How to Take Good Textbook Notes

Use your textbook notes when studying for a course.

Taking textbook notes may seem like a tedious task. However, by developing a system for textbook note-taking, you can speed up your study preparation instead of wasting valuable study time re-reading material. Make note-taking more enjoyable by using your favorite colors of highlighters and your preferred writing tool. Also, write legibly so you do not make unnecessary mistakes on homework and exams.

Things You'll Need

• Highlighting marker or pen
• Loose-leaf notebook paper
• Pen
• Pencil

Instructions

1. Preview the title of the chapter or section before you begin taking notes. View all images, and read corresponding captions within the material that you are taking notes. Read over any questions or summaries at the end of the chapter, if applicable, and verbally answer the questions based on your current knowledge.

2. Scan over all the material before you begin reading it. Use a highlighting marker or pen to highlight subject topics or headings, if you are permitted to write in the textbook; otherwise, jot this information on a scrap sheet of paper to use later as an outline.

3. Write down any questions that come to mind while you are scanning through the material on a scrap sheet of loose-leaf notebook paper; this is useful for focusing your mind before you begin reading.

4. Mark directly in your textbook, if permitted. Underline important concepts, definitions or phrases using a pen or pencil; underlining requires more concentration than highlighting since you are drawing a straight line, and this act can help you retain the information more sufficiently.

5. Use a pen or pencil, depending on your writing tool preference. Pen ink is darker so it is easier to read when the times comes for studying from your notes, but you can erase mistakes when writing with a pencil. Write your name, course title, textbook name, date and page number in the top margin of a clean sheet of notebook paper.

6. Write the highlighted topics and headings that will be your note-taking outline on the top lines of the paper.

7. Begin reading slowly and with concentration through the textbook material. Start with the first topic of your outline, and read only the information following that term and prior to the next term in your outline.

8. Skip a line on your notebook paper. Write the first topic of your outline. Add key terms, definitions, formulas, names, dates and any other specific detail that is listed in bold or as an important topic in the material. Skip lines between each piece of information.

9. Summarize the topic in one to two sentences, and write the summary on the paper. Skip a line, and write down the second topic from the outline. Continue this method as you read through the material in the text.

10. Read through your notes after you are finished with the entire section. Rewrite the notes if they are not neat and legible, which is another way to help you retain the information.

11. Underline or highlight the main topics of the material. Write down any questions or ideas you have developed from the textbook information that you would like to address in class or with your study group.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep each set of your textbook notes in a different color notebook, preferably in the same color or shade as the textbook, to help you identify which set of material to gather when you are in a hurry.

• Do not write on both sides of a sheet of notebook paper, or the words will bleed through or form an impression on the other side.

References

• Philosophy Lander University: How to Take Book Notes
• Western Kentucky University Veterans Upward Bound: Taking Notes in Textbooks