Hi, I’m Thomas Frank, this is Crash Course Study Skills, and today we’re going to look at how to take great notes – and you're probably gonna wanna write that down.
Why focus on your notes?
Well, simply put, when it comes to learning and retaining information, output is just as important as input.
When you’re first learning a fact or a concept, you’re intaking new information; but, to retain that information for a long time, you need to store it in a place that you can easily access later on, and you need to put it in your own words.
Now, before we talk about specific note-taking systems, what information you should actually record in your notes, and whether or not it’s helpful to blend them up and drink 'em like a milkshake, let’s start with what’s going to set you up for success in the first place: showing up to class prepared with the right tools.
There are three routes you can go when selecting those tools: paper, computer, or arm.
What’s the best option?
Well, unless you’re that guy from Memento, we can probably narrow it down to either paper or computer.
Between those two, there’s been a debate going on for years, but we do have some recent scientific evidence that we can turn to for some hard answers.
According to a study done at Princeton University in 2014, students who took notes on a 15-minute lecture using a laptop wrote an average of 310 words, while those who wrote on paper only averaged 173.
