dragonbook

25 UNIT IV NOTE WELL HOW TO NOTE WELL SUGGESTIONS ON TAKING CLASS NOTES Most students that make it to the college level have developed pretty good study skills in high school, even if they don’t always use them. They usually know how to write acceptable essays, do basic library research, make proper use of their textbooks, and so forth. But one skill most of them don’t have on entering colleges is the ability to take good lecture notes. This is a particularly great problem since many students don’t even know that they don’t know how to take good lecture notes. Often, they don’t realize their notes are inadequate until they start preparing for their midterm exams—and, sometimes, not until they get the exams back. At Northern in particular, the ability to take good lecture notes is a must. Most students here prefer to learn from lectures rather than textbooks, and most of the professors have adapted to this learning preference. Most of their exams emphasize greatly material covered in class— and, sometimes, at least, this material is not covered in the textbook. Even if the material is covered in the textbook, your professors will generally do a much better job making clear to you what the material means and why it is important. Further, your professors’ interpretations of the material will frequently differ from that of the textbook authors. And they’re not wrong—at least, not always! Your professors generally have expertise in their subject areas at least as great as that of the textbook authors, and they, naturally enough, tend to favor their own interpretation of things to that of the textbook. Further, they’re often not even aware that they are presenting material that differs from that in the text. Some professors don’t even read the textbooks they assign.