Taking notes while you read

[Chiqui74]

I have a professor this semester who is requiring the submission of the notes we take on certain readings as part of our writing assignments.  She desn't have a guideline as to how the notes must be written, she just wants to see how we take notes while reading (we are in the humanities) and perhaps see how we arrive at some of our conclusions on the readings.  Her only stipulation is that she does not want 20 pages of regurgitated stuff.  I get it but I've never had to submit notes before and my notes are usually taken on the margins of books and I don't think she'd be able to make sense of them without reading the particular passage side by side.

 

Have you ever had to do something similar?  Do you take notes in a way that makes sense to anyone and not just you?  I've tried to take notes on the current reading in a way that I can submit to her but it's turning out to be pretty long!

[wildviolet]

You could try Cornell notes. It's split into three sections, and the part that might be most helpful to your instructor is the summary at the bottom, where you write about the section you read and took notes on in your own words.

[Nerd_For_Life]

I've never had a prof request something like that. Is it worth marks? You could always meet with her and ask her what she is looking for and show her an example of how you regularly take notes.

[Chiqui74]

Yes, it is worth points.  It's a reading seminar so there are no major papers, we write short reflection papers, some notes, etc. but the bulk of the work is reading.

[MsDarjeeling]

I've had to do this for a few of my classes and I didn't alter my personal note taking style at all.  If I'm reading a textbook I tend to use post it notes.  If I've printed an article I tend to highlight, write in the margins, and use post it notes.  When reading something online I write in a notebook.  So what did I turn in?  Well I just typed up all of my post its and scribbles in a bullet point style or short paragraphs, whichever seemed more appropriate for the thoughts that I had. 

 

It might help to think of this type of assignment as keeping a journal.  There isn't a right or wrong.  You just note what you agree with and why, what you disagree with and why, if anything reminds you of something you've learned/read/heard elsewhere, what doesn't make sense, any connections to that classes lecture/discussion, etc.

[Tupacalypse]

Could you photocopy a couple of pages of your notes from the book (if you write in the margins) and turn that in as your proof? You could do this along with a short synopsis of your notes as well.

[Chiqui74]

Thanks!  We have to do this a few times this semester so I'm going to go with bullet points with very short explanations/comments for the first assignemnt and lets see how it goes.

[Jean20]

I did take notes during my college days. What I did was to highlight the most important points in my books, then transfer those points in my notebooks. I just paraphrased those points. You can try that. I hope it will work for you.

 

All the best.