Notes - typed, or hand-written?

Pet

When you're revising and making notes, do you think it's better to type them up and save on the computer, or to handwrite them?

Computer notes:
+Can be backed up
+Can be edited easily
+Can be accessed anywhere
+If you're like me, you can type much, much faster than you can write

-Some people are slow typers
-Distraction factor of being at a computer. Hello boards, goodbye seed dispersal. Ahem.
-Clickety clack, ouch go my wrists.

(Personally, I think RSI is for the weak.)

Handwritten notes:
+Better preparation and "muscle"/procedural memory (-John will kill me for that but he knows what I mean)
+Slows you down, forcing you to absorb the information
+Your own handwriting makes it easier to remember (? - this is what someone told me, it sounds vaguely plausible...)

-So fucking SLOW. AAARGH.
-What happens if the notes get wet/lost? Up shit creek without a paddle then, aintcha. All that effort, wasted. How sickening.

I'm far quicker at typing and would like to have notes done out that way, but I think that there's something to the idea of getting into the habit of writing out points, because that's how it's done in the exam..

Opinons and thoughts?

Sparks

How exactly do you type a mindmap faster than you can draw it? Or maths notes? Or lab equipment diagrams or UML diagrams?

Andrew 83

I always hand wrote any notes I was making.

cianclarke

I type all my notes in lectures, excluding maths.

The diagrams I hand sketch and scan them later.

Awayindahils

cianclarke wrote:

I type all my notes in lectures, excluding maths.

The diagrams I hand sketch and scan them later.

Lecture notes, what a nice concept.

i hand write my notes but thats just because I'd find it very difficult to read a book eg The Politics (yay Holidays) and type at the same time.

Also the writing it down thing shoves the information into my memory.

Troglodyte

I handwrite all my notes. I find it quicker (since I'm not the fastest typist in the world), I seem to remember the information better, and it somehow feels more natural.

However, my handwriting is about as clear as hieroglyphics at the best of times. When revising, I often despair at my notes and simply photocopy a friend's notes and use them instead. As soon as my typing improves a bit, I'll definately switch to using a laptop.

Hand written, but I wish that all diagrams were handed out on paper. Plus I had a subject last term which you came out with 5 or 6 pages of notes per lecture (and two sheets). You can't learn anything when you spend an entire lecture scribbling as fast as you can.

John

I used to hand write all my notes in the lectures and then write them out again neatly into a memorandum type book. Then I'd go through various books and journals and annotate the lecture notes with a different coloured pen. I kept the original lecture notes just in case. I tried starting computer note systems but gave up quickly as diagrams took too long and scanning was too much of a hassle (i.e. go into college, use the scanning PCs in the laser huts, remember they don't have internet access, move to another PC to access file storage and then email them home to edit into useable files, **** that). Personally I think diagrams should ALWAYS be hand drawn and then hand drawn again and again as looking over a diagram on a screen will not get it into your memory like actively sitting down and drawing it out will. I did all my neuroanatomy like this and it's still in my head after two years.

Although, if you have notes in powerpoint format from the lecturers you can't beat that. Print them out, annotate and start doing past papers with them. Get a decent sample answer for each part of the course and keep refining them until the exams.

europerson

I take handwritten notes in lectures, but they tend to be sketchy and messy. When I'm revising, I rewrite my notes in a neat and presentable format. When I do this for MT Tests, say, the same notes do me for the Annual Exams.

Nietzschean

John wrote:

....

Tablet pc...

Nietzschean

cianclarke wrote:

I type all my notes in lectures, excluding maths.

The diagrams I hand sketch and scan them later.

maths is the easiest though? ye just use latex... only problem is ever diagrams for something like mechanics..

John

Nietzschean wrote:

Tablet pc...

That sounds more expensive than a notepad and pen.

Nietzschean

John wrote:

That sounds more expensive than a notepad and pen.

aye they arn't terribly cheap afaik, but as far as computers go are quite effective for diagrams i imagine, though i've never used one.

John

Pen and paper ftw, I'm quite skilled at it now (plus you can stick your drawings on the wall for constant revision purposes).

8thor2nd?

I think the most important thing is your hand writing is perfectly legible. I take bad notes, they're often written illegibly and are just messy looking. So rewriting stuff into electronic format has some merits. Obviously it's time consuming, regardless of how fast you type (unless of course, your notes are easily structures and you're typing them on the fly).

Sparks

Nietzschean wrote:

maths is the easiest though? ye just use latex...

As great as LaTeX is, it's not designed to take notes on the fly. Which means that no matter how fast you are at typing, someone just writing down the equation is always going to be faster.

Nietzschean

Sparks wrote:

As great as LaTeX is, it's not designed to take notes on the fly. Which means that no matter how fast you are at typing, someone just writing down the equation is always going to be faster.

it varies depending on how fast the lecturer is pumping out the equations, and how similar they are, i could keep up with about 80% of lecturers normally in latex.... though then i stopped going to lectures...

nervous_twitch

I just don't take notes. Its quickest!

*But seriously, I'm the worst note taker ever. Completely illegible, really only a quarter of what was there cuz I'm so slow, and usually written in a copy that ends up in some bin somewhere

Nietzschean

I gave up taking notes years ago, i discovered that one of my m8's notes are easier for me to read than my own...... every few months i photocopy her notes, worked well

book smarts

When I was in college we had to write all notes by hand off the blackboard/overhead, with some handouts. It was such a stupid, inefficient system.

The lecturers refused to give us printed notes because of some notion that we'd skip lectures. We skipped them anyway! We ended up frantically photocopying notes at years end.

Lectures were spent tiring your hand out instead of actually learning/understanding stuff. The lecturers should be ashamed of themselves. Nowadays you can just download them. You don't know how lucky you have it!

Sparks

I think you're confusing the word "lecturer" with the word "teacher". College isn't secondary school...

shortnick

book smarts wrote:

When I was in college we had to write all notes by hand off the blackboard/overhead, with some handouts. It was such a stupid, inefficient system.

The lecturers refused to give us printed notes because of some notion that we'd skip lectures. We skipped them anyway! We ended up frantically photocopying notes at years end.

Lectures were spent tiring your hand out instead of actually learning/understanding stuff. The lecturers should be ashamed of themselves. Nowadays you can just download them. You don't know how lucky you have it!

It's still like that in Maths today!