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Students: how to take notes in lectures

You spend an awful lot of time gathering information from teachers and books – so sort out a strategy that makes note-taking simple
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Students taking notes at a University of Hatfield
Don't try to write down every word. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

Put everything into perspective and university is 95% note-taking, 5% all the other stuff. If you can take good notes, you're on track to make the academic side of things much easier for yourself.

Technology is doing a lot to sort out our note-taking. One big advance is that lecture presentations are usually uploaded to a university's intranet for all to see.

On the downside, this guarantee of availability gives you an excuse to zone out and let the lecturer's words drift over you. While this is tempting, it's better to listen out for the in-depth explanations that aren't on the presentation – the bits you can't access later are usually the most valuable.

When it comes to the note-taking itself, don't try to write everything down. It's an obvious point, but interesting lectures can make you want to record everything being said. This never goes well. By the time you've finished writing one point, the lecturer has already made another three and moved on. If you're determined not to miss a single syllable, use a recording device.

Handouts are just as unhelpful, especially if they're a breakdown of the lecture slides (this kind is of handout is so boring it's potentially fatal).

During the lecture, it's best to put the handouts to one side and make your notes without them. Maps and graphs can be made more useful with a few annotations, but make these crystal clear for future reference. Once you're outside a lecture theatre, notes have a tendency to lose all meaning, so make yours detailed and explicit at the first opportunity.

Shorthand is one way of ensuring speedy note-taking. Charlotte, a history student at the University of Leicester, recommends coming up with your own system for abbreviating and shortening key words and ideas. For example, civil rights movement becomes CRM; politburo becomes PB; between becomes btwn. Symbols are also useful: arrows, for example can be used to indicate concluding points.

Type up your shorthand notes as quickly as possible. As Charolotte says: "The longer you leave it, the less sense your markings will make."

If you're making notes from a source for an assignment, include page numbers and basic bibliographical information. "You will never regret it," says Amy, a literature student at UEA. Likewise, use colours or a different font to distinguish between your ideas and the author's or lecturer's. This helps avoid accidental plagiarism.

Once you've put time and effort into producing a good set of notes, be sure to back-up your hard work. This can be as simple as emailing your notes to yourself, or using a free tool like Google Drive or Evernote. Both let you edit uploaded documents and you can access what you've saved on-the-go.

Having a copy of your notes also means they are easier to share, and digital copies make this easier still. Google Drive is again useful, but if you're sharing notes with a revision group, something more natural, like Facebook, may be a better option.

A note-taking routine that suits your style takes a while to establish, but given that you'll probably be taking notes daily, it's worth getting into good habits from the start.

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