It’s the final stretch of class before winter break here at Mizzou. The final autumn leaves are falling down, and the temperature outside is rapidly dropping. For many, this means the beginning of a delightful holiday season, but for us students, it marks the approach of our dreaded finals week. To prepare for exams, we need to spend our valuable free time reviewing notes and study materials we’ve collected over the semester. The true key to success is expertly crafted notes, and you’re in luck, because below are my five best tips for high-quality notes.
1. Make them pretty
Nothing is worse than staring at a bland white piece of paper for hours, trying to memorize all those boring, scribbled-down words you’re bound to forget. To make studying a little more relaxing, try to make the page look visually appealing. Now, I know we’ve all seen those insanely precise notes on the internet with dozens of colors and a title in big fancy calligraphy, but I’m not talking about that. All you really need for neat notes is a highlighter or two, and a tiny bit of effort, so your handwriting doesn’t look like a bunch of scribbles. Trust me, an aesthetically pleasing page is much easier to concentrate on than a crumpled page from your notebook.
2. Highlight vocabulary words
Depending on the course, vocab can be extremely important to remember. When I took psychology, it felt like 90% of the exams were vocabulary. In my current Korean class, vocab is practically the whole curriculum. It’s all too easy to skip over a sentence or two in your notes and draw a blank during the exam, so a highlighter will be essential to make those words pop out at you during your study session.
3. Space out your lines
Whether you write in pen or pencil, it’s important to be able to go back and revise. You typically don’t have time to write down everything during a lecture, especially if your professor speaks quickly, so you may need to add some notes in the empty space. Plus, spaced-out sentences are much easier to process than sentences crammed tightly together. Word of advice: save the crammed notes for the note card cheat sheets you’ll need to make for certain classes. In the meantime, don’t be afraid to use up your notebook. Well-written notes are infinitely more valuable than the couple of dollars it would take to buy a new notebook at the dollar store.
4. Keep it minimal
While you might be tempted to copy down every word of the slides, take some time to decide what’s really important. By giving yourself a moment to consider this, your brain actually processes the information rather than frantically scribbling down the words. While you’re at it, try to put the information into your own words. By doing this, you make sure you truly understand what you write down. Notes become essentially useless if you never really understand them in the first place. It’s a great habit to copy down not only what’s on the slides, but also commentary from your professor to have truly great notes.
5. Find what works for you
Although these strategies help me perform my best, you might prefer different ways to prepare for exams. Don’t feel forced to fill your page with highlights or abundant empty lines if you feel it isn’t right for you. Almost everyone I know takes notes in different ways, some on laptops, some using no color at all. If you’re satisfied with the quality of your notes and they prepare you well, continue to do exactly what you’re doing. However, if you need a few pointers, be sure to utilize these techniques. They’ve served me well.
