Monday, January 4, 2010

Topic: Notetaking Skills

10-second review: ‘Literally no one teaches notetakin skills…taking and using notes.”


Title: “Notetaking Habits for College Students.” RA Palmatier and JM Bennett. Journal of Reading (December 1974), 215-218. The Journal of Reading was the secondary school publication for the International Reading Association (IRA), since replaced by the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy.


Summary/Quote: “Only thirty-seven of the 223 students surveyed (17 percent) reported having received any formal instruction in the skills of note taking. Further, in most cases the instruction was of extremely short duration, thirty minutes or less, and was in effect more warning as to the necessity for taking notes rather than instruction on how to do so. High school English teachers usually provided whatever instruction the respondents had received.”


Comment: The Walter Pauk or Cornell system of note taking is, for me, the most useful with 8 ½” x ll” paper. The left hand margin is 2 ½” , the note taking space is 6” and the bottom margin is 2”. The left margin is for brief key words drawn from the lengthier notes in the 6” section. The bottom margin is for a summary of the notes on that page. Allows for both taking and using the notes with key words in the left margin and the summary at the bottom. Rays. (How to Study in College. Third Edition. Walter Pauk. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984.)

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