Originally Posted by lorend

You retain better when you write things down. It's a method of studying.

Not necessarily true! It depends on what type of learner you are (Auditory, Visual, Kinesthetic).

Though reading/writing notes is a great way for visual/kinesthetic learners to retain information, it's actually been shown to cause auditory learners to perform more poorly, and retain less information when they re-copy notes. Of course for such students, reading your notes aloud and listening to the sound of your voice are the method of choice.

personally i don't take down any notes....i just read the topics off the textbooks and practice the sums on my own....i come for the lecture and listen with max concentration and try understanding the concepts.....but i just purchased an audio recording device which i am going to try out this monday....i'll let u know how helpful it is...

I quit taking notes after i wrote my very first midterm and realized i didn't look back at a single note I had taken.

Most professors are nothing more than glorified audiobooks, teaching from the textbook verbatim. If you own the textbook and are literate, you have all the information you need at your disposal. In the event they actually have some sort of interest in teaching and add their own knowledge, you might have to read the lecture notes, which are posted online 99% of the time anyway.

Listen in lectures, read and write at home. Your brain doesn't do both very well.

Originally Posted by ViktorVaughn

I quit taking notes after i wrote my very first midterm and realized i didn't look back at a single note I had taken.

Most professors are nothing more than glorified audiobooks, teaching from the textbook verbatim. If you own the textbook and are literate, you have all the information you need at your disposal. In the event they actually have some sort of interest in teaching and add their own knowledge, you might have to read the lecture notes, which are posted online 99% of the time anyway.

Listen in lectures, read and write at home. Your brain doesn't do both very well.

That's not true at all. It depends on your course...a lot of Humanities and Soc Sci courses aren't like that. The textbook is meant to supplement but is not considered as important than what is being lectured.

I take notes now only so that I don't fall asleep in class. Most of my profs exclusively test on stuff from the textbook or lecture notes.

But to reiterate what lorend said, this is different for other faculties like Humanities.

Originally Posted by lorend

That's not true at all. It depends on your course...a lot of Humanities and Soc Sci courses aren't like that. The textbook is meant to supplement but is not considered as important than what is being lectured.

I also have to add that from my experience in third and now fourth year, this is also not the case for most science courses... at this point (especially for the courses I'm taking) we're learning material almost strictly from the professor's knowledge, and we only use the textbook as a starting point for research or homework.

Let's also not forget that everyone is different, and whatever works best for one person may not work at all for another.