Nico's Studyblr

I am some form of a permanately exhausted pigeon.”

Taking good notes is one of the most important things to be able to do in school - whether it be high school, college, grad school - it’s v important. Over the years I’ve compiled a list of tips and tricks that have helped me take more efficient and effective notes.

Title your notes - oh my god title them with the subject, date, lecture number and whatever else important information you need about the class and that day of class. The amount of times that I’ve just scrawled notes on a random page and then lost it because I didn’t do this are countless. DON’T BE LIKE THAT - TITLE YOUR NOTES EVERY LECTURE OF EVERY DAY.

Short hand and abbreviate things - there will be times when your professor or teacher will be going through material quicker than you can process. Take sloppy short hand and abbreviated notes - that you can understand - and go over them later.

On the topic of not being able to keep up, if it’s allowed, use your phone to take a picture of the board, or record the lecture using a voice recording app - most phones and laptops nowadays have one pre-installed when you buy it. It’s great for if you want to take neat inclass notes but you don’t want to miss all the material. I for one like to take pictures of the board when it’s a diagram or figure that I don’t want to spend ages drawing out.

As I’ve stated in a previous post, I like to copy notes over again and make them neat and pretty looking so I can read them again in the future - making them nice to look at doesn’t have to mean you spend hours on doodles and diagrams and calligraphy-ing every word. Just make them easy to read, and highlight or underline important topics.

Have different notebooks or binders or binder sections for each class - don’t be that person that has all 46 subjects crammed into one notebook. Even if you have one of those 5 subject notebooks, don’t stick 5 subjects in there just because you can. (just because you can doesn’t mean you should). I personally prefer binders because as the semester goes on, I can take out the notes that are less relevant to the exam coming up and move notes around when I’m doing homework or studying.

And as a last resort, find a buddy in the class that does these things so that if you miss a class you have someone that you can trust to give you good notes. I hate missing class just because there are very few people that I trust to give me notes as good as I would have taken. 

@blogstudylife hope this will help you out!

1. Turn off Your Phone

Probably the hardest thing to deal with:  breaking up with your phone. There are just so many things that we’re missing out on if our eyes are glued to the screen 24/7. Switch it off, plant a tree with those focus apps like Forest, so that you can recharge your mind in prep for the next 1 hour of *yawns* history.

2. Like mentioned in most of my other posts, plan ahead.

Being a student, having a planner is a must for me.Plan your study schedule, write down your to-dos for the day, etc. Having a planner does not mean that you have to spend hours cranking your brain for bujo ideas. I know, the bujo/planner community seem like the perfect combo of organised + creative peeps, but nawww, don’t let them influence how you want your planner to be. Mine is not the slightest bit artsy in any way!

3. Walk

Just take a brisk walk around your school compound and burn some calories!

4. Organise your locker

When you gotta rush for that bus, you just hastily dump all your books back into your locker. And of course, it becomes cluttered. So, just utilise that extra time to arrange your books in place. Tidy lockers spark joy!

5. Read

Pick up a magazine, newspaper, a book and read! It’s a really rewarding habit. Plus,you can pick up many new words along your reading journey and boost your vocab.

That’s just 5 tips to start on, but I really hope it helps!

Hello everyone, long time no see! I just got back from a trip to visit a family friend, who also happens to be a super-smart lawyer. We talked non-stop for an hour about how she studied during law school! So naturally here I am to regurgitate the information to my lovely tumblr friends:

Take your class notes. Re-read them, and then start to revise and rewrite them. If you had 100 pages of notes before, your second set of notes should be 50 pages. You are essentially taking notes from your notes.

Do this again, cutting the notes in half. I know this seems repetitive, but you’re retaining information by rewriting and summarizing it. The more you do it, the better you’ll do later. 

Continue to rewrite and summarize your notes until you have a one page outline. This outline is your life-saver on tests. (It’d also be handy to keep all of the outlines you accumulate for your final)

Memorize the outline! When you sit down to take a test, the first thing you should do is flip to a blank page and copy down your outline from memory. Because you rewrote it over and over, you should be able to fill in the gaps in the outline, which will help immensely on the test.

1. Start early. Don’t leave studying to the last minute as cramming doesn’t really work. Preparing well in advance leaves you with time to ask questions and review topics you don’t fully understand.

2. Plan and organise your study time. Decide what you will do, in what order, and by what date.

3. Have an area that you designate specifically for studying. Don’t do anything else there. Keep all your notes, textbooks, materials etc in that area.

4. Study something each day – but allow yourself one whole day off a week. That way, you stay on top of your work without feeling bogged down and overwhelmed.

5. Make your own notes; rewrite material you’ve studied using your own words. Doing that, will help to consolidate your learning.

6. Cover up material you’re studying and try to summarise it, or to paraphrase it.

General Format:

8.5 x 11 inch paper

Double spaced

Times New Roman font

12 pt font

Only one space after each period

1 inch margins on all sides

Indent the first line of each paragraph by half an inch

Use a header that includes your last name and page number in the top right hand corner

The First Page:

In the upper left hand corner:

Your Name

Your Instructor’s Name

The Class Title

The Date (Day Month Year)

The title of your paper should be one double-space down and should not be bolded, italicized, or underlined

The beginning of your paper should start one double-space down from the title with the first line indented by half an inch

What to Italicize and Quote:

Book titles are italicized

Play titles are italicized

Poem titles have quotation marks

Article titles have quotation marks

Chapter titles have quotation marks

In-Text Citations:

When you know the author’s last name

(Last Name Page Number) or

(Last Name Paragraph or Line Number)

When you don’t know the author’s last name

(Book Title Page Number)

(Article Title Page Number)

Remember to italicize the book titles and put the article titles in quotation marks

Works Cited Page:

Begin your Works Cited page on a separate page at the end of your research paper. It should have the same one inch margins and header as the rest of your paper

Label the page “Works Cited” (do not italicize or put in quotations) on the top of the page and center it

Double space all citations but do not skip spaces between entries

Indent the second line of a citation by half an inch

List sources in alphabetical order

If the source has more than one author, the first given name appears in last name, first name format and the following authors appear in last name, first name format separated by commas. The last author’s name should be preceded by an “and”

Citing Print Sources:

Book or Poem:

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book or Poem. City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Print.

Magazine or Newspaper Article:

Last Name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Periodical Day Month Year: pages. Print.

Journal Article:

Last Name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal Volume.Issue (Year): pages. Print.

Citing Web Sources:

Whole Website:

Name of Site. Sponsor or Publisher, date of resource creation. Web. Date of access. 

Web Page or Web Article:

Last Name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Name of Site. Sponsor of Publisher, date of resource creation. Web. Date of access.

Online Journal Article:

Last Name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal Volume.Issue (Year): pages. Web. Date of access. 

Note: Don’t forget to indent the second line in the citation. I did not indent the examples because the indents on tumblr mobile and tumblr desktop differ starkly and I figured this was probably the less confusing way to write the information needed for a citation (trust me)

Unknown Information in Citations:

If the author is unknown, begin citation with the title

If the publisher is unknown, write “n.p.” in its place (no quotation marks)

If the publishing date is unknown, write “n.d.” in its place (no quotation marks)