What do you use to take notes during class?

[PrimoTurbo]

I’m currently looking for a laptop for note taking (http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3748106), I find that carrying a lot of binders with paper is quite cumbersome plus I can type a bit faster then write. But I’m wondering what people are using these days, during many lectures if I look around I will see 1 out of 4 people with a laptop. Maybe 1 or 2 people out of 100 will have a PDA with a mini keyboard, everyone else uses paper & pen.

Also don’t forget to explain exactly what you use and how your system of note taking is setup. For example do you have separate binders for each class, or do you have one big one. Do you use pens, pencils or crayons :p What type of laptop do you have and what specs does it have, which OS are you running and which program do you use for note taking, etc.

[aaaaaa]

i prefer not to take notes at all :)

if it was something very difficult to remember then i'd use a laptop... *unless* there is things that involve diagrams / drawing... then a pen & paper is much easier

[civ@uw]

Paper & Pencil, since it's cumbersome getting engineering notes into a laptop. If Tablet PC's come down in price (to around $1000), thats the next kind of laptop im getting.

[netgeek]

For me it really depends on the class.

For most of my classes I will just use paper and pen, however if there is a huge amount of note taking then I will bring my laptop with me. If the lecture notes are put online then I will defintley just bring a paper/pen.

[PrimoTurbo]

i prefer not to take notes at all :)

if it was something very difficult to remember then i'd use a laptop... *unless* there is things that involve diagrams / drawing... then a pen & paper is much easier

No notes at all? I did that for POLS1000 but only because we had notes posted online. Otherwise if they don't repeat information you will miss so much content and end up doing bad on exams.

For drawing you could just use paint or photoshop and paste it in to your word documents, but yes it's easier with a pen. However I don't have any classes that really need anything like this since I'm a pols major.

[tigger03]

laptop:
- i type faster than i write
- i can surf the net wirelessly if the class is boring

pen and paper:
- only used for diagrams, etc.

Note: i hate using MS One Note ... I prefer Word (easier for printing)

[Eyies]

Pen and paper.. (well pencil actually)

I use the retro 80 page Hilroy coil notebooks. Light, easy to carry.. laptop/notebook note taking is overrated .. I only sometimes lugged mine for WiFi and watching movies or anime or dramas during class.

[thephenom]

Pencil and Paper..... laptop is there for procrastinating or viewing powerpoint slides.

[jljdaigl]

pen and paper for sure, I get those like 100 page notebooks and just have one for each class, so its like almost nothing to carry...even if you had all 5 classes in one day, which you wont, then you only gotta carry 5 little notebooks...

Laptops are alright for some classes but if you get into any math, science or eng classes it is just not worth it, to hard. If you really want a laptop to take notes i would HIGHLY recommend you look into tablet pcs, those things are sweet, If i had one I would use it to take notes since it is just ask good as using pencil and paper. But for a normal laptop, there are too many symbols, equations and little notes here and there to make it effective.

I think I will be sticking with the individual notebooks and pen/pencil, makes it really easy, keeps it all seperate and organized, SCREW BINDERS lol to big and bulky haha

[teknoluv]

i prefer not to take notes at all :)
You NEED to at least pretend you are taking notes. Most professors expect that; and unless you are truly a very bright student (i.e. with straight As, AND the professor agrees that you are bright; they may not go hand in hand, mind you), this (not taking notes) will leave him or her a bad impression.

[PrimoTurbo]

Maybe this thread was a bad idea I’m getting second thoughts on getting a laptop in realizing various things like the fact that I can just use coil notebooks which are slim instead of binders for each class. Also battery time would suck and I couldn’t leave my laptop unguarded. :lol:

[Ma_Jie]

For any of those at U of T, there are sometimes very few laptop plugs in a classroom, so factor that in too.

I use pen and paper, like a small notebook, plus I record some lectures but only for the very hardest courses and/or courses where the lecture differs substantially from our assigned texts. And since I commute, I can listen to the lectures on my way home.

Cheers,

Jie

[Tofu Drift Shinji]

Pen and paper. I find it helps memorizing stuff too.

