Readable and convenient? Yeah, right.
Typed or handwritten lecture notes?
Following the arrival of my MacBook in December, I’ve tried using it to take notes in lectures. I’d previously used plain ol’ pen and paper, but wanted to try something where I could just search for a case name and find it in my notes without flicking through folders full of scrawled writing. These are the pros and cons of both from the last two semesters, having had a year where I used both systems and then had to revise from them.
A quick note for PC users. Office now comes with OneNote, which is the equivalent of the notebook layout in Mac’s Word, albeit in a separate dedicated program with a few more features. For the purposes of lecture notes though, they are essentially the same.
MacBook: Word 2008 now has a notebook layout, which divides everything into single lines, much like an unordered list. You can indent things too. Typing speed isn’t really a problem for me, but might be worth thinking about if you’re a bit slower on the keyboard. This system does force you to use one particular layout, but lends some structure to your notes.
You can record the lecture as well, and the MacBook’s built-in microphone seems to work reasonably well provided you turn the volume up a bit. It does capture the clicking of the keys a bit, but the recording is still perfectly clear. More importantly though, recording places “audio markers” by the side of your notes as you type. This means that the recording effectively remembers when you typed each line in relation to the recording, so you can go back to a particular part of the lecture and listen to that part - incredibly useful for revision if your notes don’t make sense, and great for reference in coursework.
The problem is revision. Anyone who uses Facebook knows what a distraction it can be, so having to revise when Facebook is a click away can prove problematic. If you have the willpower to just use Word/OneNote, then things might be easier, but you’ve been warned. Staring at a screen is pretty tiring too. Annoyingly, printing notes is impractical. A single 50 minute lecture runs to about five pages, which is useless if you want to print a whole semester of them.
Handwritten Notes: Actually making handwritten notes is much more flexible than a laptop, and writing beats typing hands down. Your writing speed is likely to be a lot faster than your typing speed, although to be fair you’ll probably be able to keep up either way.
As 43 Folders readers will know, choice of pen etc is always helpful, but other than that there’s not much to say. Everyone has their own way of taking notes:- some prefer solid paragraphs of text, whilst others (such as myself) prefer indented lists in a similar format to Word 2008 and OneNote.
The main things that handwritten notes lack are “audio markers” and search, both of which are convenient for coursework and clearing things up when revising. Arguably, neither of these are necessary if notes are decent enough, but wading through the paper for coursework can be a bit of a nightmare.
And the winner is… In my opinion, handwritten. Purely from a revision standpoint, handwritten notes are much easier to use. The trick is getting the right noting method, which sadly is rarely ever taught. What matters though is how much easier it is to focus. Staring at a glowing screen trying to learn notes is never going to be as easy.
For coursework, computer notes do tend to have the upper hand, but the extra edge it gives you might not be worth it. Having said that, if you can work (and more importantly, revise) from a screen, then it might be worth a go. Without meaning to sound like a cop-out, it’s a matter of personal preference.