Reading and Notemaking Skills

READING AND NOTEMAKING SKILLS

Introduction

Much of your class time as a UTAS student will be spent in lectures. You have probably already experienced lectures in your own education system, so the concept of a lecture is not new to you. However, you will find that there are some differences between UTAS lectures and the lectures you have already experienced. Some of those differences relate to what you are expected to do as a student in lectures.

This section will help you understand what some of those differences are. It will help you learn strategies for taking notes.

Why is attending lectures so important?

Lectures usually contain some of the most important information related to your course. While some of the information and ideas presented in lectures can be found in text books, some cannot. For example, it is quite common for lectures at UTAS to be interactive. This means that lecturers might ask students in the audience to answer questions or to discuss ideas with the person sitting next to them. Also, there might be visual images shown that are not accessible from text books. This is why it is important that you attend every lecture (where possible) and that you learn strategies to help you understand and remember that information. This section will help you learn some of those strategies.

What should I be doing ?

It is important to prepare for lectures before class, take notes during class and review your notes after class. Note-taking is one way to help improve your listening, and using a methodical approach to the taking and reviewing of your notes will help you understand and remember the content of lectures.

Before class

Make a commitment to yourself to listen actively and aim to understand the content of the lecture, rather than just recording information.
Make sure you know what the lecture topic is.
Read ahead - skim and scan relevant reading assignments to acquaint yourself with main ideas, new technical terms, before the lecture.
Test yourself over the previous lecture while waiting for the next one to begin.
Do what you can to improve your comfort level. For example,. make sure you eat and drink before class, or sit close to the front if you are easily distracted by other students.
Label your notes – unit code, topic, lecturer, date – and keep them in the right sequence

During lectures

Arrive early and sit near front to avoid distractions and allow you to see the lecturer, whiteboard and visual presentations.
Be self-aware – try to ignore distractions and think about what the lecturer is saying (active listening)
Listen for both the structure (the way the lecture content is organised) and the information (content) in the lecture.
Pay attention to the speaker for verbal and visual clues to what’s important. For example, the teacher might say, “The main point is…” This is a clue that you should listen carefully on the point the teacher is about to make.
Use abbreviations. This makes note-taking faster.
Highlight important points: use capitals, colour, underlining, asterisks etc.
When possible write notes in your own words. Try not to copy down the exact words the teacher says. If you do want to copy down some of the exact words, make sure you put quotation marks around them (“ ”) to show they are someone else’s words, not yours.
Divide your page into sections and use one section to make notes of examples, links or connections you think of during the lecture (see layouts, below)
Ask questions if you don’t understand, or make a note of points you need to follow up after class.
Instead of closing your notebook early and getting ready to leave, listen carefully to information given toward the end of class. Summary statements may be valuable in highlighting main points. There may be possible questions for tutorials.

After class

Find out the answers to any questions raised by the lecture by asking either the lecturer in tutorials or other students.
Fill in missing points or misunderstood terms from your textbook or other reading materials.
Edit your notes, labelling main points, and highlighting questions to be answered. Main points in the notes can be highlighted with different coloured pens.
Make notes of your own ideas and reflections, keeping them separate from those of the teacher.
Try summarizing the main points in the lecture. Summarising means writing, in your own words, the main ideas. (See the section in this booklet titled ‘Summarising and Paraphrasing’).

At the end of each week

Review your notes: Test yourself to see how much you can remember before rereading your notes. This is important for remembering, particularly for exams. If you don’t review your notes regularly, you may easily forget the information. Look for themes, main concepts, links etc. that might start to appear over several lectures.
Make up and answer possible test questions.

Why is it important to revise my lecture notes?

If you don’t revise or use your notes for some purpose, it is likely that you will forget much of the content. Below is a chart which shows the rate one can forget information, if that information is not reinforced.

Lecture Note Formats

Notes can be taken in a linear form (see example below), or in the form of mind maps. Mind maps are also useful tools for revising notes for exam study.