[duckling.]

Consider the course you're taking. If you're doing any economics/business/etc. (I'm not majoring in any of that but my brother is/did), then a laptop is nearly useless. It's more diagram/graphs than writing.

And laptops make you procrastinate. They drag your attention away from class.

Don't deny it. They do. I know it and so do you.

:twisted:

[manixc]

Pen and paper. I find it helps memorizing stuff too.

same here.

[angelove]

laptop:
Note: i hate using MS One Note ... I prefer Word (easier for printing)

What's MS One Note? o_0; I use Word but I also like to take pen and paper because it's a habit. *grr*

[gq_fuzion]

What's MS One Note? o_0; I use Word but I also like to take pen and paper because it's a habit. *grr*

i think thats MS Word on Mac

for me, it depends on the class....
usually i use a combination of laptop and pen/paper

laptop for the powerpoints/lecture notes, then pen/paper for note taking

i just bring around a pad of paper on a clip board... then when i get home, i seperate them into binders... or i'll bring portfolio's and stick all my paper notes in there...

even when i type out my notes, i print them that night and stick em into the portfolio...

i find portfolio's really help when it comes to exam time... you have all your notes in one convenient place... and it isn't huge like a binder

[Eyies]

MS One Note is a notetaking software for Windows (Coupled with Office 2003 I think.. only version is MS One Note 2003, if I remember correctly) Its not bad. Set tabs by subject, date "notes" separately .. etc.

[virgoan]

I use my PDA to take notes for ALL of my courses.. It is especially good since I am doing History and Economics major.. It's not too good with Economics, that is why I always have a pen and a piece of paper set aside for graphs, in most cases, I just ignore all graphs and calculations.. On the exams/tests, I just rather skip all math/graphing questions since I dont like graphs or formulas.. Even with economics major, I try to get away from those courses that do not involve too much writing, i work with theories, not statistic..


PDA is very easy to carry, light-weight.. the PDA and the Keyboard combined do not weight more than a pound..

[DragonFlame]

MS One note is great... lets you group things by subject, search all notes at once for particular words (easy to look up stuff that you know is in your note) auto-dates all notes and you can easily switch to inserting diagrams or pics to it.

Great thing also is if you need PDF or power points they can be imported in there and you can just take notes on top of them. Also great feature that it'll autosave so if something happens your data will be 99% saved without having to worry about "ctrl + s".

Supposed to be really great with tablets since you can set the template to be like lined paper or graph paper.

[grego9198]

I used MS OneNote all of one semester last year, my setup was a 600m with a Wacom Graphire4 4x5 tablet. Using the tablet for diagrams and typing in the notes yielded very good results. Easily readable text, and no extra papers loafting around. The only thing is that there is a learning curve to using the seperate tablet because you aren't writing directly on the screen, it takes a while to get the hand-eye coordination down.

This year I decided to invest in a convertible tablet, a Toshiba R25. Now I have one less thing to carry with me and I have the best of both world's in one package. I was thinking of getting a smaller 12.1" tablet, but I figured my eyes would tire looking at it all day, so far the 14.1" widescreen is working quite well.

But yea OneNote is definitely the best way, plus you can print to file in OneNote and then make markings on notes. Useful for when your prof gives you diagrams.

[angela44]

I've always preferred using the pen & paper method. I find that it helps me retain more info. And like previous posts had mentioned, I also use those portfolio vinyl floppy things from Stooples, and I can use one side for each subject. Separating into colours, I can have a Monday folder, Tues folder.... By exam time, I find transfering all those notes to a duotang be much easier and convenient to hold and read in the subway as I rush to the exam room...lol. I think the last time I used binders was in.....high school?

Ya, computers/laptops is sooo distracting! I remember one of my courses that was located in one of the computer rooms. Half the class was on MSN chatting, and I was here checking on the latest deals! lol. seriouly! We were all so confused by the end of the course, cuz of course, no one listened in class! lol.

