults can improve their handwriting.
    • scarecrowbob 7y ago
      Most skills are things that you can get better at. I bought a nice fountain pen (well, a $14 pilot) and overhauled my cursive writing. It took about 6 weeks and I write pretty legibly in cursive. I'm more legible in various print scripts (that I have also worked on as an adult), but cursive is faster. Admittedly, that is just an anecdote. But if you're curious, try and get better... you'll likely improve if you actively practice.
      • pbhjpbhj 7y ago
        > but cursive is faster Have you tested? I recall - maybe a decade ago - seeing a study suggesting that in fact printing individual letters could be faster; I still write in cursive when I need to handwrite though (basically never). Edit: http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/cursive-handwriting-and-other-education-myths http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/cursive-handwriting-and-o... is a good summary; first 2 paras of last section are the TL;DR.
        • scarecrowbob 7y ago
          No, I haven't actually tested it. Maybe it just feels that way. But it does feel that way.
• yial 7y ago
  I frequently still use notepads for notes, I find it actually helps me retain information. Additionally, when reviewing shortly after a meeting, I find that I can better suss out the truly important action items. Especially if things need to be delegated. This isn’t to say I never take notes on my computer. (Notepad++ is wonderful for this), but I find the physical note taking to be incredibly beneficial for organization of information. Additionally, there may still be a certain social impact where people feel that you’re “paying attention” when taking notes on a physical pad, vs they feel they’ve “lost your attention” the second you start to type away on a device.
  • broth 7y ago
    Mind sharing how you use Notepad++ to take notes? Why is it wonderful?
    • LocalPCGuy 7y ago
      I use Sublime Text for not taking when not doing it longhand, and I really like it. I think it's because it's an environment we're intimately familiar with, so there is nothing to get in the way of just capturing the information you want to capture.
    • yial 7y ago
      I like notepad++ because it’s light, there’s no formatting or similar that happens if I hit 1. Space or 2. Space Or I use a. Additionally, I like that I can hit new and have quick new tabs of notes (instead of new windows ) and that when I close it it gracefully saves them as “new” rather then promoting me to have to save them. (Of course I have the option to save them, but it doesn’t have a prompt like word and defaults to making sure they’re saved somewhere ).
  • veddox 7y ago
    > Additionally, there may still be a certain social impact where people feel that you’re “paying attention” when taking notes on a physical pad, vs they feel they’ve “lost your attention” the second you start to type away on a device. Never mind what people feel - I care more about the fact that I do actually start to lose attention when I'm working on a laptop! (And I don't even need Internet for that, there's enough other things to distract me.)
• vincentmarle 7y ago
  I've never been fond of note taking in general, I found that I retain the most knowledge when actually trying to make an effort to listen, and actively trying to conceptualize everything mentally while the teacher is talking, instead of occupying myself with writing notes.
  • inamberclad 7y ago
    I hope your professors post their lectures online.
    • RealityVoid 7y ago
      I'm the same way and when I was in college, I just took the notes off of one of my classmates and just uses a copy machine. I never did find them particularly useful though and have found seeking the same information from different sources, i.e. manuals, books or online, to be of a far greater impact. I _never_ understood this argument that "note taking helps you remember" since I never felt this was the case for me. I may just be lazy, or it might be the fact that I have a horrendously hideous handwriting.
    • seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      I’m the same, this was before professors posting lectures were a thing. I still graduated at the top of my class in CS, there are many people out there who get by well without note taking, or even attending lectures very much (just go by the syllabus and self study). Also, as a lefty, note taking is a bit more challenging (even when I could snag the proper desk) and I probably just compensated in other ways.
  • Double_a_92 7y ago
    Same here. It was really stressful trying to write everything down, to the point where I couldn't really focus on making sense of what was said. Most good profs had a script with the important knowledge in it. Or at least printed out a miniature view of the powerpoint, to take notes next to each slide.
• paulsutter 7y ago
  In person, taking notes on paper always works better for me. And when I’m on the computer (Zoom conference or Skype), notes on the computer feels more natural.
• dexwiz 7y ago
  Thank goodness I learned this freshmen year in college, also the first time I was allowed a laptop in class. I starting taking notes with pen and paper as soon as I could write fast enough. I was successful in school, and I really think a large part of it was recording so many notes. I noticed that many classmates that stayed on laptops often were bad students. And the times I did take my laptop to class I was worse for it. This article aligns with most of why I thought note taking was good. It definitely has a mechanical nature that typing just doesn't match. Also you don't want notes that are just transcription, you want your own thoughts recorded on the page. Something I think they missed though was diagrams. Typing may result in a perfect transcription, but most lectures contain a visual component. Being able to quickly copy a graph or diagram is extremely useful. When taking notes via typing, there is no good way to do that without a touch screen and some skill. I'm much more likely to remember a diagram I drew than one I looked at. I love how they gloss over the internet connectivity portion, but I also find that to be a huge component in reality. Sometimes I need to "space off" for a few seconds to digest an idea. When taking paper notes, I end up doodling boxes or lines. When typing, I inevitably get distracted by some shiny thing designed to steal my attention. I do note in the workplace who brings paper and who brings a laptop to a meeting. Sometimes you need a laptop to present or look up information. But if you are solely there to listen, people who bring paper pay the most attention.
  • seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Why can’t you just take a picture of the diagram? I actually never learned or benefited from note taking, so I’m pretty clueless. I still got through university and grad school with good grades, but I wonder if I was missing something. Professionally I draw a blank whenever someone at a meeting asks me to take notes, kind of embarrassing.
    • psychomugs 7y ago
      Taking a picture has always seemed like the laziest way to say that you're participating in class. I've found that people that take pictures of every lecture slide and say they'll look at them later are usually freeters who show up to lectures once in a blue moon. To me, written note-taking was useful because it forced me to internalize the information in some way, even if it's only verbatim copying. My hand has to move to the shape of the letters, and I'd usually mouth out what I was writing; this forced me to experience the information in more ways than just listening to it. I can make my own annotations to a hand-drawn graph. Taking a photo doesn't challenge my senses in the same ways. [1] showed that taking a photo improves visual recall at the expense of auditory recall, but I'd argue that lecture information more often emphasizes the latter. [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797617694868 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09567976176948...
• kendallpark 7y ago
  My current (digital) handwritten note setup: - iPad Pro with (Gen 1 :sadface:) Apple Pencil. - Screen protector that gives a significant amount of friction to the screen so that it feels closer to paper. [1] - Goodnotes 5 or Notability (I use both--depends on the circumstances). [2] - A rule: iPad is solely a reading/studying/note-taking device. No keyboard, no social media apps. - Bonus: Twelve South BookBook case. [1] ClearView Paper-Like Screen Protecter for Apple iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2015/2017) [Made in Japan] [2] I generally prefer GoodNotes over Notability, however, Notability has side-by-side notes and recording. These features are supposedly in the pipeline for GoodNotes, but have yet to materialize. GoodNotes handles large PDFs better (Notability crashes). They both have passable desktop clients for quick cmd+F searching of handwritten notes.
  • sumanthvepa 7y ago
    My setup is very similar. Except that my note taking is for meetings.
  • Aromasin 7y ago
    Mine is a similar setup, except with Windows architecture. - Surface Go using stylus. - OneNote for note taking - ColdTurkey app (completely locks you out of blacklisted apps for a set amount of time [I've tried to crack it - I couldn't])
    • grecht 7y ago
      A feature I missed in OneNote: Handwriting recognition. Both GoodNotes and Notability are able to search your writing, provided it’s somewhat legible.
      • Aromasin 7y ago
        I'm definitely open for suggestions on the note taking software front. OneNote is sometimes pain to use, but Microsoft have designed it to work relatively seamlessly with the Surface line so it's what I defaulted to. I'll give those a try.
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• rcthompson 7y ago
  Sounds like the actual learning secret is "don't take verbatim notes", and the only relevance of the laptop is that it makes it much easier to take verbatim notes. I've pretty much only ever taken notes with a laptop, but I always take notes in the "digest and summarize" style, never recording the speaker's words verbatim, and it's worked great for me. (It wasn't a conscious decision; it's just how I take notes.)
  • iliketosleep 7y ago
    > Sounds like the actual learning secret is "don't take verbatim notes", and the only relevance of the laptop is that it makes it much easier to take verbatim notes. Yes, that's pretty much what it explains. The title "don't take notes with a laptop" is rather misleading. It's a well known fact that summarizing requires the learner's brain to actively process the information, as opposed to passively receiving information and copying. It wouldn't surprise me if summarizing on a laptop leads to better outcomes than using handwriting, as more cognitive resources would be available to process the information (rather than frantically writing).
    • logifail 7y ago
      > It wouldn't surprise me if summarizing on a laptop leads to better outcomes than using handwriting, as more cognitive resources would be available to process the information (rather than frantically writing) Q: Why should "frantically writing" be worse than - say - frantically typing?
      • rcthompson 7y ago
        It's not, but most people (or at least, most people who grew up with computers) can type faster than they can write, so the operative comparison is between frantically writing and typing at a comfortable pace.
        • logifail 7y ago
          I've never taken notes on a laptop. For those who do, are you typing every single word that the speaker says? I've taken notes on paper during many, many talks. I don't write down every word that's spoken. Isn't the cognitive load likely due to to deciding what content to record, not due to controlling the brain-hand-pencil-paper interface / brain-hands-keyboard interface (as it were)?
• bayesian_horse 7y ago
  In lectures, note-taking at all should be avoided, most of the time. Most lectures cover material that is presented very clearly in accompanying materials, books or the internet. The idea I could do a better job than those authors while listening to the stuff for the first time is ludicrous. And at least for me it doesn't help recollection or focus to write notes while listening, and many students report they can take notes without the information passing through their brains. Other people swear they have to take notes to focus. There are exceptions of course, for example if the information is new and any other available material is worthless.
