Going back to do a postgrad and worried about my 'note-taking' abilities!

[Peonytimeguys]

I'm going back to do a postgrad, 30 years after I did my Masters. I've been working since, and I'm certainly capable of writing (that's my day job) - but I'm worried about the level of reading and making effective notes that will support me when I look back at them/have to write essays. Effective notes are not my strength.

I'm going to buy a Boox Note ereader, so i can annoate ebooks but I'm still worried.

Any thoughts welcome.

Write your notes as tables with headings:
Book/author/page no
Key factual details
How this relates to the question you are answering
How reliable the authors methods are

^ This improves the focus on the Q at hand.

I used Evernote, which isn't free anymore but there are alternatives. It is worth it for tagged, searchable notes that you can access anywhere.

Feed all your notes into an AI. It does not have to be grammatical, systematic, well punctuated or spelled. The AI will sort them into a nice logical document for you to copy, print out and turn into revision notes.

I wish there has been AIs when I was doing my PhD.

Use AI to summarise recordings or long texts, use text to speech software to read aloud to you, or the transcript feature on Teams to summarise meetings and lectures. There are so many apps now you don't need to spend ages writing or reading notes.

As a successful older postgraduate: do not use AI. It is good for generating glib (and often wrong) summaries that ensure that you personally learn nothing. The friction it removes is the necessary friction of your own intelligence doing the work.

As for notes: take them in loose-leaf by hand (look up the neurological difference in writing by hand vs typing – you retain more) and then organise and summarise them yourself when you transfer them into a notebook. Also, explain your notes to someone else out loud, ideally daily. A classmate or a spouse or even a child. Talking through them will show you at once what you still don’t fully understand.

This is really helpful. I'm definitely someone who makes notes that aren't focused enough

I do get what you're saying about Ai, but I use it in some of my commercial work and it can be incredibly helpful. The trick is to work with it and not expect to just be given content. I have to collaborate with it to refine, edit and get the content I need.

That said, I think for postgrad purposes, notes that I take will be much more impactful. I won't write handwritten notes - I write novels and I don't even write by hand during the early stages. It just doesn't work for me

At most uni's the PowerPoint slides will be available and usually uploaded to the virtual learning environment to refer back to so you don't have to make copius notes like you would in the old days.

There should be an academic skills team and they might run workshops on note taking or have self help resources on their website so definitely check what support is available. If you've been out of education for some time they will offer other support with academic writing and research skills. They may even offer workshops and support specifically for post grad students. Make use of everything on offer!

There are also many different note taking techniques such as the Cornell method which you can google. The uni may offer free access to software such as Caption.Ed which can help with note taking or mind mapping software, things like that.

Good luck!