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The Art of Effective Note-Taking in Online Learning

Note-taking is a crucial component of successful online learning. It not only helps you to understand better and retain course material but also serves as a valuable resource for review and revision.

In this article, we explore the importance of note-taking in online learning, the different note-taking methods available, and tips for effective note-taking in online classes.

The Importance of Note-Taking in Online Learning

Note-taking enhances memory retention, improves focus and concentration, and facilitates review and revision. Let’s take a closer look at each of these benefits.

Enhancing Memory Retention

You actively engage with the course material by taking notes during online lectures and discussions, reinforcing your comprehension and memory. Note-taking allows you to identify and record key points, examples, and explanations, making recalling the information easier.

Furthermore, note-taking can help you make connections between different ideas and concepts, which can enhance your understanding of the material. Summarizing complex ideas in your own words makes you more likely to remember them than if you read or listened to the information.

Improving Focus and Concentration

Online learning presents unique challenges, such as distractions from your environment and technological issues. Effective note-taking helps you stay focused and engaged during class, reducing the likelihood of distraction or multitasking. Taking notes also encourages active listening and participation as you continually process and analyze the information presented. Additionally, note-taking can help you stay organized and on track during online learning. You can better manage your workload and avoid last-minute cramming sessions by recording important dates, deadlines, and academic assignments.

Facilitating Review and Revision

Your notes are a valuable resource for review and revision, enabling you to understand better and reinforce the course material. By revisiting your notes regularly, you can identify gaps in your knowledge and areas that require further study. Your notes can also help you prepare for exams and assignments, as you have a comprehensive record of the course material. Moreover, note-taking can help you retain information in the long term. Reviewing your notes can reinforce your memory of the material and prevent forgetting. It can benefit courses that build on previous concepts, as you can refer back to earlier study notes to refresh your understanding.

Different Note-Taking Methods for Online Learning

There are several note-taking methods available that can help you organize and synthesize the course material. Let’s take a closer look at each of these methods.

Cornell Method

The Cornell Method is a popular note-taking technique that divides your paper into three sections: an extensive notes section, a smaller cue column, and a summary section. This method encourages active listening and analysis, as you must summarize and paraphrase the information in the notes section and identify critical points in the cue column. The summary section at the bottom allows you to review and reinforce the material quickly.

Outline Method

The Outline Method involves creating an outline of the lecture or discussion, using headings and subheadings to organize the information presented. This method is handy for courses that follow a structured syllabus or present information logically. The Outline Method allows you to quickly review and revise the course material, as the outline acts as a condensed version of the lecture.

Mapping Method

The Mapping Method uses diagrams, charts, and other visual aids to represent the course material. This method is ideal for courses involving complex concepts or topic relationships. The Mapping Method helps you connect different pieces of information and visualize the course material more meaningfully.

The Charting Method

The Charting Method involves creating a table or chart to record information during a class or lecture. This method can compare and contrast concepts, identify similarities and differences, and organize information clearly and concisely. The Charting Method is ideal for courses that involve many facts and figures or require data analysis.

Digital Note-Taking Tools

In addition to traditional paper and pen methods, many digital note-taking tools are available to online learners. These tools include note-taking apps like Evernote and OneNote and online document editors like Google Docs and Microsoft Office. Digital note-taking tools allow you to organize and share your notes and collaborate with classmates easily.

Tips for Effective Note-Taking in Online Classes

Now that we’ve explored the importance of note-taking and the different methods available let’s look at some tips for effective note-taking in online classes.

Active Listening and Engagement

To effectively take notes, it’s crucial to actively engage with the course material and make connections between different pieces of information. It involves listening attentively, asking questions, and synthesizing the data presented.

Organizing Your Notes

Effective note-taking involves organizing information in a logical and easy-to-understand manner. You can achieve this using headings, subheadings, abbreviations, and symbols. Reviewing and revising your notes is essential, highlighting key points and identifying gaps in your understanding.

Using Visual Aids and Symbols

Visual aids and symbols can help you connect different pieces of information and remember key points. These can include diagrams, charts, arrows, highlighting, and abbreviations. It’s essential to use these aids sparingly and meaningfully, as they should support your understanding rather than distract from it.

Summarizing and Paraphrasing

Effective note-taking involves summarizing and paraphrasing the course material in your own words. It not only reinforces your understanding but also helps you remember key points. When doing so, focus on the main ideas and arguments rather than detail. When paraphrasing, rephrase the information presented in your own words while retaining its meaning.

Reviewing and Revising Your Notes Regularly

Finally, reviewing and revising your notes is essential to reinforce your understanding and identify areas that require further study. It may involve reviewing your notes immediately after class, summarizing them in a study guide, or creating flashcards. Regularly checking them can enhance memory retention and reinforce understanding of the course material.

If you're considering online learning or currently enrolled in an online degree program, note-taking is a skill that you should prioritize. Effective note-taking can greatly contribute to your success by enhancing memory retention, improving focus and concentration, and facilitating review and revision. MS State Online offers a range of online degree programs, allowing you to pursue your educational goals flexibly and conveniently. The key to success in online learning is to actively engage with the course material, organize your notes effectively, and regularly review and revise them. By mastering the art of note-taking, you can maximize your learning potential and excel in your online education at MS State.

Lacey, Violet. “The Art of Effective Note-Taking in Online Learning.”, Baltimore Post-Examiner, www.baltimorepostexaminer.com/the-art-of-effective-note-taking-in-onlin… . Accessed 14 June 2023.

Virtual note-taking: 9 powerful tips to use with high school students

by mindroar | Apr 12, 2021 | blog | 0 comments

Teaching students to take notes can be difficult at the best of times. Let alone trying to teach your students to do virtual note-taking. Read on to find out 9 tips to help your students take effective virtual notes.

Do you hate it when you finally sit down with students to conference their work only to find a total mess?

The student’s introduction is written in this book and their conclusion is in the back of that book. Their works cited list in yet another book, and the body of their essay is on their iPad.

Me too! And this problem is almost insurmountable when doing distance or virtual learning because you can’t flick between the books/pages/iPad.

Read on to find out 9 tips to help your high school students take virtual notes.

1. Teach your students how to use both digital and paper notes

According to this article by Beth Holland, students used to learning in an analog environment were able to curate their notes in a binder. Students could use the binder to store their own handwritten notes, handouts, summaries, course outlines, and assessment tasks.

But now we live in a digital age, many students have not only papers and worksheets, but also links to websites, videos, Google Docs, or Slides. With no system to organize information, students’ notes are ineffective.

By teaching students a system to organize their notes, you teach them how to access the information they need in a logical way. Students need to be able to use both written and digital notes because of the benefits of both.

2. Show students the benefits of using digital notes

Paper and digital notes both have their strengths and weaknesses. However, they do complement each other. And chances are your students will have a mixture of both paper and digital notes.

In this article , Holland suggests that educators often look at digital note-taking as a substitution for handwritten notes. But, she suggests that digital notes have advantages over handwritten notes:

• digital notes have features that support diverse learners including text-to-speech transcription, non-text-based media such as videos and images can be added directly into notes, and visual hierarchy is easy to establish with bullets
• students can save a larger range of ideas in one place in a digital format: website links, videos, images, drawings, handwriting, and audio files
• pupils can save digital notes for long-term storage
• students can search digital notes with tags or keywords, making it much easier for students to locate important terms, definitions, ideas, quotes, and notes
• pupils can easily collaborate with other students, teachers, tutors, and parents

However, in order for digital notes and handwritten notes to work in tandem, teachers need to show students a system to organize their notes.

3. Show students a system to organize both their digital and paper notes

Research shows that many students don’t learn organizational skills from their parents. Further, many teachers don’t teach organizational skills as they assume parents do. However, organizational skills improve academic results.