  • jay_kyburz 7y ago
    Yes, this is what I came to the comments to say. For me, paying attention was much more important than trying to take notes. It's a shame this study didn't have a third group that didn't take notes at all.
    • Drdrdrq 7y ago
      This, so much! Whenever I could I avoided taking notes and instead copied them from classmates or studied from books.
    • scarejunba 7y ago
      Same here. I wonder if it's the courses we took. I did Mathematics and Computer Science. The only time I took notes it was a disaster. My notes were perfect, my recollection awful. I had to reread them to get any value. The rest of the time I just sat in class and paid close attention, rarely noting down to look up some lemma or the other. Way better results. Instant recollection. I can still remember the Nullstellensatz vaguely and the room in which I first encountered it and where I was in it and that's almost a decade ago.
      • bayesian_horse 7y ago
        It's easy to copy formulas from a blackboard without mentally processing them.
• linker3000 7y ago
  I'm 53 and work in IT for a 'funky' learning/media company, ranking among the seniors in both age and position. I have a customised Cornell Notes* Word doc template, and I run off batches of 5-10 sheets to take to meetings and training sessions. My colleagues typically turn up with their tablets, surfaces, laptops, phones and 'multitask', however a few have started to adopt my method - it's been particularly useful for client meetings where I have been able to later confirm sub-points or asides mentioned by customers - sometimes months later. It's also very easy to drill down through Quarterly reviews and link chains of historic comments 'on the fly' - for example, being able to confirm that so-and-so first mentioned something about a similar technical issue on a different system 12 months ago. My 'Cornell' style has developed an element of mindmapping on the pages, which makes it easy to track conversations or sections of meetings that break off into side discussions/brainstorming. The biggest benefit is that the structure of all notes is consistent, so not only can I find things very quickly, but others can interpret them too - this is a particularly powerful way to allow teams to share, compare and understand someone else's notes, even months after the meeting or training took place. Edit: I also believe it looks very professional in customer meetings when everyone from the same business is taking notes in a similar way, using identical stationery. I've been working this way since the mid 1990s and find it beats all forms of tech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Notes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Notes http://lsc.cornell.edu/notes.html http://lsc.cornell.edu/notes.html
  • kendallpark 7y ago
    Can you explain how you expanded Cornell? I started using Cornell this past year. Curious about the improvements you've made.
    • linker3000 7y ago
      Nothing too major: The top of the page has headings for: meeting subject, date, room/location (can help jog memory), attendees, 'page x of y' and a 'confidential' tick box so I can keep corporate strategy or personnel discussions separate and secure. The bottom section is marked 'Notes / Actions' where I highlight things that need follow-up (by me or others) - this is far better that having, say, 12 pages of notes from a 3 hr meeting with a few bits of underlined, ringed or asterisked text somewhere therein. Later I can visually scan the bottom of each page and quickly see all meeting actions - and I will have drawn a manual tick box by all mine so I can mark them off when completed.
• crucialfelix 7y ago
  I'm trying to get into the habit of writing messy mindmaps, then redrawing those as a process to understanding the material. One single glance at a Mindmap a week later and I reactivate the concepts and understanding. Especially important for building internal context (how the components relate to each other)
• sprash 7y ago
  For me the best way to take notes in lectures is/was a Boogie Board Sync which is sadly not available any more. It is the best of both worlds. You basically have a zero latency touchscreen that can save your notes to PDF. Even the best Tablets today have latency, most are designed more as touchscreen. Writing gets tiring and distracting really quick. I wonder why the Boogie Board Sync was discontinued.
  • flavor8 7y ago
    Yeah I have one of those too. They recently added sync (through your phone) to dropbox/evernote, which makes it even more useful. It's a great device - zero distraction digital notetaking. According to one of their support agents, their sales numbers were low. Personally I think their marketing sucked - they seemed to be targeting kids rather than students/business users. Their styling reflected this identity crisis too. They have a product coming later in the year which will "address some of the same needs", TBD though how thoroughly it'll be a fill-in for it. In the meantime I bought a protective folio case for mine and am babying it.
• totallynotcool 7y ago
  Just picked up a "livescribe" echo from eBay for $30. I don't do well with notes on a computer or tablet but I like the idea of digitizing them and recording a meeting at the same time; and pin point play back. We'll see how it goes.
  • vmurthy 7y ago
    From my experience, I found that the Livescribe and their ilk depend on a razor/cartridge model. The pen itself might be cheap(the razor) but the refills/special paper (the cartridges) are ridiculously expensive. Any particular reason/hack you found to circumvent the prices?
