<p>What do most college students do? Do you have so much reading to do that you don't have time to take notes on it? Is it better to just read the textbook and use highlighters to mark what's important that you would normally write down? might be a dumb question, and depends on the person, but I'm wondering what people think the norm is, if there is one.</p>
<p>Well…it depends really, mostly I have found that taking notes is better because that is what the professor is saying so it will most likely end up being more helpful to know.</p>
<p>Depends on the person. I’m a tactile learner, so writing out outlines of the textbook helps me retain the information, but a lot of my friends highlight their books. Personal preference.</p>
<p>Highlighting is easier, but I think taking notes is better if you want to really get the information in your head. I heard that taking notes helps students even if they don’t actually go back and look at their notes. But I only heard that; I never saw it proven or disproven. But it seems like it would be true.</p>
<p>If you want to sell your books back, I wouldn’t advise highlighting. I took notes on the mandatory reading and did just fine in class.</p>
<p>
That all depends on the college, so I would advise checking with the bookstore about that. The bookstore at my college accepts books back unless they’re ruined. I had highlighted and annotated sections throughout all of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War and Herodotus’ Histories, and pretty much all of my other books, Logic included.</p>
<p>I highlight as I read and take notes during lecture and class. However, there is no norm. Just like in high school, you can choose whatever is most effective for you.</p>
<p>I take detailed and good notes in class and simply read the required material before class.</p>
<p>so many of these threads ask questions that simply do not have a solid single answer. it’s all person-to-person. I personally just take notes when I read, if that. Usually I do what Vihzel does and that works for me. If it’s very dense material I’ll do notes while reading but I pretty much never highlight stuff.</p>
<p>I never highlight because I always get mixed answers when I ask at bookstores about highlighting. Plus I get carried away with highlighting and want to highlight everything that seems the least bit important, lol. </p>
<p>I usually take notes, and they’re usually way too detailed which makes reading take forever. I’m learning to be better at just reading and then making sure I understand what I just read. I also usually take detailed notes during class as well.</p>
<p>Selling back to Amazon which gives a lot more money than college bookstores (often double) will reject more easily with highlighting.</p>
<p>Personally, I never take notes when reading…ever. Never did so in high school or now college, but I also have a really good memory so to each his own. In college, I do my assigned reading and then take good notes in class - even if they may go over the same things in class, it doesn’t hurt. Then when it comes to test time, I have a book of notes from class and the reading (hopefully) somewhat confined to memory. I review what I need to from the reading beforehand.</p>
<p>I read and highlight what I think is important information. I never take notes when I read.</p>
<p>When I actually do the readings (last semester was a huge failure on my part), I usually read the section first. Sometimes I will highlight majors points but I do go overboard sometimes with highlighting. I never really take notes unless I missed a class discussion about a certain topic. For me taking notes takes up a lot of time and my handwriting does get sloppier and sloppier as the time goes by. If I do take notes it usually happens on my laptop.</p>
<p>One thing though - I am reading this book on the Kindle App (since I was too lazy to go to the store and buy one and impatient) and highlightng is so easy there. It is unbelievable.</p>
<p>I never take notes. If I take notes, it’s just for peace of mind and I’ll never read them. I don’t highlight textbooks, but I do read them. It depends on the class though, AND the professeur teaching the class. For the professors that teach straight out of the textbook, taking notes is a waste of energy. And obviously, notes are important for the classes in which note-taking is important. And maybe for the classes where the textbook is atrocious. I can’t wait until iluvpiano finally starts college.</p>
<p>
I do the same thing. It ends up being useless because I just have WAY too many notes. I can never tell what’s actually important because sometimes obscure details can be the difference between two answers on a test.</p>
<p>This is why I forever love teachers who use PowerPoint slides.</p>
<p>
Sorry for my many questions and thanks for your help on everything, sorry I just have lots of college questions on my mind!</p>
<p>“Sorry for my many questions and thanks for your help on everything, sorry I just have lots of college questions on my mind!”</p>
<p>You’re obviously either very excited or have a lot of anxiety about college- or both. Just take a deep breath, it will be okay! Hundreds of other freshman at your school are going through the same thing, and within a couple of weeks college life will be no big deal.</p>
<p>Excited and have anxiety…I just like to have everything planned out when I do something and know exactly how it’s going to work. Go-with-the-flow doesn’t work for me.</p>
<p>I don’t highlight or take notes, usually. There was one class I had where highlighting was helpful (and then I wrote down what was highlighted in my own words later on) and that helped me understand a lot. Usually I don’t want to highlight much though, because then you can’t always sell it back later.</p>
<p>“Excited and have anxiety…I just like to have everything planned out when I do something and know exactly how it’s going to work. Go-with-the-flow doesn’t work for me.”</p>
<p>I used to be the exact same way, and I still kind of am. Then I realized my expectations were always too high because I thought I knew exactly what to expect, so if the slightest thing went wrong I would be really disappointed and would think everything was hopeless. So now I’ve learned to be way better about just waiting to see what will happen. Worrying about every little detail is usually never worth it.</p>