So taking the time to teach students organizational skills, especially organizing their distance-learning notes, whether they are digital, paper, or both, can have a huge payoff.

This article by Chad Hall suggests a system that advocates using both paper and online notes. And, on top of the advantages listed above, Hall argues that the benefits of digital notes are massive:

• digital storage means notes and data can be saved and backed up
• cloud storage means notes and data are available on any device anywhere with an internet connection
• digital storage means notes can be easily reorganized
• students can place reminders on their notes.

However, Hall suggests that pen and paper is great for other reasons:

• Pen and paper is fast and easy to use
• Formatting of notes is more flexible when using pen and paper
• Note takers can avoid distractions more easily
• Physically writing notes helps people commit information to their memories
• It reduces screen time

In order to use both virtual notes and paper notes, students need a system.

Students need a well-organized system to take effective digital notes. But they also need to take the time or organize those notes to gain the benefits of online notes. Chad Hall recommends people use the following tools/materials in a note-taking system:

• One main notebook
• One travel notebook
• Post-it notes
• Pens and pencils
• A task-management app
• A note-taking app
• An online calendar

Hall also advocates using the above tools systematically. The main notebook lives in the main workspace and is a repository for everything: notes, sketches, gluing-in paper, writing down tasks or events, writing reflections, and collecting quotes and inspiration.

The travel notebook is a small book that goes in a bag or pocket. Your students add the notes from their travel notebook to the main notebook once they return to their main workspace.

The third tool students use is a three-task post-it note placed somewhere they will see it: in their main notebook, on their phone, on their laptop. The important thing is that the small size of the post-it forces students to prioritize tasks and post-its notes are bright and hard to ignore.

At the end of each day, students process and review their notes. They might do any or all of the following:

• add events or deadlines to a calendar
• check their post-it note for completed tasks and mark them as complete on a task management app
• add new tasks to the task management app
• write their post-it note tasks for the next day

Ok, but how are students taking digital notes if they’re using paper notebooks?

Here’s the kicker, at the end of the day, students all of the notes into a note-taking app for long-term digital storage (and the amazing benefits mentioned above).

Finally, in the same note-taking app, they write the day’s main events in a journal that is organized by month. The years are written within each month (see pic below).

This allows students to search for past events such as specific lessons, results from any past assessments, important conversations, or topics they didn’t fully understand from previous years etc.

While this system may seem like it doubles up on work, it has advantages in that uses the advantages of both pen/paper and digital notes.

Further, the nightly review before bed helps commit the information to long-term storage while students sleep.

4. Ask students to “tag” their notes using keywords at the end of a lesson

In her article, Beth Holland explained that tagging notes allowed students to identify the most important information within notes.

Further, when students were asked to justify these tags, they gained a deeper understanding of the content, had more complex conversations about the content, and identified connections across subjects.

Holland found that when she tagged her own notes for an annotated bibliography, she was able to use the “explore” function on Google Sheets to identify common trends. She used the trends to:

• re-organize her notes by theme
• find commonalities among themes
• identify gaps in research
• ask deeper questions about her research

So, using tags may help students engage in that deeper-level thinking that teachers are aiming to get students to do.

5. Show students effective note-take strategies.

Many students are not explicitly shown how to take notes (although this is changing). However, many students who learn how to take notes may only learn one or two styles.

But finding a system that works for individual students takes time and exposure to different styles. You may like to show your students the CUE5+ system , Cornell notes, mind mapping, outline notes, or visual note-taking. (See the links at the end of the article if you are interested in any of these note-taking styles).

Each of these styles has different strengths and weaknesses, but knowing a variety of styles to take notes helps students employ different skills. It also engages students in metacognitive processes such as identifying which note-taking style suits which task.

A quick way to show a variety of note-taking styles is to use the CrashCourse Study Skills videos as homework or as a flipped classroom activity. Click here for the preview video about the course and here for the note-taking episode.

And if you want an easy way for your students to take notes about the videos, check out our worksheets .

Bonus: If your students are using Squidnotes or another app that allows PDF markup, they can use this worksheet for virtual note-taking.

6. Show students different note-taking apps that they can use online or for virtual learning

This list is not exhaustive, but different apps have different strengths and weaknesses for distance learning.

Help your students explore the following apps by assigning tasks within them. Even if it’s just a quick homework exercise that familiarizes students with the navigation of the app.

Simplenote is a great app to show to students as it’s free. Other advantages include:

• automatic syncing across all devices
• tags enable easy searching
• students can share or publish notes
• pupils and teachers can find previous iterations of notes because changes are automatically backed up

Another great virtual learning notetaking app is Squidnotes . Squidnotes is great for more visual notes such as mind mapping or doodle notes because it can be used with a stylus/pen tool. Other advantages of Squidnotes include:

• students can choose different ‘paper’ types such as grid, lines, Cornell notes, music staves etc
• pupils can use one app across many subjects
• the app mimics writing with pen and paper but is stored digitally
• students can import images or pdfs and write over the top of them (an easy way to use those worksheets you already have)
• pupils can share notes as a pdf, png, or jpeg file
• students can turn notes into a virtual whiteboard/slideshow presentation

Another great virtual notetaking app is Evernote . Like Simplenote, the personal/basic plan of Evernote is free. It also has the capability to search with tags. Other features include:

• students can save images, pdfs, webpages, web snips, audio, and scanned images or documents
• notes are searchable, including handwritten notes
• students can format notes in many different ways
• the app integrates with many different apps including Google and Microsoft apps
• students can create ‘rich notes’ by writing text, recording audio, or taking pictures and video
• students can sync notes across 2 devices on the free plan

7. Give student a ‘task’ as a way to take notes

Visual thinking routines (by Harvard) are a great way to assign students tasks that forces them to take notes online. One example of a way to do this would be a pre-reading activity.

You could assign the visual thinking routine of 3-2-1 Bridge and ask the students to write three thoughts/ideas, 2 questions, and 1 metaphor or simile before reading a text, and then again after reading a text.

This would force students to take notes (3 thoughts), reflect on their knowledge or learning (2 questions), and make connections (1 metaphor or simile). These are all great meta-cognitive skills.

Bonus: the Harvard website lists all of these visual thinking routines and strategies in Spanish, so if you teach in a school with a large Spanish-speaking population, you can link to both the English and Spanish instructions.

8. Use book creator as a virtual notetaking book

Another strategy for remote learning notetaking is to ask students to keep a digital notebook in the book creator app .

The excellent thing about doing this is that the auto-draw feature of the app means that students no longer have an excuse to not create visual notes, doodle notes, or one-pagers.

The app has a wide range of features that make it an excellent online note-taking tool, such as:

• a variety of fonts for students to pick from
• students can add images from online or their camera
• students can add video or audio from online or their device’s recording features
• the pen tool means students can draw and doodle
• students who ‘aren’t artistic’ can use emojis, shapes, icons, and arrows to take notes
• the auto-draw feature means ‘non-artistic’ students can use the pen tool and still draw recognizable pictures
• books can be portrait, landscape, or square
• students can collaborate with teachers and other students while online
• templates mean that you can assign tasks such as magazine articles and newspaper articles, comic books/strips
• students can publish their books – this would be a great way to do a folio-type assessment of students’ achievement

This tool would be fantastic for online one-pager assignments or to make self-created revision sheets.

9. Consider assigning digital one-pagers for revision or assessment

If the whole point of taking notes is to encode information and then use that information later for revision, a great way for students to do the ‘encoding’ and ‘using later for revision’ is to create a revision one-pager.

Easy ways to do this include:

• Chapter or concept summary one-pagers
• Character summary one-pagers
• Choice board one-pagers (see here for Reading and Writing Haven’s ideas on doing digital one-pagers using a choice board)
• Thematic elements one-pagers
• Symbolism one-pagers

Not only does creating the one-pager force students to think in more depth about the topic, but they also become a great revision tool similar to doodle notes or mind maps.