• LoudogUno 7y ago
  Going against what seems to be the prevailing thought in this thread. Here's why and how I take notes primarily on a laptop. When the lecture, presentation or meeting starts a have a macro that creates a new Evernote note prepended with the date and starts recording into QuickTime. Throughout the exchange, I am typing up quick and dirty first draft notes using a macro to screenshot the portion of the QuickTime window displaying the time elapsed. I also employ symbols/emojis to flag points in the notes that are important‼️, should be returned to and reviewed later , are confusing, raise a question ect... Whenever there is downtime (e.g. interruption or lull in the presentation) I work my way back and start improving the notes: Organizing them into a hierarchy with headings, indentation and boldation. Also, I Hyperlink useful, relevant or referenced URLs. At the bottom of the document I have a separated section called TAKEAWAY containing a bulleted list of questions to ask, things to follow up on, and key points. I can always ⌘↓ > ↩ to add an item line to this section. At the end of the exchange, I check my TAKEWAY section and clarify any questions. I stop recording and add the audio file to the top of the document. This leaves me with a reference document I can revisit, clean up, and reference later. The process of making the note visually appealing and easy to read by cleaning up, formatting, and adding hyperlinks accomplishes a lot of the internalization handwriting does because it forces you to try to convey the kernel of the information being consumed in as well few formatted, organized words as possible. Furthermore, I'm the type that really values immediately looking up unfamiliar referenced concepts/ideas so I don't misunderstand what/why something is said. As for diagrams, they can usually be incorporated by adding slides of the presentation, taking a picture of the whiteboard at the end, or just googling whatever the diagram was. With the wonderful world of macros and automation I can change color, size, formatting, add lists; add hyperlinks, multi-media images, timestamps ect... and keep everything in an easy to read, search and share document. Most importantly my handwriting is bogus. I really couldn't do it any other way.
  • leksak 7y ago
    Nice workflow, and goes back to this comment somewhat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20271383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20271383 However, I'm not sure about the legality of recording audio without informing everyone in the room. In my country that would be illegal as some people have protected identities.
• vmurthy 7y ago
  I used a Wacom Bamboo Spark[1] during my Post-grad and am really impressed by it. You write on regular paper using a special pen (ball pen) and the notes get synced to their app called Inkspace. Your own hand-writing , regular paper. No dependency on Livescribe refills or special papers. FWIW, I explored iPad + Pencil but it was too costly for my needs in 2017. [1]https://www.amazon.in/Wacom-Bamboo-Digitizer-Tablet-CDS-600P/dp/B010PKT5U0/ref=sr_1_5?crid=YSNG9JB4VZJ8&keywords=bamboo+spark+wacom&qid=1561442315&s=gateway&sprefix=bamboo+spark%2Caps%2C281&sr=8-5 https://www.amazon.in/Wacom-Bamboo-Digitizer-Tablet-CDS-600P...
• kstenerud 7y ago
  So, the actual issue is that transcription doesn't correlate with retention, and people who type tend to fall into the trap of transcription more easily. There's nothing wrong or inferior about taking notes with a computer vs a notepad so long as you're not transcribing. But, "Don't take notes with a laptop" is punchier.
  • nstart 7y ago
    Mmm. My two cents... There's some extrapolation here. I've tried multiple models of taking notes with digital tools. They all come with this assumption that our brains are thinking in a single mode at any given time which is not practically true. I can be understanding what a person is saying and in my head categorising the information (table) while picturing what connections that info might have to something else (drawings?). And then I remember that Ellie from the other team/class had done something similar and I note down to set up a meeting (todo/calendar). All this while noting down questions of my own (free form text). The point is, analog allows us to take notes and organise on the go. Digital tools, especially laptops (and typing in general), assume our thoughts are organised before we digitise them. So unless using a pen on a tablet nothing comes even close in the digital world to recording notes the way our brain actually wants to. Therefore don't take notes with a laptop is valid advice. It's not a tool made for taking on the fly notes and you'd have to be really really special at what you do to bend it to actually be useful in this scenario.
• enriquto 7y ago
  another learning secret: take courses where the teacher gives you printed notes of the content he will present, and write down the occasional comment/clarification during class.
• pjmlp 7y ago
  I usually take notes on paper as well. Then I either scan them directly to PDF or take to effort to re-write them, if the information is to be better structured or shared with others. Besides all the benefits mentioned by others, it is also a good way to rest my wrists from just typing.
  • linker3000 7y ago
    Rewriting contemporary notes some time later adds another filter/interpretation to the information, and if you choose to remove or rewrite things that now don't seem relevant or accurate (rather than checking with the information giver), there's a risk that the notes become diluted or lose details that are re-graded as unimportant but later turn out to be the opposite. Always best to write good, efficient, consistently-styled notes once, and annotate changes/corrections on them if they are needed. It saves time too!
    • logifail 7y ago
      > Rewriting contemporary notes some time later adds [...] interpretation to the information.. Isn't this a fairly crucial part of "learning"?
      • linker3000 7y ago
        Sure, write up stuff that supports your referral back to the original notes, or makes corrections and additions - but don't get rid of the original notes or replace them with interpreted copies.
        • logifail 7y ago
          The original article was talking about students learning in lectures. One might presume that the learning process ends with students being tested in a situation where they have no notes of any kind? If that's true, then there's no point holding on to "the originals", because on the day of the test/exam/whatever, you won't have access to them anyway. In essence, transferring knowledge from the original lecture via the written notes to ones memory?
