Note taking can be a very effective basis of your assignment. By analysing the assignment and creating a mind map of the main ideas of the task you can then select and organise your notes under the headings from the mindmap.
Ideas for effective note taking include:
- Read the text first to get a good overview and then take notes on the second read.
- Record the information that relates to your assignment.
- Use headings in your notes. It will make it easier to skim later.
- Record the information in dot points of no more than one or two sentences.
When taking notes
- Summarise the information into dot points without looking at the text
- Note important people, dates, events and places
- Collect quotes to use later
- At this point record the bibliographic information for later use.
- Make sure you look up the meaning of any words you don't understand and record the definition in your notes.