Want more information?

You can check out our other blog posts about taking notes (although these are not necessarily aimed at distance learning note-taking):

• Easily teach your students to take effective Cornell Notes
• A tired teacher’s quick and easy guide to mind mapping
• Quickly teach your students to take effective outline notes
• A Tired Teacher’s Guide: What You Need To Know About Visual Note-taking
• 5 research-backed reasons you should be teaching mind mapping
• Why your students’ notes suck and how to improve them

Want to see more of our study skills products?

Check out our TPT store for more information about our Crash Course Study Skills worksheets .

Research and articles cited:

Gambill, Jill M.; Moss, Lauralee A.; Vescogni, Christie D. 2008. “The Impact of Study Skills and Organizational Methods on Student Achievement.” Action Research Project., Saint Xavier University. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED501312.pdf

Hall, C. (c) 2016. “The Medium Method. ” Todoist Blog. Republished on Medium.com as “Want to be more productive? Don’t go paperless.” on February 10, 2016. https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/medium-method#using-desirable-difficulty-for-learning-and-creativity

Holland, B. 2014. “Notetaking with Technology.” Edutopia . Updated August 4, 2017. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/the-4ss-of-note-taking-beth-holland

Holland, B. 2016. “Tagging and Digital Note Taking Make Thinking Visible.” Education Week . January 8, 2016. https://www.edweek.org/education/opinion-tagging-and-digital-note-taking-make-thinking-visible/2016/01

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Engaging Online Activities

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Varying activities can be an effective way to mitigate fatigue and make learning more engaging for students online. Consider these activity ideas to build interactivity into lectures, invigorate discussion sections, and create dynamic learning experiences.

Breakout sessions

Live Zoom sessions do not always have to be one-to-many interactions with one speaker talking while the class listens. With breakout rooms, students can be placed into small groups so that interactions among students can happen more easily and comfortably. Specific prompts for what students should accomplish during their time in breakout sessions can help make the dialogue even more lively and engaged.

Collaborative writing

A task where students write together, whether it is a study list on a particular topic or a response to a case study, can be a dynamic way to encourage students to create something together. Writing can be a way for students to work through a concept actively, regardless of which discipline you're teaching in. Asking students to write on a document or assignment together can spark creativity and can be implemented synchronously or asynchronously. Google Documents and other Google Suite tools are commonly used for collaborative writing.

Guest speakers

Bringing in outside perspectives and voices can be a great way to get students thinking about how other voices beyond the instructors are part of critical disciplinary conversations. Speakers could join for a live Zoom class session or they could pre-record a video that could be included in your course Canvas site.

Audience polling

Quick feedback on how your students are understanding course content is useful for informing your teaching and for prompting students to reflect on their own learning.

A synchronous poll using a Zoom poll or a  Poll Everywhere  activity can help you see how students are understanding core concepts. If you make the poll results accessible to students too, they also get a sense of how their peers are understanding core concepts. Polls can also be a great way for students to share anonymous short answer responses so that students can see their peers' perspectives in response to a particular question. Poll Everywhere can also support asynchronous polls or surveys.

Peer review

A peer review task is a concrete activity where students can get feedback on work from their peers. Creating a heuristic or rubric for students to use to review and give comments on each other's projects, writing assignments, or even problem sets can be a good way to get students talking to each other about core course concepts. Peer review activities can be facilitated synchronously through Zoom breakout rooms or could be facilitated asynchronously in a Canvas Discussion or through a Canvas Assignment . Either way, students have the opportunity to get input from another person beyond the instructor.

Small group activities

These small group activities are suitable for a breakout session in Zoom. These activities can be adapted for use with any learning objective or course format.

Sticky notes

In a face-to-face classroom, using paper sticky notes can be a great way to get students to brainstorm quickly. Online sticky notes can similarly encourage students to engage in valuable brainstorming or a process of organizing disparate ideas. Think of each "sticky note" as a place where students can write down words or phrases and then quickly organize those words or phrases into an organized grid. Activities involving sticky notes could be done in small groups or with individuals synchronously or asynchronously using the Jamboard tool, which is part of the Google Suite of tools offered by UIT.

Real-time conversations don't just have to happen with audio and video over Zoom. There are various versions of text chat tools available in Zoom, Canvas, and Slack that can help facilitate dialogue among students. Text chat could be used for synchronous dialogue, but could also be used to have quick Q&A sessions asynchronously.

• Successful Breakout Rooms in Zoom , Teaching Commons (2020).
• Text Chat , Teaching Commons (2020).
• Digital Sticky Notes , Teaching Commons (2020).
• Small Group Activities , Teaching Commons (2020).
• Peer Review , Teaching Commons (2020).
• Live Audience Polling , Teaching Commons (2020).
• Guest Speakers , Teaching Commons (2020).
• Collaborative Writing , Teaching Commons (2020).

• Online Assessment, Grading, and Feedback

Collaborative Note-taking as an Alternative to Recording Online Sessions

• May 12, 2021
• Nikole D. Patson, PhD

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced me to move my courses online, I recorded my synchronous online class sessions so students could review them later. However, student feedback and reflection on my course goals revealed collaborative note-taking as an alternative way to provide a record of each class session.

My first indication that recording class sessions might be problematic came halfway through the semester. One of my students, a first-generation student, I’ll call Erica, approached me to discuss her performance in the course. I was surprised to hear that Erica felt she was underperforming in class because she was consistently turning in excellent work. However, Erica thought that the class discussion revealed that other students had a deeper understanding of the material than she had. I had noticed that she did not regularly speak up during class discussions and suggested that receiving feedback on her thoughts would improve her confidence. She agreed, but confessed that participating in class was difficult for her because the class was being recorded. She did not like the idea that if she were to say something “stupid,” everyone in the class would watch it on the recording.

I had a similar conversation with another student in the course, a Black student who I’ll call James. In a previous face-to-face course, James was highly engaged and a regular contributor in class discussions. However, in the online environment, he rarely spoke up during class. I reached out to James to talk about his experience in the course. Like Erica, he shared similar feelings of inadequacy. He recognized that he wasn’t speaking up in class as often as usual but admitted that being recorded made him worry about having a “dumb mistake” get recorded.

Erica and James’ comments reminded me of Uri Treisman’s case study on Black math students that Claude Steele writes about in Whistling Vivaldi . According to Steele, Treisman observed that Black students, unlike their white and Asian peers, were intensely private about their work. They tended to study alone and did not talk about coursework outside of the course. This lack of feedback from other students often led students to feeling inadequate and made them rethink their fit in the university environment. Other researchers have reported these same feelings of isolation in first generation students of all races (Terenzini, Springer, Yaeger, Pascarella, and Amaury, 1996). Online learning environments can naturally increase students’ feelings of aloneness and isolation (Palloff & Pratt, 1999). What Erica and James told me was that, for them, being recorded increased their feelings of isolation and inadequacy.

Erica and James revealed the potential harm recording class sessions could have. Importantly, this potential harm was not outweighed by any benefit: Students indicated that they rarely, if ever, watched the recorded sessions. I searched for alternatives to providing a recorded session and instead, implemented collaborative note-taking (Harbin, 2020), which I am now using for the second semester.

In collaborative note-taking, students work together to provide a set of notes to share with the entire class. For each class session, I assign two students the task of taking notes. During class, note takers record their notes in a Google doc that I create ahead of time. After class, they are given an additional 24 hours to clean up the notes before the document is posted to our LMS. I assign note-taking pairs based on students’ assessments of their own ability to take notes during class. The rest of the students in the course are expected to continue taking their own notes during class and are allowed to make suggestions for additions to the notes.