• ragerino 7y ago
  The only notes I take are questions I want to pose to the speaker. The rest happens in my head.
• tiku 7y ago
  I've heard students about using 1 shared google doc where the "multiplay" with their notes, so that they all chip in and even elaborate on certain questions.
  • LoudogUno 7y ago
    ahh that's cool. I've done similar things at Meetup organizer meetings where everyone chips in to add what the feel is important to the "minutes". like a static record of what each person felt the others should remember takeway
• dschuetz 7y ago
  I did both, wrote and typed, and wrote on my iPad pro with the stylus. The best results I got when taking notes and studying on real paper. I believe the cognition/perception bias comes from the unnaturally glowing panels and the lack of complex haptic feedback like that of a rolling pen or scratching. Any indirect input that comes combined with the visually perceived knowledge makes memorizing more effective, I guess. Glowing visuals are less comfortable for me, perhaps they overload the eyes in a way. Reading on actual paper feels less "heavy".
• vast 7y ago
  I honestly never believed that digital devices are good to take notes, especially if you have to reflect them. Digital devices distract you on so many levels, it is hard to believe people even started doing it.
• hyperpallium 7y ago
  How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19448678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19448678
• vezycash 7y ago
  I took notes on my laptop using OneNote - far better than Microsoft Word. I used color for headings. Added bullets and numbers even when it wasn't dictated that way. Added acronyms - mnemonics to the headings. Marked out filler content while writing or immediately after class. Summarized, rewrote important parts in my own words. Marked areas where I'd have to reproduce verbatim. Finally, for exams, I read using my Nook eBook reader instead of the laptop because: The glossy screen is tiring. And there are many distractions on my laptop - browser, games, movies... Finally, while reading, I actively set questions and answered them after reading. This question method's far better than re-reading multiple times. With all these, five hours was all I needed for a semester's worth of work.
• a3_nm 7y ago
  I'm not sure that this study means that one should not take notes with a laptop (as the article's title would suggest). Everyone works differently: just because there is an average tendency for people to perform better when taking notes by hand, doesn't mean that you shouldn't use a laptop if your own experience shows that it works better for you.
• acd 7y ago
  But in the age of fast. Seems like going slow and putting more effort into hand writing notes pays off in learning. As a side note analogy if you drive via GPS you will not remember they way as easy if you drive without via analogue map. How about if you take notes on laptop put that into spaced repetition software like Anki & Supermemo compared to hand written notes memory retention?
  • LoudogUno 7y ago
    I guess it depends on how many places you navigate to and how important you think recalling each route (from memory) is. slow is good unless you have to prioritize what to remember I think...
• jedberg 7y ago
  I did my final year of college three years after my first three years. In the first three years I took paper notes and got terrible grades. In the fourth year I used a laptop. The laptop however was not great, so it had no internet and I just used a full screen editor window to take notes, so no distractions, and no verbatim writing because I couldn't type that quickly. Everyone learns differently. You just have to find what works for you. But no internet is key.
• sumodm 7y ago
  Here is what I discovered in my experience if this helps someone, completely anecdotal. Paper vs Computer 1. Paper: - Ability to spread things out, to take stock of a big project, simultaneous refer back, draw between two pages etc. - Faster draw diagrams etc, partially fixed, see article about thing student who used latex/inkscape to draw. - Faster to connect up different ideas. 2. Computer: - Search: When I need to go back to find that idea ('keyword'), when you have hundreds of sheets is super easy. - Faster to type. - Easier to organize, I just copy paste and create folders etc. I use Latex and org-mode. Few Tips 1. Cornell'esque techniques definitely help when revising and organizing. 2. Taking some notes actually helps you to focus better. Reduces random day dreaming, skipping crucial info (which leads to rest of lecture/meeting being harder to understand) etc. 3. Take condensed notes gives me time to listen and makes short notes. 4. But especially in Math related areas, there is no way to assimilate information in one sitting. I often used to hear a random English sentence, only to later realize that some word there had a specific mathematical meaning and it had much deeper meaning than I initially understood. Over-simplified example, xyz is a group. Group here being group theoretic group. 5. Video Recordings of classes and reviewing them and then scribing watching the videos helps a lot, esp for the likes of Advanced CS/EE courses. 6. Writing is learning, verification and long term information storage at the same time. One of my advisors once told me, when I asked him how do you store so much information about various papers etc, "Thats why I wrote that book".
  • thom 7y ago
    This whole thread and only one mention of org-mode, what is the world coming to.
• mesaframe 7y ago
  > high verbatim note content was associated with lower retention of the lecture material. I think this a key finding/point. And other connotation to this idea would be that, whatever you learn, write them down in your words.
• barney54 7y ago
  What worked best for me in school was longhand notes and then nightly typing the notes up. (Though I seldom revised the notes the same night or week.) For finals I would spend a lot of time revising my notes and comparing notes with my friends. I found that my friends who had taken notes on their laptops had more notes, but it was exceedingly rare I actually missed anything important.
