<p>Since my high school life, I used to take very detailed notes on science and mathematics courses; now I am a college freshman, and I have trouble on note-taking methods in science and mathematics courses. Right now, I am taking thermodynamics-based chemistry, analytical chemistry, and calculus courses. I take detailed notes on Professor's lecture and the corresponding textbooks, and I also integrate the lecture and textbook notes. In calculus and analytical chemistry courses, I always try to copy all the examples and solutions to my notes. I know that the purpose of note-taking is to choose and copy only the essential information, but I feel like that everything in the textbook and lecture are all essential information. Even though my Professors based their exams on the lecture information, I can not stop myself from taking very detailed notes on the textbooks. I even bought the published Study Guide books that correspond my textbooks, which made the problem worse by urging myself to copy notes from the Study Guide too. </p>
<p>What is the best method in note-taking on science and mathematics courses?</p>
<p>Personally, I find that I can either learn or take notes, but can’t do both simultaneously. So I don’t take notes, and just sit and listen. May not work for you but try it once.</p>
<p>Just take notes of the important definitions/theorems. When copying example solutions, don’t write every single step – write down enough so that you can figure out the rest on your own time.</p>
<p>Take notes in class. Read your textbooks at home/in the library. I usually annotate my textbook for extra clarification if something in the writing isn’t as clear as I want it to be.</p>
<p>For science classes if your profs are using powerpoints for lecture just use those as the basis for your notes. Only write down important things that you’ll think you’ll need to focus on later and such. Then just read the chapter in the book and study the pp slides in conjunction with the couple things you deemed important in your notes. Spend the rest of your time in class really listening to what your prof is saying, instead of having your head buried in your note book. </p>
<p>For math, I do take a ton of notes, but certainly not from the book. I only use the book to do more problems or to try and clarify something I didn’t understand from class.</p>
<p>What approach you take depends somewhat on what the professor covers and puts on their exams. For example, in my freshman biology class the professor covered everything in his slides that we needed to know. At the start of the semester I tried to do very thorough readings of the textbook, but I quickly realized this was a timesuck and didn’t gain me anything. I then mostly used the book for clarification of what the professor covered in his slides.</p>
<p>Figuring out what’s important and worth taking notes on in a textbook is a skill you will learn throughout your courses. It’s hard to explicitly explain it, and it depends on the course and your individual learning style. I tended to overstudy and take more notes than necessary at the start of college (though I still take a lot of notes).</p>
<p>If it’s really bad, I suggest reading the textbook (it may look like Chinese) before going to class. If you don’t think you are able to learn anything from the textbook beforehand because it’s too complicated, just skim the sections and just try to figure out the type of stuff the lecture is over. Alternatively, you can bring the book with you to class and just put it on your lap or something while taking paper notes on your desk. The key is that if the teacher is saying something specifically from the book, don’t write anything down and just look up and pay attention while occasionally looking down at your book when needed. Anything not from your book, then you should probably try to write it. I write as fast as I can and just neat enough so that I can read it. The speed in which I write and my ability to efficiently concise my notes gives me enough time to be able to both take notes and understand the lecture (but I’m a math major so this is easier for me). After class, review your notes to see if the stuff makes sense, look back over the sections of the book that your lecture was just over, and then look at the homework problems. If you look at the homework problems and don’t understand anything, you may need to go to office hours.</p>
<p>Once again, thank you very much for all helpful suggestions!</p>
<p>Do you usually read the textbook or required materials in science and mathematics courses? I know that my professors do based their exams and quizzes on their lectures, but some portions of the exams and other in-grade works are based on the textbook (this is what I fear if I do not read the textbook).</p>
<p>I see that many students taking science and mathematics courses usually do not read the textbook (except for reference and problems) but is it really okay not to read the textbooks? I somehow cannot abandon the idea that the textbook teaches the material intensely.</p>
<p>I honestly can say I rarely cracked open my textbooks in 4 years as a bio major. I only opened my math texts for problems/homework, and I only opened my chem texts when I needed extra examples or an alternative way of explaining something</p>
<p>All of my professors said ‘oh, I’ll test you over things in the book’ but none ever did. If they provide slides, what is on those slides and in the lectures is what’s important</p>