Now that you’ve done some reading, it’s time to think about how you will organise this information so that you can use it to remember important points and concepts and so that it can be easily accessed should you need it in the future.
When you read and take notes, it’s quite common that your notes will be disorganised or in a shorthand that is difficult to understand. While the information is still fresh in your mind, it’s recommended that you organise it in a logical way. By doing this, it is less likely that you will need to go back and read the full text again; rather, you will be able to look at your notes to remember what you have learned.
How you do this depends on you and how you best retain information. Here are some ways to organise your notes:
Create a filing or tagging system
Have you read something that gave you a new understanding of a topic? Or perhaps something that could be useful in the future? Or something that was not obviously relevant to what you are studying at the moment?
You could create a filing or tagging system to sort information into categories so that you know how it may be useful in the future. One way is to organise what you have read into topics, and another is to use tags such as:
must read
useful
use for assignment 1 / assignment 2
not immediately useful
Then you have a few options. You could set up a folder with each of these names, or this information could be added into a file name, for example: The Science of Life- journal article- must read
Remember that even if something is not obviously useful for the time being, it could be useful in the future. So, make sure you have your notes filed away so that they can be found if you need them.
Mind mapping
Mind maps are a great way to represent information visually as they show how issues or topics relate to each other. The mind mapping page on the Learning Lab has information about how to get started with this technique.
Tables
When used properly, tables can present information in a clear and easily readable way. For example, you can include the publication details of the text you are reading, such as the author’s name, the title and year of publication in one row. Then, you can have one column where you record the major themes and page numbers, and a larger column where you write notes that come under those themes.
Create a glossary of new terms
Did you come across some new terms in your reading? By creating a glossary of terms, you can keep track of the new concepts that come up in your reading. This can be as easy as creating a table with two columns in a Word document.
Make a mock presentation
Another option for organising your notes is to pretend that you need to give a presentation about the article you have read. In this technique, you can create a PowerPoint or other type of presentation, write the publication details on the title slide, and then use the main themes that emerge as the titles for the subsequent slides, followed by dot points that expand on those themes. If visuals help you learn, you could include relevant images on the slides, or graphs, charts or tables that help bring the information to life.
Write a summary
A typical way of organising information is to summarise it. In this technique, you can not only write down what the major themes of the text are, but also give an idea of what you thought about it, and how it might be useful to you in the future. By doing this, when you come back to the text after weeks or months, you will quickly be able to decide if it is something you should spend time re-reading, or if you should move on to another text.
