Reading Notes from Students, Winter 2023

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.

1. Dania

Dania started out using a word document bullet-point structure.

Another reading in these notes looked like this:

After taking these notes, Dania reflected:
"I used the outlining method to take my reading notes and I did not really like it at all. It was very time consuming the way in which I did it. This is typically how I will structure my synchronous lecture notes that I take in real time, however this week taught me that it does not translate over as efficiently as a reading notes model. I found that this method was time consuming for me because I really felt like I had to copy all the important points and quotes over from the readings and then add in a little piece of my thoughts at applicable places, just to replace the function of highlighting/annotating. It took a lot more time than I had anticipated. I did, however, enjoy making the summaries of the Listen and Watch materials. In the future, I want to explore the mind map method, the summary method, and the Cornell notes method. I doubt I will come back to this method for readings but I did also enjoy making that T-chart on page 4 [as in the above picture, for the Tuck et al. 2014 reading] based on the information I was reading in the article."

For the next class's notes, Dania changed to the Cornell method:

And for the "Watch"/video:

She reflected on these notes, "Contrary to last week’s method, I actually enjoyed this note-taking style a lot more! It was definitely easier to focus more on the main points and took less time than the old, detailed outline method. While I still think I need to focus more on summarizing and being concise with the information that is being presented in the passages, I definitely enjoyed being able to have key points and definitions on one side and focus on the explanatory information on the other side. I think I would continue to stick with this way of keeping key definitions separate from the main notes because last time I got a bit bogged down by making sure to explain them in depth. I also did not have that hard of a time making summaries for the Watch materials, but when I thought to summarize the reading material I did not think I could do that just yet. I hope to be able to confidently write a summary of the reading materials soon."

For the next set of notes, Dania tried out the mapping method:

She reflected, "This week, I used the mind mapping method for the readings, and I actually really liked it. For about 90% of my university career, I have always typed my notes, but returning to pen and paper was very interesting. It was really helpful to make notes and connect concepts and ideas as I read the paper. This method helped me to make connections between the ideas being presented and helped me to finally summarize my notes to one page! However, I did not anticipate the hand cramps that would accompany this much writing. I would be interested in learning about any digital mind mapping tools to make this process easier. But in sum, I did enjoy this method and being able to employ my colour coding in it was nice as well – I will probably try it again!"

Dania then switched to using Miro (miro.com), to taking the notes, using the mind map template from Miro:

She reflected, "For this week I tried something different with my mind mapping method and used the online platform Miro to create my mind maps. This was an interesting way to do my mind mapping, I was still able to use my legend (red = main points, blue = supporting points, pink = examples, purple = definitions, green = discussion points) and I think it helped save me time from copying things down in readings. It also did not hurt my hands as much as making elaborate mind maps by hand did. I think I will continue with this method, I was also able to include page numbers. What I appreciated most however, was the freedom this gave me in making my notes as far reaching as possible without the confines of space that physical paper limits me to."
Dania continued with this method for the rest of the class.
She reflected, in the last set of notes: "For this week’s materials I continued with the mind mapping method using the Miro platform. I think these maps would provide me with a good overview of the reading and its main points if I had to refresh my memory on it. All in all, this mind mapping process continued to be an enjoyable and thought provoking exercise for me to deeply engage with the readings at hand."
It was great to see Dania's experiments with note-taking! (And for anyone who knows me, I'm a fan of the map method)

2. Kaela

Kaela experimented a bit at the start of the class, and quickly figured out a Cornell method style, using the note-taking program Notability and a colour-coding system, that she refined over the class.
Her first set of notes were in a more basic bullet point format:

She reflected,

In her third set of notes, she changed to the Cornell method, using a template in the Notability app:

She reflected,

Kaela kept this system until the end of the class, refining it as she went. This next image is from her last set of notes. You can see that she has a colour coded legend, and also an overall page summary at the bottom of the page, two methods she refined during the course of the semester.

By the end of the class, after doubting this method a couple of times, she had ended up enjoying it. She reflected,

In general, I thought her notes were clear and organized, and allowed for seeing the main points clearly (which she would put in the left side panel, or indicate them with the colour codes).

