Lee’s Daily Blog

This post is for Thursday, 29th January, 2009

Notes - by Mark Brady

It’s the first week of the new semester at university. It means it’s time for new modules, new lecturers and new methods of receiving notes. I think between all my modules this semester, I cover all possible methods of receiving / taking notes.

• There is the traditional lecturer who speaks and puts notes up on the board, but it’s up to us to take notes as nothing is published after the lecture.
• I also have the lecturer who has given us everything in advance, essentially minimizing the need to go to lectures if we didn’t want to.
• The other method is to give us all of the basic notes in advance, but miss out proofs and examples, requiring us to go the lectures to get these.
• Finally there are the lectures where you take notes during them, however, at the end of the week the majority of the notes are published online.

Now each of these methods have their own advantages and disasvantages.

The major advantage to any of those who publish notes is that if you have to miss a lecture, for whatever reason – illness, being lazy, job interview etc. You are able to easily catch up after the lecture, without having to borrow a friend’s notes, which may be inaccurate.

The other advantage to published notes is that they are generally very accurate. I have always taken hand written notes for my maths lectures, however, when it comes to revision, I prefer to use notes of the lecturer’s I have printed. Why? Usually it ensures that I have got the right proof written down (rather than accidentally missing an alpha out, for example). They are also easier to read than my own handwriting – perhaps this suggests I need to look at changing my handwriting.

The disadvantage to having published notes however, is that it can make you lazy. If I have printed notes in front of me, I find it much easier to switch off during the lecture. I also find that I am slightly more likely to miss a lecture if I know that it won’t really effect the notes I have.

The advantage to having to take hand written notes, either with or without printed notes alongside is that it forces you to pay attention to what the lecturer says. It also means, that if they deviate from what they have written down – either explain it in a different or easier way, or give an additional example, you have these additional notes written down, ready to use when revising.

Personally, I prefer having printed notes available for all my modules. However, I always force myself to take written notes anyway. I find it causes me to learn the subject material a bit easier and insures I have a complete set of notes.