In addition to providing a written record of the class session, collaborative note-taking better supports my goal of creating a learning community. Collaborative note-taking signals that students should take an active role in their peers’ successes as well as their own. Additionally, because I monitor the document during class, collaborative note-taking provides me with a mechanism for checking in on students’ understanding, something that I’ve found challenging in the online-learning environment. Finally, collaborative note-taking better supports my goal of creating an inclusive learning environment. Adopting this practice requires that I spend more time talking about note-taking strategies than I typically do. This supports students who come in with less developed note-taking skills than other students.

Initially, I was worried that students might be overwhelmed by the task, however, they reported that being a note taker was not disruptive. They enjoyed the task and took ownership over the activity. Each of my classes developed their own ways to ensure the process was useful and manageable. For example, one class chose to use different font colors for the things that I said and things that other students said. To make following along more manageable, they decided that one of the note takers would be responsible for tracking me, while the other would record student comments.

A few students could not take notes during class for various reasons (e.g., some devices make toggling between a document and Zoom difficult). However, the class decided that those students could act as the “editor” and be responsible for cleaning up the notes after class ended.

Collaborative note-taking might not work for all course types and some material does benefit from repeated viewings. For example, when I present skill-based material, such as APA formatting or computing statistics, I record those sessions.

As a final note, all of the students appreciated having a set of class notes and reported referring to the class notes often. A few students admitted to being especially appreciative because they rarely asked their peers for a copy of their notes if they missed class. Importantly, because the notes were posted after class and did not record participants’ names, students were not discouraged to participate in class. Given the many benefits, I will be bringing collaborative note-taking back to my face-to-face courses when this pandemic finally ends.

Nikole Patson is an associate professor of psychology at the Ohio State University at Marion. She teaches courses in memory and cognition, language processing and development, cognitive neuroscience, and general psychology.

References:

Harbin, M. Brielle. “Collaborative Note-Taking: A Tool for Creating a More Inclusive College Classroom.” College Teaching, 68, no. 4 (2020): 214-220.

Palloff, Rena M., and Keith Pratt. Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom . John Wiley & Sons, 2007.

Steele, Claude M. Whistling Vivaldi: And other clues to how stereotypes affect us (issues of our time) . WW Norton & Company, 2011.

Terenzini, Patrick T., Leonard Springer, Patricia M. Yaeger, Ernest T. Pascarella, and Amaury Nora. “First-generation college students: Characteristics, experiences, and cognitive development.” Research in Higher education, 37, no. 1 (1996): 1-22.

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Learning from Online Lectures and Discussions

Successful online learners, like all learners, have a growth mindset! They are flexible, tolerate the inevitable technical problems that arise, ask for help when they need it, keep on top of regular work for each class, minimize distractions as much as possible, and persist when things are hard.

Learning from Online Video Lectures

What works for you to stay engaged when you’re not in the same physical room as your professor and classmates?

• Take time before each class to read the syllabus or Canvas instructions so you can prime your brain before class and have a sense of what to expect.
• Speeding up videos may seem like a time saver, but be honest with yourself about how much you’re able to understand and retain and be prepared to lose that “saved” time later on when you’re studying for exams.
• If you are watching a prerecorded video: consider pausing every 10-15 minutes to review notes and connect the content to other course materials.
• Take notes just like it’s a normal class. The LSC’s Canvas module and page on Cornell Note Taking offers good general note-taking tips.
• During synchronous video lectures: if there is a chat function, post questions or points of confusion. It’ll help you stay active, and others may have the same questions.
• Close down distracting apps while you are watching the lecture. (See “ Perils of Multitasking ”)

Bruno’s Zoom Tips:

• Come prepared
• Stay engaged
• Use mute when it’s not your turn
• Squeak your chew toy when it is your turn

Communication is key:

• Find out how your professor expects you to communicate questions about the class and/or about the course material: During class? In office hours? Via email? Through Canvas?
• For an in-person class, professors often rely on non-verbal cues to know whether their students are following along or not. In online environments students need to signal to ask for clarification when they are confused. For your online classes, should you use the chat? raise your “virtual hand”? Unmute your microphone and just talk? Just like in-person classes, this varies from course to course.

Participating in Online Discussions

Just like in regular classes, different students have different preferences and comfort levels in live discussion . If you’re somebody who tends to contribute very actively, continue to engage, but make sure you give space to allow others to contribute. And if you normally tend to listen actively and speak less,  look for places where you can contribute your thoughts . Consider:

• Starting in the chat and then contributing more when you feel more comfortable.
• Doing the pre-reading or pre-lecture assignments and taking a few notes.
• During the lecture, jot down some questions or points before you contribute.

Doing these things can help you feel more confident when you chime in with your thoughts or questions. No matter how you feel about participating, support your classmates! Remember, while some people feel at ease in online discussions, others may find it anxiety-producing. Offering a quick thumbs-up or “Interesting point!” can make a difference for a fellow student.

Your professor may put you in breakout rooms to have conversations with a smaller group of people. If you don’t know people, take a minute to introduce yourselves and then move to the question you are discussing. Depending on what the professor is asking you to do, think about having someone jot down some notes and keep an eye on the time.

About those Cameras…

If your space and bandwidth allow, turn on your video during synchronous classes. Cameras on can help you connect with your classmates and your instructor, and can also help you focus and reduce the pull of other distractions. It’s harder to feel connected with empty video windows! Zoom backgrounds or blurring can help with privacy concerns. Of course there are plenty of legitimate reasons students may feel they need their cameras off. If you cannot keep your camera on, you’ll need to figure out how you can stay active and engaged through your note-taking, use of chat, polling, or reactions, and by making sure you’re giving your class your full attention.

Watch: LSC’s Mike Chen Shares Strategies for Reading in Online Courses

Are you wondering about useful strategies for reading in online classes? Check out this video on “ Online Learning: Reading ” for some ideas about how to approach your reading, both before and after class.

Having trouble?

Whether you are learning online or in-person- if you are experiencing challenges, let your instructors know! Professors can’t help you solve problems they don’t know you’re having.

Studying Together Online . Click the button below to learn more.

References:

https://nbb.cornell.edu/appearance-social-norms-keep-students-zoom-cameras

Many of these tips are adapted from the Center for Academic Innovation at the University of Michigan and the Academic Resource Center at Duke University—thank you to our colleagues for generously sharing their resources.

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• Our Mission

Digital Science Notebooks Showcase Student Learning

Interactive notebooks that hold bell work, lab data, and class notes serve as a portfolio of learning—for the benefit of both students and their teacher.

As I reflect on what has undoubtedly been my most difficult year of teaching, I find myself evaluating strategies I relied on to make online learning productive for my students. Digital notebooks rise to the top: When I pivoted from requiring traditional bound notebooks from my biology students to requiring digital ones, all of us became more creative and learning was enhanced.

The Biology Interactive Learning Log

For over a decade pre-Covid, I had my students maintain what we called a BILL (Biology Interactive Learning Log) in a thick composition notebook, filled with daily bell work (e.g., formative questions about the previous day’s homework), course notes, study guides, and lab data from our classwork. For all of my students, the BILL was a collection of the work they’d done over the course of a unit of study that showed their learning growth, and for many, it was a great source of pride. Some even took their BILL with them to college to support the next phase in their biology coursework.

I also used each student’s BILL for formative assessment. Just about every day, as students worked through the activities in the notebook, I would walk around and check their work and provide oral or written feedback on what they were doing. This helped me to catch any misconceptions or misunderstandings immediately; I could have a conversation with struggling students in the moment.

Adapting for Online Learning

When the 2020–21 academic year began, over 80 percent of my students were learning remotely. The analog BILL model I’d relied on for so many years simply wasn’t practical. But without the BILL, my students weren’t able to collect evidence of their learning, and I didn’t have the record I most needed to do formative assessments.

