Successful students make notes of what they have read! Note making is the link between study reading and answering assignment questions. Once you have taken down notes in lectures, the learning process is not complete. The next step is the note-making process. A composition teacher of mine always told our class, "always think of making notes instead of taking notes."
Let us distinguish between note-taking and note-making. Note taking is a passive process which is done at lectures whereas note-making is more active and focused activity where you assimilate all information and make sense of it for yourself.
Note making is an important skill. It enables us to summarize key information and focus our thoughts from both lectures and readings. It is more than just writing what has been said or written. It requires critical thinking.
Academic success requires various competencies, among them the ability to know and use a variety of tools and techniques to generate and organize information and ideas.
* Why make notes?
* Making the notes will help you know if you understand what you just read.
* Making notes will help you remember what you have read and learned.
* To remember and make sense of the material/text we read.
* To use notes in writing assignment / essays and revising for exams.
* To provide ‘value points’ on which to develop ideas for later development.
* To plan future activity.
Thus you can also be able to look over the information and easily decide which information and facts you will use. You don't want to have to re-read through many sentences to locate what you need.
* When to make notes?
* While reading the written material concerned.
* In seminars.
* In tutorials. * Before, during and after lectures.
* How to make notes?
* Read carefully to identify what the text contains.
* Don’t make notes on your first reading. Engage actively in the text/matter first.
* Read each paragraph at a time, which allows you time to think.
* Select the format in which you want to make your notes e.g. Outline Format
* Compress and write in your own words what you understand to be the basic meaning of the sentences found in the text/matter.
* The notes should be short phrases, rather than sentences.
* Read the text again to recall the main points to decide on the information you need.
* Review to go through your notes, to confirm whether you could successfully made them.
Note-Making Style / Format : There are different note-making styles or formats – Split Page Format, Diagram Format, Question/Prompt Format and of course, the Outline Format. But then, the Outline Format is the one which is prescribed in our syllabus.
A passage is given for us to make notes from making use of the Outline Format and for this question, 5 marks are allotted in our Public Examination.
In fact, it is perhaps easy to answer this question, once the logic and method is known to us to make notes from a written text or matter provided to us. Practice, of course, is necessary.
The Outline Format for Note-Making
This is the basic format because an outline uses an alternating series of numbers and letters, indented accordingly, to indicate the levels of importance of the notes to be made from the given passage, text or the written material, which actually is our Question Item.
Method: - Read the given passage carefully as shown above, under the sub-heading ‘How to make notes?’ and then write in points in an organized pattern based on space indention. Place major points (side headings known as Topic Sentences) farthest to the left. Indent each more specific point to the right. Levels of importance will be indicated by distance away from the major point. Indention can be as simple as or as complex as labelling the indentations with Roman numerals or decimals.
Note: Outlining records both the content as well as the relationships among the key points found in the passage. It also reduces editing and is easy to review by turning main points into questions. Through this format, you can locate the structure in the text and keep identification of a main point.
Such as it helps you answer all the questions of the material undertaken for the study.
Effective Note Making
Note making is essential for students in college:
* For reading, because what you don't write down, you generally don’t remember.
* For lectures, which are highly condensed methods of giving information.
Note making is a skill:
* Most people don’t feel confident.
* It can be learned. This takes understanding of what you're doing.
* It takes practice, which involves your effort.
Note making is a bit difficult because:
* Spoken language is more spread than that of the written.
* Speaker’s organization is not immediately clear.
* Immediate feedback rarely occurs.
* Spoken language is quickly gone. This makes study difficult.
Five purposes for note making:
* Provides a written record for review.
* Provides a definite, limited learning assignment.
* Forces you to pay attention.
* Requires organization, and active effort on the part of the student.
* Student must compress and reshape the matter, which aids understanding.
Value of Note Making
You need to take notes, because, during a lecture, the lecturers will present much more information. They may also give very useful tips for assignments or exams that you shouldn't miss. Also, if you just sit back and listen, you're less likely to fully engage with the topic, and your attention may wander. So note making is important because:
* It actively involves you in the learning process, which is good!
* In addition to taking notes during lectures, you will also need to take notes as you read. You will have to read a great deal during your programme of studies, and you can't retain all the important points in your head. When you're reading for a written assignment, you will need to collect notes as you go along.
* Making notes allows you to reduce information to a manageable size.
* In order to study for your exams, you will be covering a lot of material: from lecture notes, from textbooks, perhaps from relevant articles. Again, you can't hold all this in your head. The key points need to be extracted and the information compressed. In doing this, you will have to think a lot about the topics – about what is important and how things link together.
* Making notes is an aid to exam revision.
* The activity of making notes helps you to think about your subject, and also to retain the information. Making notes helps your understanding of your subject.
Note Making విధి విధానం
1. ఇచ్చిన passage ని చదివి ఒక suitable title రాయాలి.
2. Title రెండు/మూడు పదాలకు మించకుండా capital letters లో రాయాలి.
3. ప్రతి paragraph లోని essence ని ప్రతిబింబించే ఒక topic sentence (side heading) left margin వద్ద రాయాలి.
4. Topic sentences ఎదురుగా ఆ paragraph లోని ముఖ్యమైన notes పేర్కొనాలి.
5. ఇక అన్ని topic sentence ల ప్రక్కన ఉన్న notes ఆధారంగా విద్యార్థి తన సొంత వాక్యాల్లో ఒక brief summary రాయాలి.
Format of Note Making : Some More Hints
1. Note Form: Select the different important parts of the paragraphs in the given passage.
2. Presentation: Focus your attention of major content capsules leaving the minor ones.
3. Numbering: Maintain serial numbers para-wise and write notes against them using the Roman Numerals for Serial Nos. and the English alphabet for the order of notes.
4. Lay Out: Items which belong to the same level of importance can always be seen by position on the page as well as by numbering and the relationship of a set of items to that set above and the sets below is always clear.
5. Order and Summary: It requires order in making notes and thereby a precise summary can be invited at the end of the Note Making activity.
SAMPLE QUESTION
Q. Read the following passage and make notes. 1x5=5 marks
It is a misconception that growing the bonsai is a highly skilled and costly affair. However, it is true that one has to nurture the bonsai with a lot of patience and love. The discouraging news is that at times it takes almost 10 to 30 years to develop a reasonably sized bonsai but the good news is that we all can grow them as easily as we grow any other plant.
All we need to do is to pick up a sapling of our choice, other than the seasonal plants and shrubs, from the nearest nursery. Before selecting a plant, consider the following factors: it should have a wide root spread, a good taper form for the trunk and a nice arrangement of branches. Bring home such a plant, clean and trim the roots after clearing the entangled knots before potting it in a shallow container eight to twelve inches in size, filled with some moist soil and fine sand. It is advisable to add some cow dung manure, leaf-compost and bone-meal in equal proportions.
Answer:
GROWING THE BONSAI
1. Growing the Bonsai : a. all of us can grow it
b. not a highly skilled and costly job
c. requires patience and love
2. Selecting the plants : a. picking up choicest saplings
b. the saplings with wide roots
c. preferably the ones with nice spread of branches
3. Planting process : a. clean and trim the roots
b. pot in shallow container
c. see that moist soil and fine sand added
d. cow dung manure and leaf-compost with bonemeal
SUMMARY IN BRIEF
One should know that growing the bonsai is neither unique skill nor costly affair. It requires only patience and love. It is advisable to select a sapling with wide root spread, a good taper for the trunk and a nice arrangement of branches. After cleaning the sapling pot it in a shallow container and fill it with moist soil and fine sand. It is better to add suitable manure from time to time to it.
