How to take notes for studying?

How many pages and pages of notes we write, how many lines we mark, how many decorations we put on our notebooks;--but as the examination approaches we lose the greater part of what we have learned.  This is because the actual issue is not the amount of things we write, but how we make notes. Notes are designed to assist us to make sense of, remember and revise easily rather than disorient or suffocate us.

I will present in this blog some of the effective note taking techniques that do work in real life. These techniques aid you to learn concepts in a better way, retain the information longer and revise more easily. They are also very handy in the school and college students, competitive exams aspirants and self-learner

It is worth knowing why most of the notes fail before learning more appropriate techniques. A lot of students reproduce the information in the textbook word-to-word without being able to process them. Their notes are long, disorganised and incomprehensible and lack structure. In many cases, such notes are never revised again hence all such efforts go down the drain. Notes that are efficient must save time, make revision easy and assist you to remember when you are in need.

The Cornell Method is one of the best methods of taking notes and it is particularly useful during exams and revision. In this technique, the page is subdivided into three parts. The main notes are on the right side on which you write important points when you are studying or in class. Keywords or question on the related notes are placed on the left side, and the assist in self-testing at a later time. A summary in your own words is provided at the bottom of the page. The technique is effective as it helps to promote the active recall, keep your notes in a proper order, and speed up and simplify the last-minute revision significantly.