Taking Notes

Enter almost any classroom - high school or college - and you’ll see an interesting phenomenon. All students can be divided into note-o-phobes and note-o-phils - those who hate taking notes, even have an antipathy to it, and those who love taking notes, and who may even an obsession with it. (I suspect the following observations apply to businesses or government panels or speeches - any place where there’s a flow of information or ideas. Open floor discussions have their own protocols and patterns.)

We can further sub-divide each group. The note-o-phobes can be divided into the listeners and the distracted. There are students (colleagues, clients, committee members, audiences) who prefer to listen. They pay attention and absorb information like their note-taking companions. Whether they retain more of what they hear is debatable. Maybe they listen because they are auditory learners. Maybe they listen because they can’t multi-task. Maybe they listen because their notes turn to doodles, their handwriting is illegible or they never look at notes. Or need them. 

The distracted don’t take notes because they’re not interested in the subject, they’re focusing on something else, they’re using the note-taking ability to do something else (surf the web, play games - really? You really think the teacher or speaker doesn’t see  you?), they have trouble focusing - whatever. They don’t take notes because they’re only there physically. Their minds are somewhere else. Do they even hear what’s being said? “Can I borrow your notes for the test?”

The note-o-phils also have two sub-groups: the ‘just-the-facts’ group, those who want the headlines and synopsis and main ponts, and the ‘every word a precious gem’ group, those who write down everything, even the bad pun or side comment about the noise in the hall or the chalk dust on the shoes.

‘Just-the-facters’ take down the basics, figuring they can fill in the details. They’re also more interested in the information than the style or personality behind them. ‘Every-word-a-gemers,’ on the other hand, want to capture, for later review, the style as well as substance.

(Of course, these categories have permeable membranes and aren’t quite as rigid as classification makes them.)

All this raises the question: Why take notes? If it’s just for information, then do note-takers have any advantage over attentive listeners? True, material that has to be memorized, has to be memorized. But these days that stuff’s all over the internet - so play games in class, get the info needed, and go on.

On the other hand, if note-taking has some other function, what is it? And, if so, so what?

Notes - and they can be recorded as well as written down - have two functions besides recording information: verify and review.

Notes allow us to verify what was said. They serve as a document to document assertions or ideas. Written witnesses, they can support a challenge or confirm a claim. 

Notes also aid review - and therefore understanding. Good teachers and good students know it’s hard to listen and think at the same time: you’re either absorbing the information or you’re processing it. You’re either getting the pieces or analyzing them. 

Note taking is related to the difference between having information and understanding it. Understanding makes connections, puts information in context. Understanding allows us to absorb ideas, play with them, modify them, make them our own.

And notes are a mnemonic that give us a reference point. There’s a reason courts have stenographers, doctors make chart notes, critics and artists make line markings, etc. A good student - or scholar - doesn’t just review the notes. She argues with them. And herself. 

Notes are a challenge to us to use our minds, not only to master the material in the notes, but to master ourselves. It’s almost like having an intellectual prayer - a way to engage how we think, to take note of our strengths and weaknesses. 

Think of soul-searching as a kind of spiritual note-taking.