BILLs had to go digital. I turned to free Google Slide templates I found at SlidesMania that replicated notebooks. The results? Students appreciated being able to include more types of evidence of learning. Video clips such as Hank Green’s “ Crash Course ” videos, diagrams from the BioNinja website, and models they found online such as the model of human hemoglobin at the Protein Data Bank  all made their way into the students’ digital notebooks.

They appreciated the flexibility and freedom that digital notebooks gave them—they could be more creative and make more connections among concepts. When I asked students what they liked about digital notebooks, they mentioned that they could truly personalize their online notebooks by easily adding in resources they had selected rather than adapting resources I had provided for them. Some students appreciated that their digital notebooks were portable and could easily be taken with them to be used in future biology classes. All in all, digital notebooks gave them more agency, which is always a good thing when it comes to engagement.

Also, BILLs became truly interactive. Before, I had relied heavily on activities that were done on paper, but once BILLs were digital, students could more easily collaborate with one another to complete a task, like a guided inquiry activity. They’d do them in pairs or groups, and even as a group during synchronous instruction. BILLs helped my students take more control over their learning, but they also helped me be more creative. My students enjoyed being able to work together in this way, as it allowed them to learn more easily from their peers and allowed them to bounce ideas off of one another.

Finally, I could integrate the notebook template into assignments in Canvas through the Google Assignments LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability), which allows me to distribute a copy of an assignment via Google Docs/Slides so that students can submit that work back to me in Google Assignments. Because my whole district uses Canvas as its LMS, we didn’t even need Google Classroom. Also, with the LTI, I could provide my students with continuous feedback, since I had unlimited, ongoing access to their files, rather than having to coordinate due dates for the notebooks. Because the digital notebooks paired so well with the learning management system, my instruction became far more efficient.

I know that going forward there will be some students who will prefer paper notebooks, and certainly they’ll have their place in terms of evidence of learning. But for assessment, I think digital notebooks will continue to be a mainstay in my classroom. 

• Learning how to find, evaluate, and use resources to explore a topic in depth

Series Editor : Michael Theall, Youngstown State University Authors : Gail MacKay, Indiana University Kokomo; Barbara Millis, University of Nevada-Reno; Rebecca Brent, Education Designs, Inc.

At institutions of higher education across the U.S., information literacy (IL) is being integrated into general education curricula as a specific learning objective. The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) (1) defines information literate students as those who “recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.” As the world moves toward a knowledge-based economy, information literacy becomes a crucial component of preparing students for the lifelong learning that current and future job markets demand.

IDEA Research Report #1 (2) states that, “…It is important to recognize that much of the subject matter content which students learn today will be outdated in 5-10 years after they graduate.” Thus, an emphasis on lifelong learning seems imperative. Canja (3), for example, suggests that “… Lifelong learning has become an economic necessity for national and global productivity. With the decline in birth rates in major developed countries, persons—still active, still healthy—must continue in the workforce, trained and retrained” (p. 27). Ironically, IDEA Research Report #1 also finds that the objectives identified as emphasizing lifelong learning (Learning to find and use resources, and Gave tests/projects that covered most important points) were identified as “Important” or “Essential” in only about 30% of the classes using IDEA. The ACRL (1) notes, “Information literacy forms the basis for lifelong learning. It is common to all disciplines, to all learning environments, and to all levels of education. It enables learners to master content and extend their investigations, become more self-directed, and assume greater control over their own learning.” However, information literacy does not concern itself only with technical resources. Successful students and workers must also be able to affiliate with others and to seek and find expertise among the human resources that are available (4).

Seeking out information resources and then using them to address a question or a problem are engaging activities, and there are several attached benefits. First is recognition of the value of the resources. Next is application of the new information and the construction of new knowledge. Intrinsic motivation results from the realization that learning is taking place and ultimately, these practical and motivational effects promote continued use of the resources, lifelong learning, and facilitates deep learning.

For example, here are key components that characterize a deep, rather than a surface approach to learning. Rhem (5) summarizes them as follows:

Motivational context: We learn best what we feel a need to know. Intrinsic motivation remains inextricably bound to some level of choice and control. Courses that remove these take away the sense of ownership and kill one of the strongest elements in lasting learning.

Learner activity: Deep learning and “doing” travel together. Doing in itself isn’t enough. Faculty must connect activity to the abstract conceptions that make sense of it, but passive mental postures lead to superficial learning.

Interaction with others: As Noel Entwistle put it in a recent email message, “The teacher is not the only source of instruction or inspiration.”

A well-structured knowledge base: This does not just mean presenting new material in an organized way. It also means engaging and reshaping, when necessary, the concepts students bring with them. Deep approaches and learning for understanding are integrative processes. The more fully new concepts can be connected with students’ prior experience and existing knowledge, the more it is they will be impatient with inert facts and eager to achieve their own synthesis (p. 4).

If instructors are to motivate students to acquire the skills of information literacy that will help them to remain lifelong learners, then they need to design research projects and assignments that get students into the knowledge base and engage them in critical thinking activities through active learning and interaction with one another. Through such sequenced assignments, students can learn how to answer relevant questions and to solve challenging problems.

Keep in mind that an important component of finding and using resources to explore topics is evaluating the quality of those resources. In an information-rich world, students must be able to determine if a resource is reliable and valid enough to use in their work. These information literacy skills (and even quantitative literacy skills–see the Teaching Note, “Learning appropriate methods for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting numerical information”) must be taught. See the Teaching Note, “Encouraged students to use multiple resources (e.g. Internet, library holdings, outside experts) to improve understanding,” for more ideas.

Teaching This Objective

The most relevant IDEA instructional method is “encouraged students to use multiple resources to improve understanding.” This Learning Note complements Baron’s with some general guidelines that focus on developing good research projects or assignments to assist with “learning how to find and use resources for answering questions or solving problems” and attempts to help instructors provide students with effective and feasible assignments. With today’s information overload, students need guidance in locating and using appropriate resources for answering questions and solving problems. Students must hone these skills throughout their lives. Academic librarians can serve as an instructor’s best ally.

Other IDEA instructional methods that are important to Objective #9 include items #2 Finding ways to help students answer their own questions, #8 Stimulating intellectual effort, #15 Inspiring students to set and achieve goals, #18 Asking students to help each other understand ideas or concepts, and #19 Assigning work that requires original or creative thinking. These relationships are logical because the nature of investigative activity requires intellectual effort, focused exploration, and creativity, and the connections between problem solving and gathering information and evidence have been well-documented (6). These methods support many of the specific hints described below.

Motivation as a starting point. Locating information for its own sake provides practice, but it fails to engage motivated students in productive work linked to an understood outcome. Feldman suggests that student achievement remains strongly correlated to the perceived outcomes of instruction (7). The relevance of assigned work is also critical to student’s active engagement (8) and a major predictor of student ratings of their teachers (9). Thus, skill development becomes much more productive when there is a clearly understood link between the assigned work and specific learning goals or tangible products. The real-world analog is obvious: people do not search for information unless they have a reason to do so. Because in many teaching-learning situations, teachers expect students to explore issues and topics that may not intrinsically interest them, demonstrating relevance and utility become critical first steps in getting students engaged (See “Related course material to real-life situations” and “Introduced stimulating ideas about the subject”). Allowing students some choice of topic or project can motivate them to take a deeper approach to learning (10).

Sequence the research project or assignment. If instructors want students to learn to find and use resources to tackle stimulating questions and challenging problems through research, they need to design sequenced activities that motivate students and get them into the knowledge base. This can often be accomplished through the individual work that students do either as discrete homework assignments or as smaller parts of an extended research project. What becomes of these assignments or project components is critical for deep learning. Instructors should design in-class exercises where learners are actively engaged with the material they prepared individually and with each other (11).