Example of a Lecture note page

Label (Unit/date/lecturer) /

Title

Your notes
Questions:
Comments:
Links: /

Lecturer’s points

Things to check

More examples of linear layouts

Symbols and abbreviations

Use abbreviations and symbols whenever you can in your notes; it is much faster

This list offers suggestions for you to select from and modify. Some of the abbreviations are standard, some are examples of individual inventions. Keep a reference (refs) list of your abbreviations (abbrev) in your notebook. Otherwise you may not remember and you will not be able to understand your own notes!

Symbols

 / increase / A>B / A is larger/more than B
 / leads to / A<B / A is smaller/less than B
 / psychology /  / change
 / therefore, it follows that / ’s / changes
@ / at /  / area
# / number / ’s / areas
and
Abbreviations
rxn / reaction / w / width
w/o / without / amt / amount
dt / due to / cf / compare
ie / that is / fx/fn / function
vs / versus; in contrast; as opposed to

To abbreviate words, you can:

omit vowels (dpt = department)

omit syllables (ref = reference; cont’d = continued; amt = amount

ACADEMIC READING AND NOTEMAKING

Introduction

While studying at UTAS you will be expected to do a lot of reading. In the past you may have relied on one text book for each unit you have studied. While there may still be a text book set for a unit at UTAS, you will be expected to read more than just this one set text. Sometimes the lecturer will guide you to other readings. Sometimes you will be expected to find your own reading material from the library.

Learning how to read academic texts efficiently, therefore, is very important. It is an essential skill for success at UTAS. You can learn this skill with practice. There are many different ways to read academic texts efficiently and effectively. This section contains information to help you learn about those different ways.

Efficient reading

Efficient reading is one of the keys to success at University. You need to be able to find and extract relevant information from books, journals and electronic sources as efficiently as possible (see the section on using the UTAS library for more information about books, journals and electronic sources). Because there is so much to read, it is important to develop good reading strategies and to understand the structure of texts.

Reading strategies/techniques include:

previewing
reading with a purpose
skimming and scanning (pre-reading)
summarising

These four strategies will now be looked at in more detail.

Previewing – the important first step

Why?To help you make a decision about how helpful/useful a text may be for your research purposes

When?When researching a topic. Previewing could happen in the library before taking a book out on loan or online if you’re using electronic sources

How?The information below refers mainly to books, but some elements are also found in journal articles. Previewing involves checking the following:

copyright date (when was it published? Is it the latest edition?). Some subjects require up-to-date information, for others it is not so important.
place of publication – it is important that appropriate texts are used for university assignments.
table of contents – this provides a description of what is in the book, the order of the information in the book, and the links between the different sections in the book .
index – this will let you know if the text contains content relevant to your research
glossary – provides information about how the author/s define their terms (not all texts have them)
appendices – this provides extra background material (not all texts have them)

Previewing will save time and effort in helping you know:

whether it’s worth taking a closer look at the text
the content of the text
its usefulness to your purpose

When you visit your own library or visit the UTAS Library (online), searching for information to help you prepare an assignment, remember to preview the texts, using the list above as a guide.

Reading with a purpose

When you read academic texts it is important to read with a purpose. You must have a question in your mind. Ask yourself, ‘What exactly am I trying to find out from this bookor chapter?’ You will not have time to read all texts from start to finish. You do not need to. When you are reading academic texts a lot of the information contained in them will be new or unfamiliar to you. This means that you will need all your concentration to manage the task. You may hope to read to memorise, but usually this doesn’t work. It is essential to create reasons for reading, otherwise your brain will have no real reason to retain the information that you have read.

Skimming/scanning the text

If you talk to expert readers you will find that they read academic texts quite differently. They will take time to look carefully at the book/journal article first and then decide what type of text it is. Then they will look at the style and presentation of the text to decide where different kinds of information might be. This means that they skim or scan the texts.

Why?To determine which areas of the text are relevant to your needs

To ascertain the author/s’ style and reading difficulty

To establish the structure of the text

When? Can be done after or while previewing

What?Selective fast reading. It is active and purposeful. It requires concentration because you are trying to understand the author’s ideas from headings, diagrams, sentences and summaries. This is easier when the content is familiar and the text is well organised. It can require practice.

