College Stress Support Group

I do the saaaaaame thing.

What I like to do is take notes from my notes. I go in and highlight or underline things that I remember has been repeated or has shown up in the reading/class lectures. This why, I can highlight what I know will be VERY important and on exams but have my back up notes to refer to if need be.

It may be a little extra work to add, but it's really helped me. What kind of class is it for? I do different things for each class.

Good luck!

I have also been known to note my notes. It's bringing it down even further.
Unfortunately, this only work for me with reading. When it comes to noting lectures I have other ways. First, make sure to always do the reading before hand. Most of my professors always use slides with their lectures (I don't think I've had any who don't) so unless I can print the slides, I usually copy down the topics from there, adding in extra information that I think I might want to remember. If there aren't slides, when taking notes during lectures, I just write things with fewer words, with abbreviations and I usually remember what I've written from the reading so anything that was there before doesn't need to be written again.

Hope that makes sense. I guess my best tip when someone says you're writing too much would be to summarize better. An entire book can be explained in a few sentences most of the time.

Outlining is a great tool. Keep main topics set apart and include maybe up to like 5 points on each. For example

I War Name
a. Dates
b. important name
1. what they did
2. why it's important
c. important place- what happened there
d. important event- why it's important
II King name
a. born-dead
b. importance
c. fact I
d. fact II

And so on.

hmm well this is sort of a twist on whats been said. I'm not quite sure why taking too many notes has been a problem for you. to be honest, it really depends on the tests per professor- if the professor wants general ideas or minor details. you could try this though- turn your notes into a little quiz for yourself. instead of rereading all your notes and stuff, you can turn it into a test. you will probably retain more of the information by quizzing yourself on this information than just reading it. goodluck!

i find if ive done my reading before the lesson then i dont need to take as many notes just on the areas im not so confident in so i guess it goes hand in hand, but i def think everyone has there own style and u got to try lots of different techniques that works for you, perhaps recording lectures would be good for you? gd luck

I have this habit too and it is bad because then you have so many notes to study. My school is offering this study guide type class which covers this and I am hoping they can help me! LOL I am about to start an intense program so I need HELP! LOL