<p>I am a current college freshman taking a general chemistry course (leaned toward physical chemistry). The problem is that I take way too detailed notes; I called my note-taking skill an "integrated notebook", which incorporates the professor's & TA's lectures, readings from the textbook, and other handouts. However, I found this method very time-consuming. I often take very detailed notes, which the note-taking itself takes like three hours to do. Mt chem textbook has a summary at the end of each chapter, and I just write everything down to my notebook. So I was thinking of actually taking notes on my chemistry textbook (I do not intend to sell it; I want to keep the textbook as a reference). Does anyone writes their notes on the textbook instead of writing on the notebook? I just want to read the textbook before lecture and take notes of the lectures on the textbook as needed. Is writing on the chem textbook more effective than taking notes on the separate notebook?</p>
<p>By the way, the chem textbook I am talking about is Oxtoby's Principles of Modern Chemistry, which I supplement it with Atkin's Chemical Principles: the Quest for Insight.</p>
<p>Personally I wouldn’t. But everyone is different.</p>
<p>Why do you need to copy things out of the textbook? If you want to make important points stand out, highlight them in the textbook. You can keep notes organized by putting little reminders in your notes too, such as “further info.-ideal gas properties- pg 128” or something like that. It shouldn’t take that long to organize your notes. I’m in general chemistry right now, and I spend a couple hours a week studying for it/reviewing notes at the most. I’m getting a very solid A in it right now. Everyone will of course be different in those regards.</p>
<p>One of the best used textbooks I ever bought was a thermo text that had all of the “as we already know, X = Y” with full derivations done by the previous owner in the margins.</p>
<p>I could see taking notes in the book as a good way to highlight the most important things if you’d ever come back to it later. Just remember to be judicious with your notes and markings, so everything in the book is a worthwhile note.</p>
<p>Thank you for the replies!
I feel like I lose my concentration whenever I copy thing from my textbook to the notebook, or even worse when I switched the readings from the notebook to the textbook and vice versa. Do you think it is feasible to read the portions of the textbook before the corresponding lectures and just take notes of the professor’s lecture on the margins of the textbook? I see a lot of students take notes from their textbooks on their notebooks, but I feel like it is a waste of time since most textbooks have good summaries too.</p>
<p>I think it really depends on your learning style. I am a very visual learner, so for me it’s good to be able to highlight in the book and write all over it. It helps me to connect my thoughts to those in the book, and later I can picture the page in my head and see how it fits together.</p>
<p>Everyone is different, though. Try a few things out and figure out what works for you. Freshman year of college is a great time for this.</p>
<p>I’ve seen students in classes taking notes directly in the textbook (or other reading for the class). It’s definitely not unheard of, and if it works for you, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t do it. Just try it out to see if it works. That’s the only way you’ll know if it’s a good idea or not.</p>
<p>Also, if you find that you’re losing your concentration when taking notes or reading your textbook, try to summarize what you have read after you finish a section. Just repeat to yourself in your own words (or write it down) what where the important points of what you just read. If you can’t remember, read that section again and specifically pick out what you think are important points. That sometimes helps me remember to pay attention when I’m reading something really boring.</p>
<p>Thank you very much for all of your suggestions!</p>
<p>Do you also feel like that you are losing concentration whenever you take a notes on the readings? The main reason I decided to take notes on the textbooks is that I usually lose the “flow” of materials whenever I copy the information down…</p>
<p>When you copy the information down, are you actually thinking about what your reading and writing, or are you just mindlessly copying it into a notebook? You may be losing track of things because you’re just trying to write everything down but you’re not really processing the information. Instead of copying everything down word-for-word, try to reading a section and then paraphrasing it in your notebook. Write it down in your own words (without looking at the textbook) or try to just write down the key points, instead of every word the textbook has. Actually think about what you are reading, and maybe you will be able to follow the text better. If you find yourself losing the “flow” of things, go back and re-read it until you can process it. Perhaps, you could think about how you would explain the section to someone else (or actually practice explaining it to a roommate or a friend). If you understand it to the point where you can explain it to someone else, odds are, you understand it fairly well.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t because I am nit-picky about all my books being in excellent condition and I feel like taking notes or highlighting in them “vandalizes” them. It would be slightly more convenient than writing “page such-and-such, paragraph such-and-such” followed by my notes or quote in a separate notebook, but not enough of a convenience to justify writing in the book in my mind. But if it doesn’t bother you and you want to, more power to you. Be sure you don’t want to sell the textbook when you’re done with it before you do, though.</p>
<p>I take notes in class, but I never look at them again. I don’t take notes to bring to class because it’s useless. The class notes are reference material if I ever somehow needed to know what my teacher might’ve done.</p>
<p>If it is a joke class that just requires reading and writing papers, I will just read the material.
If it is a hard class, I will go through the chapters, write down the examples they give and get all the steps in between, really try to understand what they’re doing…write down the definitions, theorems, etc. Then start doing the problems for the homework. I’ll study the homework, I’ll study the quizzes I’ve taken, I’ll see if I can reproduce the results and if I can’t I’ll look back over the material and try to again. Take the first midterm, see how that one was structured, and then gauge how much more studying I’ll do. But I would consider what I do very minimal preparation.</p>
<p>Rather than meticulously writing down notes from the text book, I’d recommend you just do more homework problems. Things will stick much better than just from reading over notes again and again, and it’s easier to see the purpose behind what you learn.</p>
<p>I sometimes revisit my calc book because I forgot something. I sure as hell and not selling it for <$10, which is probably what I would get now (even sans writing). I write scribbles and what not in it when I am trying to figure something out. </p>
<p>But what you are saying sounds like it wouldn’t work well. At least not for me. But, if it has been working for you and you don’t mind not selling your text books, I don’t see why not?</p>