How?With a clear idea of what you are looking for (for example, have your assignment question in mind), skim the following:

the title
main headings
sub headings
the abstract (if there is one)
the introduction
the conclusion
the first sentence in paragraphs
any text highlighted in bold or italics
graphs, tables or diagrams
chapter summaries

Making notes and labelling them

Why?As an aid to memory; to summarise ideas and arguments; to select relevant points; to clarify and interpret material, and to have a basis for summaries of texts.

It is important to label your notes so that you will have details of the source (book/journal article etc.) when you decide to include the information in an assignment. Write down all details required in a reference list (author/s’ name/s; date of publication; title of the text; edition – if second or more- publisher; place of publication).

You will have to search the introductory pages of the book to get the information that you need for the reference list (sometimes this is called bibliographic information). Look at the example below. This was found on the back of the title page of the book. It tells us some information that we will need if we want to use this book in an assignment. It is important to know when a book was published and the date is here

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of NW Publishing Group.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Keep your notes from each text that you read together and write on one side of the page only so that the notes are easy to skim over when you are looking for quoes to support what you are saying.

Summarising: a model

If, after skimming or scanning a text, you are happy with your understanding of the text, you might summarise what you have found. One way of doing this is to set up a catalogue card, noting important information. This can be filed away for future use.

Catalogue card

Remember, to reference a text correctly in an assignment, you will need appropriate bibliographic information. This could be placed on one side of a card, and a summary on the other. The following is an example:

The catalogue card means you can re-locate information at a later date.

We call a collection of such notes on a subject an annotated bibliography.

Understanding the structure/organisation of texts

Why?To know where to find the key ideas contained in the text, quickly

Understanding the structure of texts also helps your own essay writing.

How?Examine the separate parts of the text to see how it is put together to convey key idea/s

Title

How helpful is the title? Does it help you predict what the text is about?

Abstract

Is there an abstract (brief summary)? Does it summarise the key points of the

article?

Introductions

Introductions should set the scene, tell the reader the purpose of the text, the main argument or thesis, and how the material is organised.

Conclusions

The conclusion should tie together all the material that has been used to develop the argument. It should refer the reader back to the topic and give a sense of unity. It should not merely repeat details and normally would not introduce new material.

Body of text

The body of a text is made up of a series of paragraphs, each of which should be a mini essay of one idea. The main idea is usually contained in one sentence (sometimes called a topic or key sentence), which may be at the beginning, middle or end of a paragraph. The topic sentence will be supported with detail (evidence and examples).

When you read the title, abstract, introduction, conclusion and topic sentences (often the first sentence in each paragraph), you can usually decide quickly whether or not the text/chapter/article will be helpful for your assignment. You don’t have to read the whole text to make this decision!

SUMMARISING AND PARAPHRASING

Introduction

In other sections of this booklet you have been introduced to the Western style of learning. In a Western style university you must read widely, then use evidence from this reading to support your own independent thinking and writing. Summarising and paraphrasing are two essential skills in this process.

Summarising

Summarising is expressing briefly, in your own words, the main ideas included in a section or large amount of another writer’s work. (Summaries do not include examples and evidence that the original author used to support their own argument).

Why?If you want to use the key points or arguments of an author or authors to support your own academic writing

How?

Read the text
Make notes (in your own words) as you read.
Write a summary of the key idea
Add any supporting ideas from your notes (Only mention the key ideas once in the summary)
Check the original text for accuracy
Reference properly

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is restating (or rephrasing), in your own words, another author’s idea. You must not change the meaning.

Why?When you are using the key point/s or argument/s of an author or authors to support your own argument in academic writing.

How?

Read Underline or highlight key words or phrases
Make notes from the reading
Write, in your own words, from your notes
When you have finished, check the original for accuracy
Acknowledge the original author (reference)

Example

Imagine that you are writing an essay about exploration of the Great South Land. You find the following passage from Blackmore et al. (1981) and would like to use his idea.

For centuries Europeans wondered about the existence of a Great South Land. The early Greeks had believed in its existence because such a land was necessary to balance the known lands of the northern hemisphere. Early Christian scholars would have none of that theory. The world was flat and the equator would burn those who attempted to pass through it. Had Asian traders known of this idea they might well have smiled, because they had begun to gather sea-slugs from
the northern coast of the land about which generations of Europeans pondered.