Important ways to drop notes in talks and symposiums
By Raymond on May 16, 2009 in College life, learning
Let me share some of my ways I use to drop notes in talks.
Loose sheets. Instead of bringing a thick notebook for lectures, I always have empty sheets prepared in my bag for talks I suddenly feel interested in. The notes are filed, and immediately reviewed, after I get back to dormitory. It is rather unpleasant to take a heavy notebook around, and probably we may forget to revise what we have learnt in the talk that day. Memory fades away quickly without revision.
Do not save papers. Some students crowded all their notes of one speaker in one page in order to save paper. This is unnecessary. Both writing and reading high-density words are pressurized. Dropping notes and reading them should be pleasant jobs. Also enough space is essential if we want to add extra notes later. I hope environmentalist won’t blame me for this. Actually I write on both sides.
Name of the speaker. We may forget the date of the talk, the title of the presentation, and the name of the gene and protein, but not the name (at least the first or last name) of the speaker. We always refer to a research project by the name of the researcher in discussions, and search for related articles by the name too. In lunches and dinners, we initiate a small talk with the speaker by calling his name. If we are attending large symposiums, we can match the notes with the index of the catalogue, but still it is good to write the name again so that we won’t forget it too soon.
Logic and underlines. It is crucial to figure out the logic in the research project. Write down the assumptions, hypothesis, evidence and conclusions of the project, because it is very possible that the assumptions are forgotten when the speaker talks about the hypothesis, which is then forgotten when it comes to the experiments. We then lose the track. Be aware of the symbols and abbreviations used in the presentation too. It will be troublesome if the speaker keeps on talking about XYZ if we don’t know what XYZ means. Try also to underline the most important ideas or questions. This helps us to find out the key points out of 2 pages of notes quickly when we feel sleepy and lose track.
Draw some diagrams. Try to put down the important graphs or diagrams onto your notes, even they may be quite complex and hard to draw. One diagram tells more than a hundred words do. Successful replication of the diagram almost indicates we have understood the main ideas, as it is too difficult to draw something we do not understand.
Jot down our questions, and move ahead. Very often inquiries pop out in our mind during a talk. Just quickly write it down in the border of the note, and continue to listen. This is a good habit for an attentive audience. Attention will be frequently interfered if we insist on thinking about the problems.
It should be jot notes , not drop notes …….
Kelvin | Oct 21, 2009 | Reply