Note-taking, in its broadest sense, is done to produce a 'summary' of the text and its meaning, and therefore combines the skills of reading, listening or visualizing with the ability to write a summary. Many distance learning courses have written, spoken, audio and visual components, and you may find it useful to make notes on them.
Faking good notes from text requires a thorough understanding of the text and its meaning in relation to (a) particular task(s) or question(s). In other words, you are taking notes for a purpose - which you should always keep in mind.
In note-taking on the spoken component, for example in face-to-face or telephone tutorials, it is important to record the ideas, suggestions and solutions raised by your tutor and other students.
Some courses (especially language courses) have audio programs on CD-ROMs. You might be directed to do a specific task based on the spoken text, and this would undoubtedly require you to make notes about what you hear.
Many courses have supporting video programs. Again, you might be set specific tasks based on the video, and you would benefit from making notes on what you see and understand.
Let's take look at each of these components in turn, starting with the written component, which will be the most common form on which you will have to make notes. We then turn to notes on the spoken component (probably the most difficult situation in which to take notes), and finally deal with the audio and visual components together.
Annotating your text
We have already mentioned the value of highlighting or underlining - but be careful not to overdo it. Highlight the main points only (though there can be value in highlighting key supporting words in a different color). If you highlight too much, when you look back at your work everything will seem important and you will have to read it all again. Your highlighting should help you to see the main points, as if you were reading a summary.
Besides highlighting, you may also like to make annotations and notes in the margin to help you to identify relationships, and locate and summarize information. There is no prescribed way for annotating your text; it depends on the text, your understanding of it and your own particular techniques.
Here are some tips that may be useful to you for highlighting and annotating your texts.
Read the whole paragraph or section before you start highlighting and annotating.
Select the information relevant to the task or purpose. Highlight the important key phrases, sentences and facts.
Make annotations, comments and notes in the margins or anywhere on the page but ensure that you do not clutter up the text.
Number the points and reasons that occur in a sequence in the text to help you to locate the information more easily.
Use point form or lists to write notes or comments in the margins as these summarize meanings clearly.
Many students may find it useful to make notes in Chinese (the process of translation can make you understand better).
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