by Melissa (Student Blogger: MA English Literature)
Now, I am sure that any student practising university level study will be fully aware of the importance of approaching texts critically, and that memory is an imperfect accomplice when it comes to recording valuable thoughts, so for this post I have spoken to students about how they like to accessorize their reading with notes.
FOR THE FASHONISTAS…
[pretty post-it notes, coloured biros, bookmarks, highlighter pens]
If you’re style-sensitive and looking to make an impact, you might want to use your motivation as an opportunity to colour co-ordinate your thoughts.
Pretty post-it notes will add colour to boring black-white pages, but also look neat, scholarly, and catch your attention when flicking for the correct page mid-seminar. Post-it notes will also prevent you from damaging your book if you plan to resell when your course is finished, or if you’ve been borrowing from the library.
If you’re not planning to resell/ return your book, you may want to invest in some coloured biros or highlighters. I use red, green, blue and black biros to help me categorize my thoughts. For example, black underline reminds me of impending doom, red reminds me of war and harm, blue is an emotional colour, and green is for nature and happiness. I’m a literature student, but students from any subject can adapt colour coding to their advantage; one colour for quotes you find interesting, and another for quotes you want to use in an upcoming essay.
FOR THE STUDENT ON THE GO…
[dog ears, biros, accompanying note book]
Perhaps you’re a student who is too busy for bits of paper and multi-coloured pens. The ‘student on the go’ can emulate the eye-grabbing quirks of post-it notes by folding the corners of pages to point to particular lines or passages, and scribble their thoughts on said corners or margins. Folding corners makes a clear indent in the book to remind you there is something interesting there, and is much quicker than post-its. The student on the go may want to carry around an accompanying note book in case their thoughts exceed the margins.
FOR THE I.T. SAVVY…
[digital notes, ctrl+F alternative to page numbers]
If you’re using digital texts such as kindles or online pdfs, you will have a slightly harder time annotating your texts directly unless you sink money into a printer. On the other hand, setting up a word document for making digital notes will make them harder to lose, and you’ll never worry about failing to read your own handwriting. For searching through digital texts, it is imperative that you locate the ‘find’ function on whatever device you’re using (‘ctrl+F’ for Windows PCs) so that you can find the context of any quotes you’ve recorded at a moment’s notice.
EXAMS COMING UP?
[single sided A4, working on condensing, highlighter pens]
If you’ve got exams coming up, you might want to adopt an alternative method of note making, such as writing your notes out on single sided paper with the intention of sticking them on your walls. If you struggle condensing your notes into a reasonable amount, highlighter pens are an essential tool for marking out what you need to focus on. Don’t forget the underline and highlighter tools on Microsoft Word if your typing your notes.
CONCLUDING STATEMENTS –
I use a variety of these methods to help streamline my own learning process, so don’t be afraid to try out new things to find what works best for you! If you’re not sure what exactly you should be making notes on, you might find what you’re looking for here – http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/studyblog/2017/11/10/close-reading/