Updated and revised edition
    As every student quickly learns, merely sitting through a class and paying attention is usually not sufficient to ensure good grades. The proper taking of good notes is essential. Note-Taking Made Easy tells why the student should take his or her own notes (rather than buying them or taping lectures), and tells exactly how to determine what is worth noting, whether during a lecture, classroom discussion, even from a book or during a meeting.
     The authors describe the two most successful methods of organizing notes—outlining and patterning—and provide shortcuts to really make note-taking easy, from shorthand devices to abbreviations.
     Special sections are devoted to taking notes from texts, fiction as well as nonfiction, and handling charts, graphs, and photos. A final chapter shows how to tie together notes from various sources.

This STUDY SMART reference guide series, designed for students from junior high school through lifelong learning programs, teaches skills for research and note-taking, presents strategies for test-taking and studying, provides exercises to improve spelling, grammar, and vocabulary, and reveals secrets for putting these skills together in great essays.

• Contents 
• 1. 
• There's No Substitute for Taking Your Own Good Notes
• Note-Taking Helps You Pay Attention
• Note-Taking Helps You Remember
• Good Note-Taking Helps Organize Ideas
• 2. 
• How to Tell What's Worth Noting
• Criteria for Deciding What's Worth Preserving
• 1. 
• Category: What Type of Information Is It?
• 2. 
• Relevance: Does the Information Relate to the Topic?
• 3. 
• Importance: Do You Need the Information?
• 4. 
• Personal Bias: Do You Want to Remember the Information?
• Aids That Put Your Notes in Perspective
• 1. 
• Buy, Borrow, or Make a Course Outline
• 2. 
• Start Learning the Course Jargon
• 3. 
• How to Organize Notes
• How to Use Outline Form
• How to Work Outline Form into a Memory Clue System
• How to Use Patterning to Organize Notes
• 4. 
• Shortcuts for Note-Taking
• Use of Shorthand for Quicker Note-Taking
• 5. 
• Taking Notes from Assigned Text
• Learn How to Read for a Course
• 1. 
• How to Skim
• How to Take Notes from Fiction
• How to Take Textbook Notes
• 1. 
• Size Up the Textbook
• 2. 
• Systematize Your Note-Taking with OK4R
• How to Take Notes on Nontextbook Nonfiction
• Learn How to Write in Your Books
• 1. 
• Use the Margin—Sparingly
• 2. 
• Note Significant Pages in the Front Inside Cover
• 3. 
• Put Important Data at the End of the Book A Word about Other Note-Taking Systems
• 6. 
• Taking Lecture Notes
• Listening vs. Reading
• Organize Your Tools
• Keep Your Course Outline Handy
• Keep Your Mind from Wandering
• 1. 
• Choose a Seat Carefully
• 2. 
• Avoid Friends
• 3. 
• Keep Lecture and Personal Matters Separate
• 4. 
• Stay Awake, Stay Alert
• Catch the Lecturer's Clues
• 1. 
• Relate the Lecture to Your Assigned Reading
• 2. 
• Keep Track of Time
• 3. 
• Listen for Speaking Style
• 4. 
• Keep Alert for the Lecturer's Special Words
• 7. 
• Taking Research Notes
• Preparing a Preliminary Outline
• Listing Research Questions
• Using Good Note-Taking Tools
• 1. 
• Prepare a Work File
• 2. 
• Prepare Bibliography Blanks
• 3. 
• Key Your Notes to the Bibliography Blanks
• 4. 
• Note Which Page Numbers Your Notes Came From
• 5. 
• Key Each Photocopy
• Keeping Notes Legible
• Taking Adequate Notes
• 8. 
• Taking Minutes of Meetings
• Appendix A: Notes on Chapter 1
• Appendix B: Practice in Analyzing Information and Taking Notes on Lectures
• Appendix C: Course Outline for “Methods of Note-Taking”
• Appendices D and E: Speech Outline and Speech Clue Words
• Appendix F: Shorthand Notes on Chapter 4
• Appendix G: “Agent X” Research Questions