I’ve been receiving tonnes of questions on Note - Taking recently, so I’d thought I make a post. Plus, I had fun making these graphics.

There are three different methods that I prefer when it comes to note taking:

Notes written During the Lecture

I highly recommend taking notes during the lecture.

I also use abbreviations for quicker and more efficient note taking. Some examples of abbreviation that I use are:

w/ - With

w/o - Without

e.g. - For example

Notes written After the Lecture

As for notes written after the lecture, I tend to seek the help of Google Spreadsheets or Microsoft Excel. This way I am able to organise information learnt. I do this by dividing the information provided into two columns, one for keywords or questions and the other for definitions and answers. 

*Note: This method was adapted from the note taking method I’ve used during college. 

Rewritten Notes

I also rewrite my notes. My rewritten notes are arranged based on the order they appear in the syllabus unless there are pieces of information that are related to more than one topic.

I use a black pen or pencil for my written notes, as well as coloured pens and highlighters to highlight the key words and terminologies for emphasise.

Before writing them down, I tend to visualise the layout - alternating between words and pictures/diagram. This definitely helps me with remembering for exams. All I have to do is imagine that I’m looking at that page and I can remember where everything is.

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Please click on the images for a much clearer view. 

drink more water instead of more coffee.

weekly goals are bullshit. set yourself 3-day goals. you’ll be less laid-back.

don’t just mindlessly stare at words. before you start studying, know your approach to it. have a plan.

summarizing the concept in your own words is the key part of taking notes. don’t just copy things down, convert them into your own way of talking, your own vocabulary, no matter how dumb and unprofessional it sounds.

don’t let the “studyblr aesthetic” fool you. studying doesn’t have to be pretty. summaries and notes can be messy as long as they’re comprehensible. you can always rewrite and reorganize them later. (honestly, you better do. and you better keep them.)

don’t throw away the papers you’ve solved your problems in. staple them to the fucking textbook. you need to see them constantly. cause you’ll need reminders of how far you’ve came, when you’re feeling discouraged.

don’t be an armchair analyst for your issues. if you have an idea then act on it.

remember: the exact point where it becomes difficult, is where your growth begins. take a deep breath, and try to focus on the paragraph in front of you.

get off your high horse and understand that if you’re a zero, you won’t go to 100 in a couple of days. first, you’ll need to reach 30, then from 30 to 60, and then from 60 to 90. nobody is 100 everyday. that happens very rarely.

you need to have fun everyday. you need to have peaceful time every single day. even on exam night. especially on exam night, actually. so make sure you’ve studied enough so you can have some time to yourself.

once you’re on a roll and in need of some challenge to stay on track, start writing down your studying hours. tell yourself you’re not allowed to do less than 80% of what you did yesterday. whatever the hell it was, even just one hour. so if yesterday you really studied for like, say 8 hours, today your goal is to study for at least 6 and a half hours. if you can’t keep up with that, make it 70%, or 60%. 

BOY HAVE YOU COME TO RIGHT PLACE BC I READ SCIENTIFIC PAPERS EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. /cries a bit

Don’t read the abstract first thing. I know a lot of people do, but that’s a big mistake if you’re not a super duper level 100 science genius. If you read the abstract without knowing the science really well, it’s going to sound like gibberish soon. Read the abstract last, because it serves as a good summary. 

Instead, start with the introduction. This will give you the background information you need, and it always starts out very broad. 

Skip the methods part for now. Read the Results after you read the intro, and refer back to the Methods section if you don’t know what some assay is, how the mice were fed, etc. But sometimes the methods section isn’t very helpful since they go into too much detail. That leads me to..

Don’t know something? Look it up! So you come across something like “aneuploidy”, and you have no idea what it means. Don’t try to gather information from context clues; just straight up Google it, or ask someone who knows. This is the most important thing. No one is ever going to understand everything in a paper (unless they wrote it, of course). Even the top scientists have to Google stuff all the time when reading other papers. Sometimes, you can even refer back to the references in the back of the paper for answers. 

Jot down notes. Once you find out what aneuploidy is, write it down on the margin of the paper so you can refer back to it. Maybe even draw a small diagram too as an example. 