• seventhtiger 7y ago
  I tended to be in the top of the classes I was in and as far as I've seen my method was somewhat different. I also only take notes on paper, but more importantly, I throw all my notes out as soon as I finish writing them. For me studying is the act of writing the notes. The purpose of notes was never to read them later. That's why writing on paper is important to me. It's not about the qualities and convenience of the storage medium. It's about the experience of writing itself that makes me dislike digital notes. When it's time for exams I go back to the primary source, whether it's a text book, lectures, or handouts, and I write a new set of notes. I throw those out when I'm done also. You might think it's inefficient, which it is only in terms of ink and paper. In terms of time and effort, at least for me personally, the act of putting pen on sheet is 10x as effective as reading in building comprehension and retention. From anecdotal observation, I get done in a few hours of taking new notes what my classmates do in days of binge reading.
  • hef19898 7y ago
    Sounds familiar. Never really worked for in school, work is different so. There I usually fill one college block every two months or so. Not that I ever read the notes again. But it kind of seems to get harder with age. Especially the "once written not forgotten" part...
  • 3jckd 7y ago
    I can subscribe to this. Whenever I needed to learn or revise something, I would just write it down again, usually paraphrasing the original material. While I wouldn't use that material directly ever again, I noticed that I would often paraphrase a paraphrase, so to speak, because I would remember some of the material. Tangentially, this thread shows that people prefer different ways of taking (or not taking notes) usually due to a habit itselfc as opposed to superiority of one method over the other. It reminds me of Dvorak vs qwerty, while technically superior for typing in English, the cost of switching is not worth it for most people out there.
    • seventhtiger 7y ago
      Although I must admit that most classmates find it horrific ("you're throwing away all the notes?!") so there must he some personal differences, I can honestly say I have never seen anyone learn from laid back magazine reading so many students do, that glazed over look while they try to mechanically reach the last page. Same goes for listening or watching or any other passive reception of material. Learning is a function of production or reproduction of knowledge, not consumption. I stand by this regardless of "learning style". Discussing with classmates, solving problems, reciting out loud, and taking notes are how you learn.
• imw 7y ago
  Does anyone know if there is data on the effectiveness of handwriting on paper, versus a tablet, e.g. the reMarkable?
• onorton 7y ago
  I would always take notes on paper as others have said as I think it helps with retention, at least for me. Even then I would only take notes of equations to memorise them and things that the lecturers said that were even not explained properly or absent in the handouts/slides. At my university there were recordings of the lectures but I was too lazy/didn't want to waste my time looking up exactly what they said.
• narrator 7y ago
  I took a bunch of notes on my laptop, but never used any of them in studying for finals. I just used other people's outlines.
• slics 7y ago
  I still use a paper notebook at work to track my day to day action items. It feels so gratifying when you simply check a task as complete. I tried using a tablet for that matter, I just felt like I ignored my action items as it felt they were out of reach. I have to always look for them in the tablet, when in the paper the page is looking at me without me have to look for it. In addition, I work in secure labs and electronics are a big NO, notebook on the other hand it simply works. My 2c. Pen and paper it is still relevant and it always will be.
• tempodox 7y ago
  I'm not surprised. Besides, if your note formatting requires the tiniest bit more than linear ASCII, any computerized interface will be a big let-down.
• sklivvz1971 7y ago
  Pro-tip: if you are like me, never take note and divert all your attention to the lesson. Getting copies of notes or reading the actual book can easily replace any note taking. Being distracted from the actual explanation because I'm using my attention to write, is a net loss.
• sequoia 7y ago
  https://sequoia.makes.software/conference-tips/#-take-notes-on-paper https://sequoia.makes.software/conference-tips/#-take-notes-... d:o)
• SamuelAdams 7y ago
  I am curious if this applies to the workforce. I spend a lot of time in meetings taking notes using OneNote. Some colleagues use Evernote, while others use pen and paper. Then there are some that take no notes at all. Yet, when we discuss things the next week (weekly meetings are common where I work), some people seem to not remember anything about the prior week's meeting. I use my laptop to quickly look up last week's notes and reference those while discussing weekly progress. Others do OK with one or two subjects (from memory), but lack detail or flat out do not recall other discussion points.
• smittywerben 7y ago
  If we assume 1) taking notes with a computer is faster (not always the case), 2) lecture time is limited (i.e. fast paced, not recorded), 3) abundant time after to review notes, then taking notes with a computer is usually better. You are only presented the information once. There is a reason stenographers record court and lectures. I prefer to handwrite notes on my own time, sometimes twice or three times, for my final copy I study from. If you are smarter than me, you can get away with less notes (or get them from me). In business meetings if you frantically record every detail, people think you might be a lawyer so this may not apply.
