Why It Pays to Take and Keep Your Written Notes

Why It Pays to Take and Keep Your Written Notes

Janpha Thadphoothon

Note-taking is a lost art. Nowadays it seems younger generations are abandoning notes, reporting to digital methods of keeping records like messages. However hard and tedious, traditional note-taking is still an effective tool to learn and work, and to keep tracks of your life and well being. Note-taking or rather  my scrivening  --- some might regard it as a mere ' scrap '.

One of my teachers, whose name I would like to withhold, told us (students) to keep every note (every bit of it), and he said: "they will become handy and useful". And he is right. My experience confirms this, except for the fact that you have to do something with those notes, before checking them away.

My methods vary. Sometimes, I would look at them and powder upon their contexts. Many notes gave me insights and great memories.

My experience with note-taking has been positive, as I have benefited a great deal from this practice. First of all, it helps me to better conceptualize complex and complicated things like theories or ideas. Many theories require time to experience and reflect. ideas won't be clear at first. We need to give it time to hibernate . Meeting notes serves this purpose. When we revisit the notes, we see more and wider and notice flaws and possibilities.

My own study showed that effective note-taking matters when it comes to achievement of students.

Lauren Cahn , a New York-based writer whose work has appeared regularly on Reader's Digest, wrote an article supporting note-taking on paper. She cited the research conducted by Pam A. Mueller, PhD, of Princeton University and Daniel M. Oppenheimer, PhD, of UCLA . Their study revealed that taking notes by hand led to better learning than taking notes through a laptop. In short, students who took notes on laptops "performed worse on conceptual questions than students who had taken notes longhand." 

References

Thadphoothon, J (2017). Students’ Attitudes towards the Cornell Note-Taking Method. Proceedings of National and International of Sripratum University Conference 2017, 14 December 2017, Bangkok, Thailand, 52-61.

Lauren Cahn (July 22nd, 2019) "Here’s Why You Should Always Take Notes the Old-Fashioned Way—and Not on Your Laptop ". Retrieved from https://www.rd.com/culture/taking-notes-pen-paper/