Become a Straight-A Student #1 - 10/9/2017: How To Take AMAZING Notes!

Good afternoon guys! Thank you for reading my first official post on Steemit. I will start with a new chapter, Become a Straight-A Student. In this chapter, I will teach you all how to excel in your studying whether you're in 2nd grade, 7th grade, or 12th grade. I hope you will find this somewhat useful. Be sure to upvote if you learned something, and comment any ideas! Thanks for reading!

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Today we will be talking about: Taking Good Notes

If you ever had a pop quiz to study for but you didn't take notes, you are in the right place. Today you will learn to take great notes with these 3 super easy steps. Pay attention!

#1: Clearly label your title

This is pretty self-explanatory, but if you don't know what you are taking notes on, how are you going to take notes? Be sure to label your titles clearly. I like to write the date and the unit we are currently working on as well. You can also write down your essential question, most teachers will have one for every unit.

In the picture above, you can see that I clearly wrote the title and the essential question. The title is in a different color than the notes, so you instantly know when you skim through your notes.

The essential question and the subtitles/headers are also clearly highlighted, so you can read them.

#2: Write in phrases

When you write looonnngg complicated sentences, you won't get to the point, and it's hard to read. It's also time-consuming to write, and not very practical. Make sure to get to the point and write short 3 word phrases.

For example, if your sentence was:

The Southwestern United States (also known as the American Southwest) is the informal name for a region of the western United States.

You could shorten it down to:

Southwestern US/American Southwest = informal name for the west USA.

In this example, we shorten down a long sentence to a short one. Make sure to use things like arrows, bullet points, and dashes to add visuals to your notes.

In the picture above, I separated the different crops/foods from each state in the US by using a T-chart. (Sorry if the handwriting isn't great, lol!)

#3: Use colours!

When you colour your notes, it makes it much easier to read the different sections. You can also highlight important parts if you are working out of a textbook. Just be sure to use darker colours when writing notes so you can see them clearly.

In the example picture, you can see I highlighted the important words in orange highlighter. I filled in the downstrokes on the headings so they would stand out, and my eyes would be drawn to the titles first. Notice how your eyes first are attracted to the drawing on the right of the image, since that is an important part of the notes I am doing. You want to make sure you make important pieces stand out.

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That is all for now. Thank you for reading and good luck in school with these tips on note-taking! I hope they helped. If they did, please upvote and leave a comment. I worked really hard on this. Please remember I am only a child and my spelling/grammar might not be perfect.

Stay awesome,

Jayden

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DISCLAIMER: Most of the writing on this page was done by my sister, Kayla, but ideas are my own. I also used her notes since she has AMAZING handwriting. Thank you for you help Kayla! Thanks for reading! ~ Jayden