3. Hema

Hema stuck with an outline method for the semester. She produced clear notes and was consistently refining them to make them as concise as possible, something she explicitly reflected about. She also tried to ensure that the main points of the sources were clearly visible.

Reflecting on these notes, she said, "I believe that my reading approaches this week has been effective as I was able to read the papers as well as watch the videos while writing down everything that immediately stood out to me. After I had finished watching doing the readings as a whole I went back and further condensed my notes in order to ensure that I was only including what I thought the main take always, that would best help me in my learning".

In her fourth set of notes, she tried out writing them by hand:

Reflecting on these hand-written notes, Hema said, "For this week's readings, I decided to handwrite my notes to see if it was an effective way of condensing and retaining information. While I found that when I was writing the key points down I was inputting the information on the page in more of my own words rather than simply paraphrasing like I normally tend to do when typing, I found that handwriting my notes were not as efficient and took me a lot longer than typing would have. I do find a benefit to handwriting notes however it is not a feasible method when I have readings to complete for five different classes each week. I would use this method when studying for tests."

In her remaining notes in the class, Hema used the outline method on Word documents. She also sometimes added, at the end of the notes, a main themes section for the notes for that class as a whole:

So she included notes for all of the readings (the above just shows the start of one article's notes), and then wrote:

Overall, her notes were clear and detailed.

4. Anna

Anna started with a map method, shifted to a computer-based outline method, and then finished the semester doing the Cornell notes style, but on paper rather than on an app.

Reflecting on her last sets of notes (using the Cornell method), Anna said, "I like this technique because I can go back and I have room to make comments on the side while the lecture answers my questions or adds to it. I like this model for note taking a lot. I like that it leaves space for questions and to extract the main ideas, of my key points further. I am not to good with finding the main themes of my key points as they are broken up, but I am working on it! I will stick with this method."
I like that Anna used many visual methods (like arrows to show relationships) and that she had methods to revise the notes and add to them (e.g., listening to lecture and adding to the left column). She also used the left pane to indicate main points, which was great.

5. Conclusion, and a note for graduate students

As these different approaches demonstrate, different methods work for different people. The most important thing is to find a method that works for you. I think all of these students were engaging deeply with the material and they were able to demonstrate that in class discussions.
For graduate students, it can be more useful to find a way to take notes that create themes across sources, rather than having per-source notes.
Pre-candidacy in graduate school, I used the on-paper map notes method, as Dania demonstrated above. I used fountain pens and 24 lb paper, since that made it possible to have long-lasting notes (high quality ink and paper), to take a lot of notes (fountain pens are ergonomic), and to also scan them easily (the paper was better than a notebook for that, since I didn't have to hold the notebook open).  So this was a per-source method, with one set of notes per article or chapter.
As graduate school progressed, however, and I moved out of comprehensive exams and classes and into writing literature reviews and discussion sections of journal articles, I changed my method. I now use Atlas.ti and Miro. I first use Atlas.ti to read many articles in a field and come up with a set of common themes across articles, and then I use Miro to summarize the coding structure in a visual way. Atlas.ti is a qualitative coding program, but you can also use it for literature reviews (and it is also advertised for literature reviews). Miro (miro.com), as Dania demonstrated above in her last set of notes, is an online whiteboard. I don't use the stock "map" template that Dania used (Miro has templates), instead I use boxes, add text to them, and add arrows between them. (I don't mean to imply that Dania's method is wrong – I encourage students to use the methods that work best for them! The Miro map template just doesn't work for me.)  This Atlas.ti + Miro method allows for writing most effectively, I find. One is rarely simply summarizing one article or chapter after another in academic writing. Note that Atlas.ti and Miro are both paid – Atlas.ti is about $150 Canadian for students (2-year license), and Miro is $10 USD/month (that is the monthly plan, it's a bit cheaper with a yearly plan).
Thank you to all the students who shared their notes! I hope this post helps you think about and refine your own reading method. If you are reading this and have a note-taking method you really like, I'd be happy to learn about it and perhaps post about it on this blog in the future (you could email me about it at tyler.bateman@mail.utoronto.ca). I know some people like to use spreadsheets, for example, but I haven't described that here, and I'm sure there are many other effective methods I haven't considered – for undergraduate, graduate students, professors, and people who make the effort to read and learn outside of academia.