• padobson 7y ago
  Moreover, high verbatim note content was associated with lower retention of the lecture material. It appears that students who use laptops can take notes in a fairly mindless, rote fashion, with little analysis or synthesis by the brain. This kind of shallow transcription fails to promote a meaningful understanding or application of the information. The study sort of assumes that taking notes at all is necessary, but I think the conceptual understanding vs. rote memorization idea suggests that taking notes should be questionable also. Jordan Peterson has 3 minutes of advice for taking notes conceptually rather than verbatim: https://youtu.be/lMvvdz7YJ-Q https://youtu.be/lMvvdz7YJ-Q I take notes in text files every day. I do it for work, I do it for exercise, I do it for cooking and grocery shopping, I do it for planning my day, I do it for self improvement. Writing it out is the simplest form of explanation - I'm explaining the concept to myself. I'm analyzing it to make sure I don't have any logical holes in my thinking, and then I can refer back to it. If I try to explain the concept to another person, and they point out a logical hole or they otherwise can't grasp the point, I go back to my text file and try to find the missing pieces and add them in. I like this because I always have the concept at the ready. Maybe I don't encounter the topic for a few months or years, and I go back and read the text file on the topic and it's like the neurons organized around the topic all come to life again - but the best part is that there are all these new neurons that I've picked up that apply to it, and the text file gets a little bigger. It also helps me compartmentalize. Once I've written something into digital stone, I can switch contexts knowing I've pushed the concept as far as my mind can take it for the moment. Later, I can come back and pick up where I left off after my subconscious has had time to chew on it.
• Thinkx220 7y ago
  When I take notes I take them with a laptop precisely because of the increased speed it provides. Usually I find that note taking in general is actually counter productive because it diverts my attention away from the lecture. As a result I want the note taking process to have a low cognitive burden so I don't miss what my instructor is saying. I usually use Emacs Org-mode for my note taking and then refactor my notes once class is over.
• codingdave 7y ago
  I never took notes. It mildly disturbed my high school teachers, and greatly disturbed my college professors. Until the first tests/grades, when I did fine. Then they realized that I was actually listening, and getting the concepts. As the article said, the cognitive processing is what matter more than the actual notes you take. Now I fully admit that if I had taken notes, I may have been an A student instead of a B student. But I just found the note-taking process to be a distraction from listening.
  • bpyne 7y ago
    I have the same issue with notes. When I have to analyze what I'm hearing, I can't do anything other than listen. It's like my brain shifts between modes. My intuition is that I would have been an A student if I took time to write notes after the class while the memories were still fresh.
• zachruss92 7y ago
  This is actually something that I've been saying about myself for years - which I discovered through my own observations when I was in high school. Long story short, I was in a "dual-enrollment" program which allowed me to take classes at a local college at night while going to high school during the day. I was able to graduate high school with over 30 college credits. One of the courses I took was psychology 101. I didn't particularly like this course (just wasn't interested compared to other subjects) and I ended up goofing off most of the time taking some notes on my laptop/iPad. Needless to say, this affected my grades and I was at risk of failing the course. In order to study for the final, I ended up going through the book and taking notes of key terms and concepts - writing them down. I was able to get a real understanding of the content and ended up getting 100% on the exam and passing the course. My lesson; my personal comprehension goes way up when I physically write things down. Now I keep a notebook that I use every day (a bullet journal). In many cases, I duplicate what I'm doing in my project management systems, but I am able to visualize what I need to do much more efficiently.
• scottmsul 7y ago
  I was physics/CS undergrad and did very well academically. I didn't really take notes much though. The strategy that worked for me was to read the book ahead of time, then the lectures were more to help digest material I was already familiar with. And for those giant auditorium-sized lecture classes, I just skipped class completely and only read the book. In fact I found taking notes to be distracting - how can I pay attention when I'm trying to copy everything down?
  • bradstewart 7y ago
    "Copying everything down" is not what I would consider taking notes. I write down those little "aha" moments, or interesting tricks, new ways of framing the problem, etc. Reading the book ahead of time is awesome, but sometimes a presenter explains something in a slightly different way that makes it click. That's what (my) notes are for.
  • alexgmcm 7y ago
    I was pure Physics and did the same. I'd summarise the relevant sections for the exams in LaTeX documents as well. The pain of having to put it into LaTeX made me absorb it better I think...
• zZorgz 7y ago
  I probably think this is true for school, that using laptops is not as productive for taking notes, but I didn't find writing down notes on paper in classes particularly pleasant either. Past my school life into employment life, the situation is much different. I take digital notes on many tasks, I search through them like in a database when I need to recall something. I don't get distracted for note taking in environments that sitting through long lectures encourage. I still take notes on paper sometimes, but write a lot less down.
• crazygringo 7y ago
  Or better: take classes where they e-mail you the slides afterward. Taking notes is archaic. Just my personal experience, but taking notes was always horrible for me -- as my brain was busy trying to think "how do I write this down in a way that will make sense" as the article suggests, I was missing the next few sentences from the lecturer and getting progressively more lost. And when the lecturer is making a point, it's not always clear until later whether it was an irrelevant tangent or a main element that will be on the test later. Taking notes in class distracts from effort that could be better spent learning and comprehending. On the other hand, taking slides from classes and transforming them into your personal notes and study guide at your own pace -- that's immensely valuable.
