Summarising & note-taking

A.       Main reasons for note-taking:

a)       When you are reading or listening, taking notes helps you concentrate. In order to take notes - to write something sensible - you must understand the text. As listening and reading are interactive tasks, taking notes help you make sense of the text. Taking notes does not mean writing down every word you hear; you need to actively decide what is important and how is related to what you have already written.

b)       Notes help you to maintain a permanent record of what you have read or listened to. This is useful when revising in the future for examinations or other reasons.

c)        When you’re going through a lengthy chapter it’s necessary to take notes as in the revision of lengthy chapters note making saves time.

B.       How to take notes

a)       Read the passage carefully.

b)       Underline the main points with a pencil

c)        When you're reading, first survey the text to find the main points and how they are related. Then read for the subsidiary points; see how they are related to the main points and to each other. Then, reduce the points to notes. Make sure links and relationships between the ideas are shown.

d)       Organizing the thoughts-    

Listing the points : The topic is summarised one point after another, using numbers and letters and indentation to organise information in order of importance.

The numbers and letters can be used by themselves or in combination.

         I.            I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X,

        II.            A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I,

      III.            1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,8,9,10,

      IV.            (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x),

       V.            a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i,

Or using decimals:

1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1, 1.2.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3

e.        Listing includes following points

         I.            Heading
What is the main idea of the passage? Frame a heading based on the central idea and write it in the middle of the page.

        II.            Subheadings
How has the main idea been presented and developed? Are there two or three subordinate/associated ideas? You can frame subheadings based on these.

      III.            Points
Are there further details or points of the subtitles that you wish to keep in these notes? Indent, i.e., suitably space and number.

      IV.            Indenting
All points should also maintain the same distance away from the margin.

       V.            Abbreviations

Use standard abbreviations and symbols as far as possible:

Capitalizing first letters of
e.g. U.P.,U.S.A.,U.K.,U.S.S.R.,etc.

Common abbreviations
Sc. (for science), Mr., Mrs., Dr., Govt., etc

Common symbols
e.g., : \, ∴ , +ve, -ve, ® (leading to), ↑ (rising), ↓ (falling), =, etc.

Measurements and Figures
e.g., : 100′, 100”, 100 kg, 1000 mm, 100ml, etc.

Making your own abbreviations:

Keep the main sounds of the word. For example, edn. (education), progm. (programme)

Retain the suffix so that later when you are going over the notes you may recall the full form of the word —e.g., ed’nal (educational), prog’ve (progressive).

Caution

Do not get over-enthusiastic about abbreviations. You should not abbreviate every word. One abbreviation in point is enough.

As a general rule, the heading should not be abbreviated. You may use abbreviations in subheadings

Key

Write all abbreviated words in a box

Split up of Marks
Note making (5) Summary (3)
Title: 1 Content: 3
Key to Abreviations: 1
Content: 2
Expresion: 1