For certain lectures, especially if the material that is being covered is complicated or confusing, a professor may supply the individual with a note-taking aid that helps the individual take notes for that particular lecture. These aids are intended to either lead the individual's note taking or to provide the individual with specific key facts that he or she should know. In fact, there are two primary types of note-taking aids that are separated based on the purpose of each aid and these aids are referred to as guided lecture notes and complete lecture notes.
Guided lecture notes are notes that the professor has prepared before class that list key concepts and set up an outline or diagram without the details that fill in the outline or diagram. In other words, guided lecture notes consist of handouts that are set up in a sort of "fill-in the blank" format in order to lead the individual's note taking. These handouts usually outline the key words and topics that will be covered in a specific lecture and the individual can write down definitions next to the key words on the outline, list key terms related to specific topics in the available spaces, or fill in charts as the professor discusses the information during the lecture. Guided notes can be extremely useful as they inform the individual of the key concepts that he or she should look out for during the lecture while allowing the individual the opportunity to process the information and write it down. This can actually be important because looking for specific information in the lecture and taking notes on that information will help the individual understand the material better than he or she would be able to understand the material if he or she was just trying to follow along with a completed set of notes. Guided notes can also be useful because they make it more difficult for an individual to miss important details, key concepts, or items that the professor listed that the individual should have noted during the lecture. This is because guided notes usually use bullets, numbers, diagrams, or other similar methods of making it clear that there are a specific number of important items that should be included in a particular list or topic outline.