English - Note Making- Note Taking

Note Making / Note Taking

Making Notes/ taking notes are the procedures of selecting important points from the unimportant ones.  It is not easy to remember the entire text we read or the whole speech we listen. Hence, when we read the text, we make notes with important points. Similarly, when we listen a class or a speech, we take notes with important points.

Making notes while reading an article or a book is not only useful study skill but is also one that will help people at work.  Besides helping us remember what we read or heard sometime ago, making notes will enable us to organize our own thoughts better. 

Some important guidelines for note making/ note taking:

• Read the text/ listen carefully
• Mark the topic sentences, key words and phrases.  Mark all these in case you are reading and if you are listening take them down.
• Use a clear layout with inter-line spaces, subheadings, bullets, etc., so that you will understand the notes later.
• Establish a logical link between the important points. Organise your notes so that they reflect how the ideas were connected in the original text.
• Write down important points that you identify in short form, using words, phrases and abbreviations.  Underline important words.  You can either use common symbols and standard abbreviations (such as ‘e.g.’, ‘etc’, ‘&’, ‘yr.’) or create your own (such as ‘engg.’, ‘tech.’, ‘Accts.’, Eng., etc.)
• Drop all articles, prepositions, conjunctions and pronouns unless they are necessary in order to understand the notes. Use dashes to link ideas.
• Notes can be made point wise, or in a tabular form, or a tree diagram. 

Steps in Note Making:

Step-1: Read the passage through, from beginning o end, to get a general view of the text. This kind of reading is called skimming, an exercise that will tell you what the passage is about (the title) and also how the theme is developed in the course of the text.

Step-2: Identify the main points or divisions of the passage and give them suitable headings.

Step-3: Read the passage again closely and note down the sub-points  that come under each main heading. 

Step-4: Put down sub-points if there are any. Note that as you pass from the main points to the sub points and, further, to the sub-sub points, the numbering of the points is spaced more and more to the right.

The basic procedure for note making remains the same whether you are making notes to a short passage or a long passage with several paragraphs. There may be a Main heading covering a whole paragraph or sometimes many paragraphs.  Sub-headings will have to be given under the main headings, and under the sub-headings, there could be several divisions or sub-subheadings.

Purpose of Note making:

Notes can be a great help when you are studying for examinations. Read your notes once after making them; then read them again, say a week later, and then after a longer interval.  This kind of revision is very effective, especially if you make it an active process by adding new thoughts or ideas that occur to you during your revision in the margin or at the foot of the page.  You will also find it useful to make notes on all that you read when preparing to write a paper.

Model framework to make notes:

1. ……………………………………………………..

1.   …………………………………………………

a……………………………………………….

      i.

      ii.

b……………………………………………….

            i.

            ii.

2.   …………………………………………………

a……………………………………………….

      i.

      ii.

b……………………………………………….

            i.

            ii.

2. ……………………………………………………..

Another system of notation, known as the Decimal Notation is as follows:

1.   …………………………………………………

1.1……………………………………………….

      1.1.1………………………………………..

      1.1.2………………………………………..

1.2……………………………………………….

1.2.1………………………………………..

      1.2.2………………………………………..

1.3……………………………………………….

1.3.1………………………………………..

      1.3.2………………………………………..

2.   …………………………………………………

Some Examples on Note -Making:

1. Read the following passage and make a Note out of it:

Passage: There are different forms of environmental pollution. Air pollution is caused by the burning of coal and oil.  It can damage the earth’s vegetation and cause respiratory problems in humans.  A second type of pollution is noise pollution. It is the result of the noise of aircraft and heavy traffic. Further, loud music is also a cause of noise pollution, which has been seen to affect people’s hearing and give them severe headaches and high blood pressure.  Another source of pollution is radioactivity, which occurs, when there is a leak from a nuclear power station.  Radioactivity is a deadly pollutant, which kills and causes irreparable harm to those exposed to it.  Land and water pollution is caused by the careless disposal of huge quantities of rubbish, sewage and chemical wastes. Pollution of rivers and seas kills fishes and other marine life and also becomes the cause of water-borne diseases. land pollution, on the other hand, poisons the soil, making the food grown in it unfit for consumption.

Note:

Title: Environmental Pollution

1. air

1.   cause

a.    burning of coal and oil

2.   effect

a.    damage to vegetation

b.    respiratory problems in humans

2. noise

1.   cause

a.    noise of aircraft and traffic

b.   loud music

2.   effect

a.    affect hearing

b.   cause bad headaches

c.    high BP

3. radioactivity

1.   cause

a.    leak from nuclear power station

2.   effect

a.    causes injury

b.   kills

4. land and water

1.   Cause

a.    careless disposal of rubbish, sewage & chemical wastes

2.   effect

a.    water pollution

                                     i.    kills marine life

                                   ii.    causes water-borne diseases

b.   land pollution

                                                         i.      poisons the soil, makes food grown inedible

2. Read the following passage and make a Note out of it:

Passage:

Normally, an interview is a meeting between two people. They know about each other through questions and answers. The person who asks questions is an interviewer. The person who responds is an interviewee. You must have watched and read some interviews of writers and film actors on the TV or in the newspapers.

To select right personal employing organizations also conduct interviews. They look into the mind of eligible candidates to assess their strengths and weaknesses and recognize if the candidate is suitable for their organization. They assess ourphysical mental and psychological attitudes. Every interview board consists of four to six members.

Answer:

Title: Interview

1.   Definition

a.    Interview – a meeting between two people

b.   Questions and Answers

c.    Interviewer – asks questions

d.    Interviewee – responds to questions

2.   Examples of Inteviews:

a.    Interviews of writers and actors on TV/ Newspaper

3.   Purpose of Interviews:

a.    To select right employees into organizations

b.   To assess the strengths and weaknesses

c.    To assess physical, mental and psychological attitudes

4.   Formation of Interview Board:

a.    Interview board consists of four to six members

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