Note Taking
> is the recording of importance items of information for future use. The best notes are as brief as possible without missing any vital points.
Learn to take notes as you read and study. When you read an assignment, gather information in the library, prepare a book report, or study magazine articles for a talk or composition, collect the facts in notes. They will help you understand and remember information better.
The organization of the material is often a useful aid when taking down notes.
A. Normal Organization Pattern
Most material are organized in the following way: the main idea is started first, followed by supporting details.
B. Other Pattern of Organization
The main idea may not come first all the time. The details are presented first. Then follows a concluding statement, a general statement or a summary statement.
The following may serve as general guides for note taking:
1. First, read carefully all headings to understand the purpose of the writing and ts organization.
2. If the material is not difficult, take the notes as you read. These notes should consist mainly of Key words, that is, important words that will remind you of the ideas that you want to remember.
3. If the material is difficult, read a section through; then take notes as you re-read it.
4. Distinguish between important and minor ideas. If you are reading a selection for a specific purpose, distinguish between the idea that fit your purpose and those that do not.
5. Make use of topic sentences to find and understand the main ideas for your notes.
Exercise 1
Here are four passages. Take notes on them, separating the main idea from the supporting points and then reducing the number of words in each sentence
1. The peacock is the national bird of India. They have colourful feathers, two legs and a small beak. They are famous for their dance. When a peacock dances it spreads its feathers like a fan. It has a long shiny dark blue neck. Peacocks are mostly found in the fields they are very beautiful birds. The females are known as 'Peahen. Their feathers are used for making jackets, purses etc. We can see them in a zoo.
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2. Ants are found everywhere in the world. They make their home in buildings, gardens etc. They live in anthills. Ants are very hardworking insects. Throughout the summers they collect food for the winter season. Whenever they find a sweet lying on the floor they stick to the sweet and carry it to their home. Thus, in this way, they clean the floor.Ants are generally red and black in colour. They have two eyes and six legs. They are social insects. They live in groups or colonies. Most ants are scavengers they collect whatever food they can find. They are usually wingless but they develop wings when they reproduce. Their bites are quite painful.
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3. The camels are called the "ships of the desert". They are used to carry people and loads from one place to another. They have a huge hump on their body where they! Store their fat. They can live without water for many days. Their thick fur helps them to stop the sunshine from warming their bodies. Camels have long necks and long legs. They have two toes on each foot.} They move very quickly on sand. They eat plants, grasses and bushes. They do not' harm anyone. Some of the camels have two humps. These camels are called! Bactrian camels.
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4. An elephant is the biggest living animal on land. It is quite huge in size. It is usually black or grey in colour. Elephants have four legs, a long trunk and two white tusks near their trunk. Apart from this, they have two big ears and a short tail. Elephants are vegetarian. They eat all kinds of plants especially bananas. They are quite social, intelligent and useful animals. They are used to carry logs of wood from one place to another. They are good swimmers.
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Exercise 2
Write the central idea or main idea and three or four key words for the following selection.
Unsinkable Ship
Naval architects never claim that a ship is unsinkable, but the sinking of the passenger-and-car ferry Estonia in the Baltic surely should have never have happened. It was well designed and carefully maintained. It carried the proper number of lifeboats. It had been thoroughly inspected the day of its fatal voyage. Yet hours later, the Estonia rolled over and sank in a cold, stormy night. It went down so quickly that most of those on board, caught in their dark, flooding cabins, had no chance to save themselves: Of those who managed to scramble overboard, only 139 survived. The rest died of hypothermia before the rescuers could pluck them from the cold sea. The final death toll amounted to 912 souls. However, there were an unpleasant number of questions about why the Estonia sank and why so many survivors were men in the prime of life, while most of the dead were women, children and the elderly.
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