#academic notes

I think uni has calmed down enough I will actually remember to post journals. I am really enjoying this semester, there is just so much for me to do!

In terms of classes, I have:

Linguistics

History and Theory of Anthropology

Great European Film Directors

The Crusades

Astronomy

I have great professors all around, and I can really see how much I have improved across all my academic fields.

I am also a peer consultant at the writing center as well as a writing fellow for a Health class. So helping people with their writing on top of my own. Beyond that I am the Vice-President of the History Club on campus and one of the History Department’s Undergraduate Ambassadors, so lots of drain on my time. I have been managing it well though, and really enjoying everything.

I am still volunteering at the museum, and we are having a fly day for the volunteers to fly in the aircraft, very very exciting!

Essay outlining ft. messy scribble notes.

Did you know there are at least 15 separate sub-variants of Gothic architecture?? Now you do! I started this paper wondering if I’d be able to hit the page minimum (something that is notoriously hard for me to do, I am a very concise writer) and now I’m worried if I’ll be able to stay under the page maximum. I do adore Gothic architecture.

It’s always easier to write a paper on something you know nothing about, I’ve found. When you don’t know very much about a topic, surface level things are new and you don’t dig very deep.

When you know all the surface things and some of the deeper things, falling into a rabbit hole is so much easier. And that’s what I’ve done…

Hopefully the outline will be done by the time I get off work, then I’ll only have two homework assignments to do in the car tonight! One is simply annotating a document and the other is note taking so I am not too worried. This outline was taking up a lot of my bandwidth this week.

Then I really have to study for my geography test.

I use multiple things to take my notes:

Black fountain pen (Lamy Safari medium nib or Platinum Preppy fine nib)

Multicolored gel pens (Zebra Sarasa, 0.5)

Highlighters (Zebra Midliners 5ct)

Clear stickie notes of various sizes

Black permanent pen (for writing on plastic, 0.3)

Mechanical pencil and Eraser (Pentel Graphgear 500, 0.5; General’s Factis Eraser)

These all have a specific meaning to me within my notes so that I can easily see what I am looking for on a page at a glance.

I take my main notes in pencil so I can easily change them as I need to, I often mis-spell things so this is useful for that or if I got information wrong and need to change it

Gel Pens:

I use these to separate different sections of notes that are within the same larger note module. I also use them to add information in margins when they are big enough as they are easily distinguishable from the pencil.

Fountain Pen:

I use this to do my main heading and date for normal notes, and for notes that do not directly apply to the class but are still in that classes notebook. (My history notebook has history notes in pencil and the notes we took on writing in fountain pen. I know I’ll be using the writing notes a lot so I want to find them easily)

Highlighters:

The highlighters I use come in a five pack, and there are green, tan, grey, light pink, and brown colors. Each one has a highlighter tip and a bullet tip.

Green: highlight definitions or very important information. I only ever use this color in this way so that if I see green flipping through my notebook I know I need to go back at look at it no matter what

Tan: Context, sub definitions, or extra information. This is the color I go to after the green

Grey and Pink: I use these colors interchangeably as the page needs to highlight things I personally think I will want to go back and read

Brown: This color is too dark for normal highlighting so I use it to separate different note modules

Plastic Stickies and Pen:

These are for extra context when I have no room and for adding diagrams. I most often use them for when I have taken a full page of notes from the textbook before class and the professor adds extra information during lecture. I prefer the clear notes to the (more ‘aesthetic’) brown and tan ones because I can see through them and more easily remove them or lift them up to see the notes underneath. I do need a special pen to mark on them without smudging, but that is not an issue for me.

As the are clear, if I want to add a diagram, I can pull it up on my phone, add a stickie over it, and trace it with the pen. So no more messy diagrams.

Note taking:

I have two different times when I am taking notes and the things I do change order depending on that. If I am taking notes from something like a textbook, a documentary, or a slideshow on my laptop, I do all my highlighting and extras as I am taking the actual notes. When I am in lecture, I take my notes all in pencil except for the note sections in pen, then go back during breaks in the lecture and highlight/add where I need to.

I take very very extensive notes, so do not be alarmed if you don’t have a lot of notes. You want to have at least (In order of importance):

Definitions and Big Ideas

Important Context

Diagrams

After you have those, you can add things that you want to remember, things that are less important but maybe still good to know, and extra facts or figures.

My note taking follows this pattern:

Section Title (pen)

Definition word - definition (always highlighted in green)

Idea (level of importance determines green, tan, pink or grey, or no highlight)

Sub ideas

Bulleted under idea

Sometimes the sub ideas also have sub ideas that are bulleted under them

I don’t bother with the summary in the Cornell system as I don’t usually have time in a lecture to do them, if you have time and want to do it, go for it!

Handwriting

My handwriting can vary from a little shaky but very legible to scribbled based on how fast I am writing. If you don’t have great handwriting, don’t worry about it as long as you can read it later. It is not easy to notice this right after you have written it because you know what it says, but if you even think it might be a little too messy, erase it and write it again. You’ll thank yourself later.