A Table-of-Contents Approach to Notetaking
One branch of my research agenda is dedicated to understanding how postsecondary contexts promote (or hinder) learning, growth, and development. I spend a lot of time thinking about pedagogy, teaching, and learning. While much of this is about the mechanics of the everyday teaching practices of faculty and co-curricular educators, there is still much skill development in reading, writing, and processing information left undone. This is not out of malice; it is caked into a group of people who believe “well, this person did well in the previous level of schooling, so they must be equipped for the next round.” We assume this for all sorts of skills.
At the graduate level, these assumptions can leave students vulnerable to thinking that what got them through high school, undergrad, or previous graduate experiences will be sufficient for this one. And I call shade! All college-level instructors — especially graduate faculty — must spend the time (re-)teaching students good habits to read, process, write about, and interrogate sources.
The focus of this post is on notetaking. Whether through Post-It’s, on our phones, or that fifth unnecessary spiral-bound composition book, notes are pervasive in our lives. We often first learn the practice of notetaking in education contexts. Many understand notetaking to be an important activity related to learning. Yet, even as someone who studies education, no one has ever taught me practical ways to take notes. The process has been one of trial and error for me. Below, I share one notetaking processes that have been helpful to me as a student.
The Components of a Table-of-Contents Approach
In humanities and social science graduate seminars, it is exceedingly rare to be asked to remember something from a text without any ability to reference said text. In long-haul discussions of concepts, the aim is not to have everything from the texts memorized. Instead, the goal is to understand different authors’ viewpoints, perspectives, and arguments about the concept(s) under discussion. Instead of trying to remember everything from a text, I use my notetaking as a way to create a table of contents (TOC) of the week’s texts.
A TOC approach helps you as a learner view notes as a tool for your discussion rather than a memorization technique. Rather than thinking you must know every part of every text — especially for instructors who like to go with the flow of a class’s discussion whims — this approach allows your past self to help your current self.
So, what does this process look like? I take most of my notes by hand. It helps me slow down to better understand what I am writing or absorbing. I also do not write my notes while I am reading. I first finish reading a text in its entirety (or all the texts of a week) and then begin the notetaking process. Having a sense of what is in each text helps me think about potential important points to capture through the TOC process. When I am ready to take my notes, I title the page with the week of class and write each work (by author) in a different color at the top. This step helps me create a key or legend for all the notes. I have provided an example below in Image 1.
For my “Higher Education Finance” class, we discussed federal student aid in week 8. We engaged in five different texts. I wrote each author or group of authors in a different color. I will use the same colors to refer to those texts in subsequent notes. You can see this written out in Image 1 above.
Then, I start with one reading and begin writing my notes. Often, I will look to the syllabus for the focus of the week’s discussion. Some faculty members simply list the general topic; others frame the week in terms of a question or learning outcomes. That can serve as a guide for what to focus on. Absent these things, I often ask myself the following when taking notes:
- What are some of the big understandings you need to make sense of from the readings?
- If the authors of the week’s readings came together for a discussion, what would they talk about? What would they agree on? Where would they have disagreements? What is the source of those disagreements?
- What arguments or points in the text have stuck with me for good or gnawing reasons?
- What do I have questions that I can generously ask my peers to think about with me?
In the image above, you will see that my first text of the week is three chapters from Patel (2016). I first write all my notes from that source before moving on to another source. Also, notice in image 2 that the notes are often not complete sentences. Instead, they are short words or phrases that help me understand where to find a point in the text. In this way, these notes are catered to your understanding of a reading and putting some of the concepts in your own lexicon.
I then go back through each text to take my notes, one source at a time. This allows me to build potential connections between texts, as seen in Image 3.
In Image 3, you will see my notes from my “History of Higher Education” course. The class session for these notes was focused on the rising attacks on academic freedom from government entities. As I wrote out more of my notes, you can see places where I found commonalities between one or more authors with multiple page numbers from different sources (see bullets four and six in Image 3).
I am also a visual learner, especially when comprehending significant arguments or framings of a particular concept. One of those is Labaree’s (1997) argument in his article “Public goods, private goods: The American struggle over educational goals” (see Image 4 below). I still used my TOC approach but added page numbers and annotations in my visual to understand different connections between points. Thus, the TOC approach can still apply for those who like to use concept maps to take notes.
Benefits and Potential Modifications
While I have not undertaken this approach electronically, I believe it is applicable for electronic forms of notetaking. Rather than using a color system, one could abbreviate the author’s name and dash it with the relevant page numbers. For instance, if I was reading a source by Lange, I could write my bulleted text and then write “(Lange-242)” at the end of the phrase or sentence. This approach can also work for those with color-related visual disabilities who need to differentiate between sources.
I find this approach has a few benefits. First, a TOC approach helps me see potential links between arguments, claims, and citations. If more than one text relies on the same idea or source to make its point, I can use my notes to quickly find those places in the text and reference them in my writing when relevant. Rather than re-thumbing through sources looking for essential points again when writing, my notes have organized the text already. I can do something similar in class discussions to help people see connections between authors and their thinking. Second, this notetaking style allows me to notice potential points of tension between texts. Finally, it allows me to crystalize some of the connections (and disconnections) between different authors’ points, helping me get ready for the coming discussion. It also helps me quickly refer to previous class sessions and their texts and how that might affect the current discussion.
There are many ways to take notes! As I have written previously, there is no good uniform approach to preparing for all classes. How you prepare will depend on the instructor’s peculiarities as well as the subject and structure of the course. I hope the process I describe above proves to be a helpful tool in your education journey.
