taking notes LONGHAND should make a comeback. Here’s why…
You’re in a history lecture. History has never been your favorite subject. Nevertheless you’re taking notes like crazy, hoping against hope that when it comes time to study for the test that SOME of what you wrote will come back to you. And guess what? It does!
There’s a reason for that. And you guessed it, it has a lot to do with how your brain works and how memory can be enhanced by using pen and paper instead of a tablet or computer.
You might think that using a keyboard would make for better, more accurate note-taking. And in a way, you’d be right. Like a court stenographer, you can put down way more words “on paper” with a computer than you can using a pen, almost verbatim, in fact. But, back to that court stenographer, he/she simply types everything said aloud, without interpretation. And that’s precisely where that pen and paper can be valuable. Precisely BECAUSE you can’t write as quickly as you can type, writing forces you to process what you’re hearing, interpret what’s critical and what’s not, and condense what you’ve heard into cogent notes. The result is that you’re learning WHILE you’re taking notes, and that is reinforced when you go back and re-read those notes before the exam.
Are we saying you shouldn’t use a computer for note-taking? Not necessarily. But we ARE saying you might benefit from using a stylus instead of the keyboard with that note taking app. Progress doesn’t have to mean abandoning your writing skills.
