Note Taking Aids - Using Complete Notes

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, such as a handout with complete lecture notes, that helps the individual get all of the information that he or she needs to know. However, complete notes are usually not available for every lecture, so it is important for an individual to be able to take notes on his or her own. As a result, it is important for an individual to use complete notes as a way of supplementing his or her own notes instead of a way to avoid taking notes. In order for an individual to use complete notes to supplement rather than replace his or her own notes, there are a couple of different effective ways of using completed notes that an individual should keep in mind.

First, complete notes, if the student has the notes prior to class, can be useful because they allow the individual to have an idea of the material that is going to be covered before class and the individual can focus more on listening to the professor and less on trying to get everything down on paper. This does not mean that the individual should not take notes, but rather that the individual should focus more on understanding the professor than trying to get all of the information down if he or she already has complete notes for the lecture available. Secondly, especially if the individual has trouble taking notes in the particular class that he or she received complete notes for, it may be wise for the individual to take notes as he or she normally would and use the complete notes as a comparison tool after class is over. In other words, the individual may want to forget about the complete notes, take notes as he or she normally would, and then compare those notes to the complete notes to see what material he or she missed during the lecture. This is a very good way for an individual to improve his or her note-taking skills as it allows the individual to identify which material she noted and which material she missed. In fact, a student that is having difficulty taking notes in a particular class may want to ask his or her professor if it is possible to see the complete lecture notes after the lecture.