• stillbourne 7y ago
  My learning secret is don't take notes, ever.
• fpoling 7y ago
  The article mentioned that one of the problems is too verbatim taking of notes on laptops. A friend who works as a translator mentioned that when she translated a conversation, she could not remember any details of what she translated afterwards. Yet after translating an article or technical documents, she learned a lot on the subject. The difference for her is that translating a conversation is mechanical verbatim process, translating an article requires conscious efforts.
• vedantroy 7y ago
  Sometimes I feel like I'm forced to take verbatim notes on my computer, even though I know that's bad for my learning. Specifically, I'm reading a very detailed textbook on databases. I feel that if I don't take notes I will forget most of the content in the textbook because the textbook is so information dense, but at the same time, whenever I take notes they end up being word-for-word copies of the text because the textbook is already so concise/word-efficient.
• sebringj 7y ago
  I would think writing in itself is not the key, rather the effort to take the note itself in how it creates stronger connections to form clearer memories. If you had a laptop and had to create diagrams in software describing the lesson, I would have to believe this would be at least as effective if not more if it engaged more of your brain to accomplish this.
• jonshariat 7y ago
  I wonder if this holds up for those that grow up only typing. It might because writing makes you slow down a bit. But would be interesting to see.
• Bedon292 7y ago
  For me the best was using a Surface and One Note. It allowed me to load the slides right into One Note, and write notes right on top of them. Hand written if necessary, but preferably typed for legibility. Now, this isn't without issues, as being on a computer allows for easier distractions. But as long as one stays focused on the class, it can work quite well.
• jt0 7y ago
  Any good suggestion for a handwriting to digital transcription workflow? I'm peripherally aware of specialized notepads that do this, but don't know how well they work. I guess scanning paper notes for conversion would be another option. Having a searchable, org-mode integrated record that can include diagrams would be awesome. Is OCR for cursive writing pretty reliable?
• nvarsj 7y ago
  Okay, so I started an MS (OMSCS) a couple years ago, and I had to relearn now to study. So I've gone through this process recently. So far I've managed to get usually the top score or very close to the top on all my exams across 5 classes. In my most recent class I got the top score of 96 on an exam where the median was in the 60s. All I do is take hand written notes (albeit digitally on an ipad) during lectures. Then before the exam, I review my notes. That's it! My recall with this approach has been great. I admit though, having the lecture videos online is a massive help for this method. I watch at 1.5x and frequently pause it if I miss something, or re-watch a section if I didn't understand it the first time - then take my notes. I always had trouble with real-time lectures in my undergrad.
• alan_n 7y ago
  I'm actually looking to switch to digital from handwritten notes. Just need to find a (phone) app that lets me write and take photos for diagrams at the same time (anybody know any good ones?) instead of having to be switching between the notes and the camera. I've done handwritten notes for years but they have several problems for me: they get lost, i end up with notes scattered across whatever pieces of paper where closest to me, my fast handwriting is awful and i can't read it after some time, they end up getting "transcribed" anyways (which takes a long time). Usually my workflow is: take notes, if I can avoid things I know are in the book, I will, then a week or so before exams I'll read everything (book+notes_ and make flashcards in Anki. I know I can do 25 pages (of a book) a day comfortably so I'll time it appropriately. Then I proceed to cram for a day or two until I can realiably do the whole deck with ease. This usually takes me less time (1/2 usually) than the reading/making hence why I want to switch to digital notes, to avoid a step. Most of the material that's tested for usually doesn't need to be memorized, which irritates me to know end, but what can I do. So I cram so I can promptly forget. I find concepts are either understood or not understood, they do not need to be memorized. Things that are usually tested for (at least where I live / for what I'm studying) tend to be facts/procedures. At the end of the year I extract these from my notes / anki cards for future reference. One other thing I do is the flashcards are written exactly how I will answer the question 90% of the time, sometimes in my own words, sometimes extracted right from the book. Before when I studied in English I didn't do this because I'm comfortable with the language, but because I'm studying in another language now, often the wording is the hardest part (also in part why reading takes me so long). This way I don't have to worry about that. Also this makes exams go lightning fast. I'm always first to leave.
• chlorophyl 7y ago
  This is actually not true for me. I recently entered medical school after 20 years being a programmer. I find that typing notes while listening to the lecture is best for me. Then after I return home, I re-read the notes and retype it again without referencing it to see how much i remember. I tried writing my notes by hand but I found it too distracting. I write decently fast but I find myself missing the points of the lecture because I am trying to remember them in order to write them. For me typing my notes is more convenient and not distracting at all since I'm a fast typist and the act of typing is instinctive for me. I find typing allows me to concentrate on the lecture by listening and yet being able to put the lecture points in writing fast enough. I tested both methods prior to one of my midterm exams, I get a much higher grade on the subjects where I listen to the lectures while typing my notes than on the ones I listen to while writing by hand. Most of my exams are 2-3 hr handwritten essays.