MS One Note....thnx for explaining...I was wondering what that was for too....and I just realized that it's also in this new laptop I got (might try it for notetaking.....not sure yet..lol). When I try to start it, it asks for the 15 digit register code thing.....it's either i'm completely blind and haven't looked thru everything in the manuals and other papers yet, or they just don't include that in the pkg.......so if anyone happen to have that code thing....would you pls....? thnx in advance!! =)

[m77m7]

Pen and paper.. (well pencil actually)

I use the retro 80 page Hilroy coil notebooks. Light, easy to carry.. laptop/notebook note taking is overrated .. I only sometimes lugged mine for WiFi and watching movies or anime or dramas during class.
Even coil notebooks are too fancy for me. Nothing beats the cost of pencil and lined paper in a cheap clipboard. If you exceed the capacity of the notebook you have to buy a new one and waste it if you dont fill it up. I put my notes in binders I had since high school. (clearly.. I took good care of my binders :))

[Eyies]

Notebooks are cheap, like.. 80 pages is light and sufficient for most courses (from my experiences anyways in Engineering, if it goes bad, just get 1 more.. AND.. I don't have to manually organize the notes into binders etc, (most people just let it build up, or forget to date/put course code and end up with some fscked up notes). It's free organization! Just write in the right one -__-'.

[girlstar]

It really depends on the prof and the course whether I use pen and paper or my laptop.

If the prof talks fast I will bring my laptop. Other than that it's usually a pen and clipboard.

[CRXGSR]

What I used to do was take a tape recorder to class and tape everything. Sometimes, the prof goes too fast and you miss it.

Also, this way, you'll be hearing the lecture twice which will help you remember it better (unless you're the kinda of student that isn't as dedicated to the subject).

[angela44]

What I used to do was take a tape recorder to class and tape everything. Sometimes, the prof goes too fast and you miss it.

Also, this way, you'll be hearing the lecture twice which will help you remember it better (unless you're the kinda of student that isn't as dedicated to the subject).
I once considered that too, but then, but then, a 3 hr lecture would turn into a 6 hr lecture! And if you do that for all your classes.....WHOA! And I'm also the type of person who would save these recordings for future usage, so they would just pile up.........so no, I decided to stick with pen & paper.

I've also been scratched several times by those coil notebooks, not to mention that they tangle up in my bag sometimes if I bring more than 2. Pen and line paper is the best way! $0.97 for a 12pk blue pen. $0.10 for a 150pk of line paper. Textbooks already costs so much, even with photocopying, that I gotta minimize my spendings on other school materials.... :cheesygri :cheesygri :cheesygri

[Jucius Maximus]

Don't use a computer or any sort of keyboard to take notes.

You should stick to a pen and paper because you need to train your hand muscles to write for a long time. If you don't develop the stamina, your hand will break down in the middle of final exams.

[m77m7]

Notebooks are cheap, like.. 80 pages is light and sufficient for most courses (from my experiences anyways in Engineering, if it goes bad, just get 1 more.. AND.. I don't have to manually organize the notes into binders etc, (most people just let it build up, or forget to date/put course code and end up with some fscked up notes). It's free organization! Just write in the right one -__-'.
Knowing I'm saving a few dollars by using lined paper and binders encourages me to remember to organize my notes into them. Lined paper (on sale) is much cheaper than the coil notebooks (sale or not). Binders are reusable for each year. Anyways, nothing wrong with what you're doing, just not the cheapest .. but probably not the easiest either. There is one more problem with coils, if you forget to bring it to class, you have to either tape/staple an extra sheet in there or write it out again into your notebook coil.

[EH100501AC]

Pen and paper. My laptop is too big, bulky, heavy and won't last an entire lecture without an A/C adapter. :(

[emz]

Pen and paper. My laptop is too big, bulky, heavy and won't last an entire lecture without an A/C adapter. :(

Not unless you have an iBook :D although I need to buy a new battery this year...mine only lasts 3 hours (with energy saver)...it used to last 5 hours >:(

[Muttsta]

Paper and pencil FTW
Although in some classes I usually don't take 'notes' perse, I just kinda make side notes in my textbook or powerpoint notes as i'm following along with the prof