Do you take notes?

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yossarian
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Do you take notes?

Postby yossarian » Fri Feb 16, 2018 12:54 pm

I'm curious about the note taking habits of everyone here.

I've been going through a grammar text book and wondering if I should be taking notes. However the book is so concise and well laid out that it doesn't seem necessary to me - I can always come back to the chapter if I forget something.

What I do instead is add some of the example sentences from the lessons to my Anki deck, so that I'm reminded of the rules in and amongst my vocabulary review.

What do you do?

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Re: Do you take notes?

Postby reineke » Fri Feb 16, 2018 2:20 pm

No.
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Re: Do you take notes?

Postby MamaPata » Fri Feb 16, 2018 2:45 pm

I do, yes, because I'm much more likely to remember stuff if I've written it out by hand. It's much more about that than a need to find it again in the future.
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Re: Do you take notes?

Postby Speakeasy » Fri Feb 16, 2018 7:00 pm

Some years ago, when I began learning German with the aid of Pimsleur, FSI, Assimil, and the like, I created a substantial volume of notes. And then, it came to my attention that:

(a) the process of creating the notes was rather mechanical; that is, my thought processes seemed to be focused more on compiling the notes themselves rather than on absorbing the concepts that they were meant to summarize.

(b) compiling the notes had only a negligable effect, if any, on my retention of the materials or on my learning the language.

(c) as I progressed, the notes took the form of a poorly-written, incomplete, basic grammar. I ended up spending an inordinate amount of time trying to clean them up so that they might better reflect the contents and presentation of the simple grammar which I used to accompany my studies. It dawned on me that there was something wrong with this picture!

(d) despite all the time and energy that I expended in compling the notes, I only rarely, if ever, consulted them and, when I did so, it was merely to tinker with them (refer to "c" above) and not to review them.

Following this realisation, I ceased making notes.

EDITED:
Typos.
Insertion of note (c).
Last edited by Speakeasy on Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Do you take notes?

Postby Xenops » Fri Feb 16, 2018 7:31 pm

I have contemplated making pretty, typed-out notes for French in Action, so that rather than paging through different sources trying to remember a grammatical concept, I could just look at the notes. I attribute my success in high-school Spanish to the teachers having color-coded papers for each concept (blue for vocab, green for grammar, pink for culture, etc).

Since formatting everything on computer to my perfectionist ideal takes a long time, I just might hand-write everything. ;)
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Re: Do you take notes?

Postby tarvos » Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:18 pm

Not often, but when I do they are always handwritten
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Re: Do you take notes?

Postby LunaMoonsilver » Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:36 pm

I handwrite notes when I'm working through a textbook, both because it aids my memory later (especially when it comes to spelling) and helps me to concentrate better at the time. If I don't take notes, I tend to skim because I'm lazy :lol: I still don't have anything in the way of typed notes, but I feel like typing up handwritten notes as a distillation for later reference might be a good idea.
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Re: Do you take notes?

Postby Adrianslont » Fri Feb 16, 2018 9:56 pm

No, I don’t.

I think what you do though, putting sentences (effectively your notes) into anki, is a good idea though because it overcomes the major problem with notes ie many people never review them.

Edit: moved a comma
Last edited by Adrianslont on Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Do you take notes?

Postby Iversen » Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:06 pm

Definitely yes - partly for later consultation, but also because choosing the relevant information and the pshysical act of writing it down help me to remember the stuff. Some notes will be reused for green grammar sheets, others contain new words for my word lists, and some actually remind me of things I could write about in my log (including where I got them from) ... but if I don't use the notes within a few days I'll just throw them away. Old notes are irrelevant and incomprehensible because I have lost my memories about the context.

LunaMoonsilver has a good point: she tends to skim unless she takes notes, and so do I for the the same reason: I also am lazy unless I do something physical to counteract that tendency. This is also one of my main reasons for copying the texts I use for intensive study instead of just reading them.

And I don't use speedmarkers or write notes in my books - nor in anybody else's. Not even on my printouts from the internet.
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Re: Do you take notes?

Postby coldrainwater » Sat Feb 17, 2018 5:45 am

These days, I copy quotes but don´t take notes and haven´t mastered the art of bookmarking, so I paste links hither and thither and cull them every so often. OneNote has been replaced by a google spreadsheet, a decision I am still not sure about. I am more likely to make lists and short bullet points, but only on caffeinated days. All scribbles tend to be reflective in nature and mark connections between what I am learning and some other something. Cybernotes only. Handwritten notes suffer a sad state between illegibility and inutility. I find too much note taking hinders living in the present moment and enjoying what I am experiencing. Knowing I have no notes to look back on reminds me to pay attention. Sometimes, I feel like we have lost the art of trusting in our own memory for anything at all. Plus, I know I´ll need to see it in different ways before it really sticks. I would sooner bathe in boredom than review copious notes time and time again. I think I might also see a reflection of myself too often and get bored.
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