Guides
How to Take Notes in Lectures
By Dr Ayesha Khan · · 4 min read
Quick answer
Do not attempt to transcribe. Capture the structure — the argument, the key claims, the examples that illustrate them — in your own compressed words, marking anything you did not understand. Then spend ten minutes immediately afterwards filling gaps and writing a summary, which is where most of the retention actually comes from.
Transcription is the trap
A lecturer speaks far faster than you can write, so attempting a full record means you capture words while missing the argument. Students who type can nearly keep up, which is worse: they transcribe successfully and understand less.
The aim is a map, not a recording. If a recording exists, that job is already done and you are free to think instead.
Capture the skeleton
Lectures have an argument. Note the main claim, the two or three points supporting it, and the key evidence or example for each. Detail can be filled in from the reading afterwards.
Listen for signposting — 'the crucial point is', 'there are three reasons', 'this is where it gets contested'. Those phrases are the lecturer telling you what matters.
Mark confusion in the moment
When you lose the thread, write a question mark and a couple of words, then keep going. Trying to resolve confusion in real time means missing the next five minutes as well.
Those marks are valuable afterwards: they are a precise list of what to ask in the seminar or look up in the reading, which is far better than a vague sense of having not followed.
The ten minutes afterwards
Immediately after the lecture, spend ten minutes tidying: fill the gaps while they are still recoverable, resolve the question marks you can, and write a three-sentence summary of the argument.
This is the highest-value ten minutes in the whole process, and it is the step nearly everyone skips.
Handle slides sensibly
If slides are provided in advance, print or open them and annotate rather than copying them. Your notes should contain what the lecturer said that is not on the slide — which is usually the explanation, the caveats and the examples.
Copying slides you already possess is the purest form of wasted effort in university study.
Connect to the reading
Lectures are a frame, not the content. Afterwards, link your notes to the relevant reading — where they agree, where the reading goes further, where they conflict.
That connecting work is what turns a term of notes into something you can revise from, rather than a pile of partial records.
Frequently asked questions
Should I type or handwrite lecture notes?+
Handwriting generally produces better understanding because it is too slow to transcribe, forcing summarising. If you type, deliberately restrict yourself to bullet points in your own words.
What if the lecture is recorded?+
Then take fewer notes and listen more — you can revisit specific moments later. But do not use the recording as a reason to postpone engagement; rewatching whole lectures is slow and rarely happens.
Should I read before the lecture?+
Even skimming the assigned reading beforehand helps considerably, because you arrive knowing the vocabulary and the shape of the argument. Twenty minutes of preview makes an hour of lecture far more useful.
How do I keep up when the lecturer goes fast?+
Stop trying to capture everything. Note the claims and structure, mark gaps with a question mark, and fill them immediately afterwards from the slides or reading.
What do I do with the notes afterwards?+
Review them within a day, connect them to the reading, and turn key points into questions you can self-test on later. Notes never revisited are close to worthless regardless of quality.
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