I taught a class in Winter 2023 where the students submitted weekly Reading/Listen/Watch notes.
For the readings, students were encouraged to use whatever is their current reading method, and to adapt it given our discussions of reading notes each class.
For the audio and video sources assigned in the class, students were encouraged to just do a short 100 word summary.
Students also wrote a short reflection about how effective the notes were each week at helping them learn the material and creating a resource that would help them quickly and effectively review the source later.
Students were encouraged to focus on the main points in the readings, rather than get lost in all the details. They were also encouraged to find a way to separate out, clearly, the main points from supporting details in their notes.
In this post, I'll show you (with their permission) how some of the students' notes progressed over the term.

I studied journal article structure by looking at Jessica Calarco’s outline of a journal article (located here as of 21 Feb 2023: http://www.jessicacalarco.com/teaching-resources-1/2019/8/30/article-writing-101 ) and reverse outlining a set of articles by someone in my field.
 
What I found was that, for the 7 articles I coded, Calarco’s outline was never exactly applied. Some articles ranged further from the outline in particular sections. Sometimes they followed some of the outline and neglected others. Sometimes they did most of the things but did them in a different order.
 
After doing this, I know what usually happens in each section (at least across these 7 articles). Given this study, I came up with an alternative outline to Calarco's.

It took me a few years to figure out how to get high grades on university exams, but by the end of my degree I could consistently get 90% or above, using this method. Other students I shared this with, in my undergrad and in my role as a university teacher, have also found it effective.

This method is difficult. But that is why it works.

The general idea is to emulate the test situation. In general, this is a good method for any kind of assessment. But the methods for putting that into action is straightforward with university exams.

I called the method, "The Questions Method" I also want to emphasize: I don't own this method, it isn't "my" method—I'm sure most people who do well on exams have some variation of it. Basically this is what you do:

When you go to lecture, and the professor is lecturing about their powerpoint slides, and the slides are all game for exams, you sit there in class and as they go through it, you write questions for all the material on the slides.

Then when you do the readings, you also make questions for the material.

Then when it comes time to review, you have this comprehensive list of questions.

Your "studying" is then answering the questions. It is best if you can print out the questions. (Click "Read More", below, on the right, if you want to read the full post).

When I first started trying to read non-fiction books and articles seriously, I was often quite lost. I found that I could not just sit there and read a book and retain the argument with its various details.

Over time, I found that the way that helped me most thoroughly concentrate on a reading, and that produced something with "added value" that allowed me to very quickly review a reading in the future, was to create what I call "map notes". I don't know what the formal methods are for "mind mapping", but this method appears to be close to that (but I honestly haven't ever read books or anything about mind mapping).

There are two ways to make these maps: by "piece" (of writing), or for a field.

You can take what I refer to as "piece notes" (notes for one particular article or chapter of a book) in a notebook or on a tablet. The method is pretty simple. At the top of the notes, you write the title of the article/chapter, the author's name, where it was published (if a journal article), and how many Google Scholar citations it has (to give some idea of its current level of influence). Also, as you go, you number the pages.

Then the goal is to map the MAIN ARGUMENT. You can add some of the details that branch off of the main argument. But the goal is not to obsess about marginal details. The point is to map the main ideas.

I find the mapping technique to be nice because it allows for creativity and also allows you to put a LOT of information on one page. (Click below to read the full post).