Practice Taking Notes

College students often complain that their professors present lecture material too rapidly. While this criticism may, in part, be valid, it is also something that you as a student are unlikely to ever see change! You must therefore learn to take effective notes quickly, and like any worthwhile skill, this requires practice. You’ll certainly get plenty of practice in biology lectures, but if you’d like to practice even more, try the following technique:

Each evening, grab a pen and notepad and take notes while watching one of the national news programs. These half-hour segments are delivered at a rapid pace not unlike classroom lectures, and are full of information. Try to capture the main ideas of each story in your notes, and train yourself to filter out unnecessary detail. If you want, videotape the program and then play it back to check the accuracy of your notes.