A. Planning

• Arrange for library instruction. Even students who have achieved some level of proficiency with library research will benefit from the reinforcement and enhancement of their skills. Require attendance. Attend yourself, asking questions as a learner.
• Bring the class to the library or ask a librarian to come to your classroom when they are ready to begin their project, not in advance. Students learn best when there is an immediate and applicable need.
• Send a copy of the assignment to the instruction librarian at your campus. Ask for input before finalizing the assignment. Librarians, for example, are highly skeptical of the academic value of commonly assigned “Library Scavenger Hunts.”
• Include homegrown resource guides, sometimes called “pathfinders,” in your initial quest for student library sources. Often campus instruction and reference librarians develop these guides for various fields or disciplines. If your field is not included, ask the library to develop a resource guide for your area. These subject guides provide students with suggestions for “where to start” their research. Included in the guides are both print and electronic sources such as subject encyclopedias; specialized periodical indexes such as Applied Science and Technology Index ; PsycINFO ; or Sociological Abstracts ; also included are reference works or standards in the field such as The Physician’s Desk Reference (PDR) ; CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics ; or the Statistical Abstract of the United States .
• Consider alternatives to the conventional research paper. Excellent assignment ideas reside on the Web, often at other campus library sites (12, 13, 14, 15, 16).

B. Designing

• Provide your expectations for the assignment in writing to your students. Let them know what the assignment involves and what you expect them to learn from the experience. “I don’t know what s/he wants” is a student lament transcending the ages. Make their day; tell them. To help students fully understand these expectations in practice, consider providing strong and weak samples of typical segments of the project or assignment to discuss and critique in class.
• Specify how the assignment fits with the goals or objectives of the course to show relevance. Be as explicit as possible. Share this information, also, with instruction librarians to help them determine appropriate sources.
• Provide students with the grading criteria in writing for the project or assignment.
• Offer a variety of flexible topics, encouraging students to choose ones that interest them.
• Review the student-selected topics to see that they are appropriate and achievable. Avoid very current or local topics if students need scholarly sources as scholarly peer reviewed journals take time to reach publication.
• Place materials on “Reserve,” if necessary, to avoid having 30 students compete for six books.
• Discuss the role of attribution and documentation in a community of scholars. Include a policy on plagiarism in the syllabus. Emphasize the ethical use of information and of the avoidance of plagiarism. Aside from ethics, there are also copyright laws, both national and international, to consider. Specifically discuss appropriate and inappropriate use of online material, a gray area for many students.
• Announce which style manual you expect students to use. Be very specific about documentation for online sources. Many style manuals are difficult to interpret.

Provide opportunities to engage in deep learning. As noted in the background section, the key components characterizing deep learning are motivation context, learner activity, interaction with others, and a well-structured knowledge base (5). As an example, faculty members can ask students, as part of a larger research project, to prepare paired annotations based on the double entry journal recommended by writing across the curriculum and classroom assessment experts (17). The teacher or the students identify a pool of articles on the question or problem at hand. Each student, working individually out-of-class, prepares a reflective commentary on one of the articles or chapters. They do so using a double column format (a Microsoft Word table works beautifully) where they cite the key points of the research article on the left-hand side and reactions, questions, commentary, and connections with other readings on the right, aligning the key point with the reflective commentary. The entries in these columns will not be the same length. When students come to class, the teacher randomly pairs them with another student who has read and analyzed the same research article. The two partners now read one another’s reflective commentaries, comparing both the key points they have identified and their specific responses to them. They discuss their reasons for the choices they made. Then working together, they prepare a composite annotation summarizing the article (See IDEA Paper No. 38).

This activity should be repeated several times during the semester, pairing different students. It enables students to reflect on their own thinking skills (metacognition) and to compare their thinking with those of other students. The more paired annotations they complete, the more skilled students become at identifying key points in an article and “using resources for answering questions or solving problems.” This structure thus enables teachers to sequence learning in meaningful ways. It builds critical thinking and writing skills by having students analyze and then compare their responses to the same piece of writing. It has the additional virtue of being relevant to virtually any discipline. Over the course of the semester, students build a repertoire of annotated research articles they can bring to bear on the given question or problem.

A note about technology. A thorough discussion of the ways in which new technologies can support and supplement students’ efforts to find and use resources is beyond the scope of this Note. However, we should mention at minimum, that the bounty that awaits students who explore web-based resources comes with a price: the equally large amount of inaccurate, incomplete, and sometimes distorted information that can be found in any web search. The critical issue for teachers is to construct assignments that require specific information known to exist and is accessible with minimum interference from useless, irrelevant, or biased data . Your resource librarian can be a tremendous asset in saving you hours of work (e.g., training students on effective and efficient search strategies and helping everyone to avoid wasting time and effort on valueless information). All disciplines and courses deal with electronic information and we cannot ignore its potential value. What is important to remember in constructing assignments is that the work must have a meaningful relationship to a clearly stated outcome. There has to be a tangible “payoff” in terms of students being able to connect the work to an understood and desired result.