Annotate the figures. The figures are very very very important. They’re what tells the story. If you understand everything in the figure–the question asked, the method used, what the x- and y-axes mean, etc, what the result was–then you will understand the entire paper. So scribble away. Draw arrows. Write notes. Circle things. Define acronyms. Color code stuff. This is what all the primary papers I read look like when it comes to figures: 

 (Also pay attention to the Figure legends. Sometimes they’ll tell you extra information)

Explain the figures out loud. If you can explain it in your own words, you’ve got it down! You’re going to have to do this for your presentation anyway. 

If it helps, write down important observations/figure summaries on a separate piece of paper so you have something you can quickly reference when putting together your presentation. 

As far as the presentation goes, I like to create my slides in this order: Title, Background, Hypothesis, Questions Asked (basically a summary of what they wanted to find), Question #1 (which is essentially what Figure 1 should be about), (Additional background if necessary), Method(s) used to answer Question #1, Figures that answer Question #1, Question #1 conclusion, Question #2, etc, etc, until finally, Conclusion, Future Goals. You may have a different format, but just throwing out the one I use. 

Hey there!

Ugh I feel you. My “to read” pile has literally never gotten smaller these past couple of years because there’s always sooo! much! 

Here’s a post on how I personally read research articles (reblogged from my personal blog before this blog was born)

How I organize print-outs of reading material (scroll down to my reblog)

I also save an electronic pdf of each paper in their own subject folder. For example, my dissertation project is on ER+ breast cancer bone metastasis, so I have separate folders for papers on ER Signaling, Breast Cancer, Bone, Metastasis (general), ER+ Bone Metastasis, etc. When you start out with your project you may only have a few folders, but over time you may find yourself dividing them into more and more specific categories. 

I use excel to keep track and summarize papers (this is a method my PI also uses)

Here’s a super comprehensive post from @astudyinphd on how they read and organize their papers (both electronically using OneNote and physical print-outs, where they use my binder method from above)

I also recommend getting a citation manager to make your life easier when it comes time to write manuscripts/grants/etc. I use Mendeley because it’s free and cloud-based, but other options include Zotero (also free) and EndNote (costs $ but some institutions may have institutional licenses so it’s free for you). Here are a few other options. 

And YES, you are definitely not alone in facing that challenge. I started off the same way, and sometimes I still feel that way about papers (especially super dense ones where they pack like 5 new things per sentence--like these are all amazing data, but at what cost to my concentration??)

I personally think part of the problem lies within the writing itself--by nature of academia being pretentious and/or the requirement to say as much as you can about your figures and data in the smallest amount of space. 

So usually when I find myself re-reading the same paragraph over and over without absorbing anything I resort to just re-writing the damn thing myself by making an outline of the main points. Sometimes I even make my own figures because for me, numbers in text don’t mean a thing unless I can see it in graphical form (and that’s when you realize the authors may have done that on purpose, because in graphical form the data will sometimes look hmmm a touch dubious...)

I find actively taking notes and summarizing data as I read really helps me to a) stay focused, b) remember what I just read, c) stitch together all the data into the story the authors are telling me (or maybe form my own conclusions that don’t align with the authors’ and then ponder why that is), and d) avoid having to re-read the whole paper next time (bc I can just look over my notes). This is probably the best practical advice I can give regarding reading papers. You can try summarizing each paragraph and figure in your own words next time you read a paper, and see if that helps. 

And then the other part of the solution is, as you stated, practice. You slowly become more familiar with your field so you find yourself googling less things. You slowly realize you can just look at just the Figures and come away with the whole story that way. You recognize sometimes you don’t need the read the whole thing anyway, because you’re really just after one specific Method or Result. I even made this post a few weeks ago talking about how far I’ve come from when I started my PhD to now--when I’m 2 months away from defending--in terms of reading and understanding research articles. And you’ll get there too. 

An Overview of Note-Taking Styles

My messy desk and my new spread!

Pictures from @jordaneclark ’s art journal printable

18.09.

taking the opportunity this winter break to learn what I love! here are some german notes I’ve been taking. tbh, I’ve been stressing a lot about this blog in terms of content idk. I’m such a perfectionist in such an odd manner but you know what? imma just let it go and document my life, no matter what shape or form.

also, I’ve only been on winter break for 3 days and I’m already depressed about going back to school :( at least I’ve been able to catch up on some super lit music and other stuff

I’ve gotten into podcasts and tbh I love listening to them so much because I can be productive (or just chillin) while I listen to them and I feel like I’m apart of the conversation as well where I take something away from it. Right now, I’m listening to The Minimalists Podcast “Happier” [ #115 ] and just finished listening to another regarding women in business and female entrepeneurs.