Assessing This Objective

• Develop a rubric (or a form) to assess the announced grading criteria. For example, assign a certain number of points for each component of a project or assignment (see 2 below). What percentage of the total will the final paper and bibliography be? Note what happens if any of the required items are a day late; two days late; etc. What percentage will mechanics—spelling, punctuation, grammar—contribute to the final grade?
• Sequence parts of the project or assignment by establishing intermittent deadlines along the way. This practice not only helps prevent procrastination, but also helps to deter plagiarism. For example, have due dates for the overall topic and the thesis statement, due dates for a preliminary bibliography of “X” number of sources, an outline, a first draft, oral presentation, written or in-class peer reviews, etc.
• Require critical thinking. If students are using Web sites, for example, ask for the background or credentials of the author; ask for the date of last revision if currency is important; ask if students found any bias on the site; and ask why they selected this site from among all the others.
• Make use of peer reviewing throughout the research project or assignment to provide an additional source of feedback and add to the active learning and student interactions essential for deep learning. Have students exchange drafts and apply the rubric or checklist that will be used to assess the assignment. The opportunity for critical review of another draft and seeing comments from a peer will help them more fully understand the expectations, leading to better final products.
• Review respected resources such as the Tutorial for Developing and Evaluating Library Assignments at the University of Maryland University College, Adelphi, MD (18) and the Scoring Criteria for Development/Resource-Based Learning Project at Delta College, University Center, MI (19).
• Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). (2006). Information literacy competency standards for higher education. American Library Association. Retrieved September 27, 2006 from http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/standardsguidelines.htm
• Hoyt, D. P., & Perera, S. (2000). Teaching approach, instructional objectives, and learning: IDEA research report #1 . Manhattan, KS: IDEA Center, Kansas State University.
• Canja, E. T. (2002). Lifelong learning: Challenges and opportunities. CAEL Forum and News , 26-29.
• Klemp, G. O. (1977). Three factors of success. In D. W. Vermilye (Eds.) Relating work and education: Current issues in higher education 1977 . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Rhem, J. (1995). Close-up: Going deep. The National Teaching and Learning Forum, 5 (1), 4.
• See the Problem Based Learning website at: http://www.samford.edu/pbl/ for many resources and references. Retrieved September 27, 2006.
• Feldman, K. A. (1989). The association between student ratings of specific instructional dimensions and student achievement: Refining and extending the synthesis of data from multisection validity studies. Research in Higher Education, 30 , 583-645.
• Theall, M. (1999). What have we learned? A synthesis and some guidelines for effective motivation in higher education. In M. Theall (Eds.) “Motivation from within: Encouraging faculty and students to excel.” New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 78 . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Franklin, J. L., & Theall, M. (1995). The relationship of disciplinary differences and the value of class preparation time to student ratings of instruction. In N. Hativa & M. Marincovich (Eds.) “Disciplinary differences in teaching and learning: Implications for practice.” New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 64 . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Felder, R.M., & Brent, R. (2005). Understanding student differences. Journal of Engineering Education, 94 (1), 57-72. Retrieved September 27, 2006 from http://www.ncsu.edu/effective_teaching/Papers/Understanding_Differences.pdf
• Millis, B. J. (2006). Helping faculty learn to teach better and “smarter” through sequenced activities. In S. Chadwick-Blossy & D.R. Robertson (Eds.). To Improve the Academy , Vol 24. (pp. 216-230). Bolton, MA: POD Network and Anker Publications.
• Designing assignments , University of Washington Libraries.
• Effective assignments using library and Internet resources . (2004). Teaching Library, University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved September 27, 2006 from http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/assignments.html
• Fister, B., & Fuhr, S. (2001). Suggestions for assignments. Enhancing developmental research skills in the undergraduate curriculum . Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library, Gustavus Adolphus College. Retrieved September 27, 2006 from http://www.gustavus.edu/oncampus/academics/library/IMLS/assignmentsuggestions.html
• Recommendations for creating effective library assignments. (2005). Mitchell Memorial Library, Library Instructional Services, Mississippi State University. Retrieved September 27, 2006 from http://library.msstate.edu/content/templates/?a=323&z=74
• Creative assignments using information competency and writing. (2006). Ohio University, Athens OH. Retrieved September 27, 2006 from http://www.library.ohiou.edu/inst/creative.html
• Millis, B., & Cottell, P. (1998). Cooperative learning for higher education faculty. Greenwood Press: American Council on Education, Oryx Press.
• Kelley, K., & McDonald, R. (2005). Section 4: Designing assignments that contain writing and research. In Information literacy and writing assessment project: Tutorial for developing and evaluating assignments . Information and Library Services, University of Maryland University College.
• Examples of good assessments . (2006). Delta College Library, Delta College. Retrieved September 27, 2006 from http://www.delta.edu/library/assessments.html
• IDEA Paper No. 38: Enhancing Learning – and More! – Through Cooperative Learning , Millis
• IDEA Paper No. 41: Student Goal Orientation, Motivation, and Learning , Svinicki
• from http://ejournals.library.gatech.edu/ijsotel/index.php/ijsotel/article/view/19/18
• Gaining A Basic Understanding of the Subject
• Developing knowledge and understanding of diverse perspectives, global awareness, or other cultures
• Learning to apply course material
• Developing specific skills, competencies, and points of view needed by professionals in the field most closely related to this course
• Acquiring skills in working with others as a member of a team
• Developing creative capacities
• Gaining a broader understanding and appreciation of intellectual/cultural activity
• Developing skill in expressing myself orally or in writing
• Developing ethical reasoning and/or ethical decision making
• Learning to analyze and critically evaluate ideas, arguments, and points of view
• Learning to apply knowledge and skills to benefit others or serve the public good
• Learning appropriate methods for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting numerical information

Research Paper Help for College

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Study Tips for Online Classes

6 tips on how to organize your study notes.

Does chaos reign in your notes? If it does, prepare to spend more time on studying – and to lose it a few times in the process. After all, those are your main sources of knowing what’s going to be on a test or what’s needed for an assignment.

The good news is, note-taking is a skill, and so is keeping your notes organized. This means that all you need to do is practice and stick to an organization system. If you don’t know where to start, essay writing service EssayPro has selected the top six time-proven tips to help you get rid of the chaos. Let’s get started!

Find Your Note-Taking Method

How you write things down is the make-it-or-break-it aspect of keeping yourself organized. Writing down every word and having walls of text on every page won’t cut it. It will only make reviewing what you wrote down a living nightmare.

To avoid this scenario, experiment with different methods and find the one that would be the most time- and energy-efficient for you. The following three most popular methods are a great place to start.

The Outline

This is the most common method out there. It is natural to most people. It’s nothing complicated or out of the ordinary: this method just means writing down the key points of the lecture or discussion to create its outline. Bullet points or numbered lists are a great way to make them more organized.

The Cornell

To use this method, divide each page into three sections:

• The main section on the right, 6 inches (15.24 cm) wide;
• The cues section on the left, usually 2.5 inches (6.35 cm) wide;
• The summary section at the bottom of the page.

The workflow is as follows:

• Use the main section to write things down during the class (follow the outline method to structure them);
• After the lecture, review what you wrote and add questions and keywords in the cues section;
• Finally, sum up the key point(s) of the class at the bottom of the page.

The Mind Map

You might be already familiar with the concept of mind mapping. To apply it here, write down the lecture’s topic – or each of its key points – in the center of the page. Then, add nodes to it. Those can represent the key points of the lecture, reasons behind a historic event, main characteristics, etc. Add lines to show connections between nodes.

It is a visual and creative method, so it’s up to you how you use it. However, it may make it harder to understand what you meant as time passes. So, remember to create mind maps that will be clear to you even months after the class.

Summarize Your Notes

Whichever method you choose, the summary section is a handy addition to your daily studying routine.

First, formulating a summary will help you process the information and understand the key messages. Second, it will speed up preparing for an exam or the next class: it’ll take just a glance to refresh your memory.

So, leave some space for the summary section either at the bottom of every page or at the end of the notes for each class.

Make Information Easy-to-Find

Imagine you need to quickly find what you wrote down during the fifth lecture on the History of Art. Flipping through the notebook and trying to remember the topic of that lecture would be time-consuming.

Here are 3 ways to organize the contents of your notebooks to make information search faster:

• Use arrow post-its as bookmarks to mark every new entry;
• Number the pages and add a table of contents;
• Highlight dates and topics with a specific color.

Store Your Notes in One Place

Besides the notes from classes themselves, there are textbook notes, assignments, essays, slides, the list goes on. Bring them all to one place to minimize the time needed for finding what you need. It can be the same folder on your laptop or a binder on your table.

Students are likely to have a mix of digital files and papers for each class these days. Make sure to bring them all to the same realm: either print out the digital files or scan your handwritten notes and upload them to the cloud.

Using highlighters of different colors can turn out to be either a blessing or a catastrophe. To avoid the latter, make sure to keep their use to a minimum and have a clear color-coding system in place.

For instance, you can assign a yellow highlighter for definitions, a pink one for names, a green one for dates, and so on.

Use Different Text Styles

Another way to make your writing easier to read is by styling different parts of the texts. Think of your notes as a text in Google Docs: there are styles named Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on.

Come up with your own styles for each type of text. For example, write titles (i.e. lecture topics) in big capital letters, headings – in smaller capital letters, important definitions – in a different font or color.

The only limit here is your imagination and creativity. Remember to keep it simple, however: using these styles shouldn’t make writing things down more time-consuming.

In Conclusion

Keeping your notes organized is a continuous process. Should you slack even for a week, all the previously done work may go to waste. So, once you settle on an organizational system, make sure to stick to it.

At the same time, it’s fine – and even necessary – to experiment with different organizational styles and tips first to figure out what works best for you. Once you’re done experimenting, however, keep the rules clear. You can add a legend to the first page of the notebook and write these rules down to cement them.

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Privacy Overview

13.5 Research Process: Making Notes, Synthesizing Information, and Keeping a Research Log

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Employ the methods and technologies commonly used for research and communication within various fields.
• Practice and apply strategies such as interpretation, synthesis, response, and critique to compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with those from appropriate sources.
• Analyze and make informed decisions about intellectual property based on the concepts that motivate them.
• Apply citation conventions systematically.

As you conduct research, you will work with a range of “texts” in various forms, including sources and documents from online databases as well as images, audio, and video files from the Internet. You may also work with archival materials and with transcribed and analyzed primary data. Additionally, you will be taking notes and recording quotations from secondary sources as you find materials that shape your understanding of your topic and, at the same time, provide you with facts and perspectives. You also may download articles as PDFs that you then annotate. Like many other students, you may find it challenging to keep so much material organized, accessible, and easy to work with while you write a major research paper. As it does for many of those students, a research log for your ideas and sources will help you keep track of the scope, purpose, and possibilities of any research project.

A research log is essentially a journal in which you collect information, ask questions, and monitor the results. Even if you are completing the annotated bibliography for Writing Process: Informing and Analyzing , keeping a research log is an effective organizational tool. Like Lily Tran’s research log entry, most entries have three parts: a part for notes on secondary sources, a part for connections to the thesis or main points, and a part for your own notes or questions. Record source notes by date, and allow room to add cross-references to other entries.

Summary of Assignment: Research Log

Your assignment is to create a research log similar to the student model. You will use it for the argumentative research project assigned in Writing Process: Integrating Research to record all secondary source information: your notes, complete publication data, relation to thesis, and other information as indicated in the right-hand column of the sample entry.

Another Lens. A somewhat different approach to maintaining a research log is to customize it to your needs or preferences. You can apply shading or color coding to headers, rows, and/or columns in the three-column format (for colors and shading). Or you can add columns to accommodate more information, analysis, synthesis, or commentary, formatting them as you wish. Consider adding a column for questions only or one for connections to other sources. Finally, consider a different visual format , such as one without columns. Another possibility is to record some of your comments and questions so that you have an aural rather than a written record of these.

Writing Center

At this point, or at any other point during the research and writing process, you may find that your school’s writing center can provide extensive assistance. If you are unfamiliar with the writing center, now is a good time to pay your first visit. Writing centers provide free peer tutoring for all types and phases of writing. Discussing your research with a trained writing center tutor can help you clarify, analyze, and connect ideas as well as provide feedback on works in progress.

Quick Launch: Beginning Questions

You may begin your research log with some open pages in which you freewrite, exploring answers to the following questions. Although you generally would do this at the beginning, it is a process to which you likely will return as you find more information about your topic and as your focus changes, as it may during the course of your research.

• What information have I found so far?
• What do I still need to find?
• Where am I most likely to find it?

These are beginning questions. Like Lily Tran, however, you will come across general questions or issues that a quick note or freewrite may help you resolve. The key to this section is to revisit it regularly. Written answers to these and other self-generated questions in your log clarify your tasks as you go along, helping you articulate ideas and examine supporting evidence critically. As you move further into the process, consider answering the following questions in your freewrite:

• What evidence looks as though it best supports my thesis?
• What evidence challenges my working thesis?
• How is my thesis changing from where it started?

Creating the Research Log

As you gather source material for your argumentative research paper, keep in mind that the research is intended to support original thinking. That is, you are not writing an informational report in which you simply supply facts to readers. Instead, you are writing to support a thesis that shows original thinking, and you are collecting and incorporating research into your paper to support that thinking. Therefore, a research log, whether digital or handwritten, is a great way to keep track of your thinking as well as your notes and bibliographic information.

In the model below, Lily Tran records the correct MLA bibliographic citation for the source. Then, she records a note and includes the in-text citation here to avoid having to retrieve this information later. Perhaps most important, Tran records why she noted this information—how it supports her thesis: The human race must turn to sustainable food systems that provide healthy diets with minimal environmental impact, starting now . Finally, she makes a note to herself about an additional visual to include in the final paper to reinforce the point regarding the current pressure on food systems. And she connects the information to other information she finds, thus cross-referencing and establishing a possible synthesis. Use a format similar to that in Table 13.4 to begin your own research log.

Types of Research Notes

Taking good notes will make the research process easier by enabling you to locate and remember sources and use them effectively. While some research projects requiring only a few sources may seem easily tracked, research projects requiring more than a few sources are more effectively managed when you take good bibliographic and informational notes. As you gather evidence for your argumentative research paper, follow the descriptions and the electronic model to record your notes. You can combine these with your research log, or you can use the research log for secondary sources and your own note-taking system for primary sources if a division of this kind is helpful. Either way, be sure to include all necessary information.

Bibliographic Notes

These identify the source you are using. When you locate a useful source, record the information necessary to find that source again. It is important to do this as you find each source, even before taking notes from it. If you create bibliographic notes as you go along, then you can easily arrange them in alphabetical order later to prepare the reference list required at the end of formal academic papers. If your instructor requires you to use MLA formatting for your essay, be sure to record the following information:

• Title of source
• Title of container (larger work in which source is included)
• Other contributors
• Publication date

When using MLA style with online sources, also record the following information:

• Date of original publication
• Date of access
• DOI (A DOI, or digital object identifier, is a series of digits and letters that leads to the location of an online source. Articles in journals are often assigned DOIs to ensure that the source can be located, even if the URL changes. If your source is listed with a DOI, use that instead of a URL.)

It is important to understand which documentation style your instructor will require you to use. Check the Handbook for MLA Documentation and Format and APA Documentation and Format styles . In addition, you can check the style guide information provided by the Purdue Online Writing Lab .

Informational Notes

These notes record the relevant information found in your sources. When writing your essay, you will work from these notes, so be sure they contain all the information you need from every source you intend to use. Also try to focus your notes on your research question so that their relevance is clear when you read them later. To avoid confusion, work with separate entries for each piece of information recorded. At the top of each entry, identify the source through brief bibliographic identification (author and title), and note the page numbers on which the information appears. Also helpful is to add personal notes, including ideas for possible use of the information or cross-references to other information. As noted in Writing Process: Integrating Research , you will be using a variety of formats when borrowing from sources. Below is a quick review of these formats in terms of note-taking processes. By clarifying whether you are quoting directly, paraphrasing, or summarizing during these stages, you can record information accurately and thus take steps to avoid plagiarism.

Direct Quotations, Paraphrases, and Summaries

A direct quotation is an exact duplication of the author’s words as they appear in the original source. In your notes, put quotation marks around direct quotations so that you remember these words are the author’s, not yours. One advantage of copying exact quotations is that it allows you to decide later whether to include a quotation, paraphrase, or summary. ln general, though, use direct quotations only when the author’s words are particularly lively or persuasive.

A paraphrase is a restatement of the author’s words in your own words. Paraphrase to simplify or clarify the original author’s point. In your notes, use paraphrases when you need to record details but not exact words.

A summary is a brief condensation or distillation of the main point and most important details of the original source. Write a summary in your own words, with facts and ideas accurately represented. A summary is useful when specific details in the source are unimportant or irrelevant to your research question. You may find you can summarize several paragraphs or even an entire article or chapter in just a few sentences without losing useful information. It is a good idea to note when your entry contains a summary to remind you later that it omits detailed information. See Writing Process Integrating Research for more detailed information and examples of quotations, paraphrases, and summaries and when to use them.

Other Systems for Organizing Research Logs and Digital Note-Taking

Students often become frustrated and at times overwhelmed by the quantity of materials to be managed in the research process. If this is your first time working with both primary and secondary sources, finding ways to keep all of the information in one place and well organized is essential.

Because gathering primary evidence may be a relatively new practice, this section is designed to help you navigate the process. As mentioned earlier, information gathered in fieldwork is not cataloged, organized, indexed, or shelved for your convenience. Obtaining it requires diligence, energy, and planning. Online resources can assist you with keeping a research log. Your college library may have subscriptions to tools such as Todoist or EndNote. Consult with a librarian to find out whether you have access to any of these. If not, use something like the template shown in Figure 13.8 , or another like it, as a template for creating your own research notes and organizational tool. You will need to have a record of all field research data as well as the research log for all secondary sources.

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