they are taken. First, glance over
them as soon as possible after the lecture. Inasmuch as they will then
be fresh in your mind, you will be able to recall almost the entire
lecture; you will also be able to supply missing parts from memory.
Some students make it a rule to reduce all class-notes to typewritten
form soon after the lecture. This is an excellent practice, but is
rather expensive in time. In addition to this after-class review, you
should make a second review of your notes as the first step in the
preparation of the next day's lesson. This will connect up the lessons
with each other and will make the course a unified whole instead of a
series of disconnected parts. Too often a course exists in a student's
mind as a series of separate discussions and he sees only the horizon
of a single day. This condition might be represented by a series of
disconnected links:

O O O O O

A summary of each day's lesson, however, preceding the preparation for
the next day, forges new links and welds them all together into an
unbroken chain:

OOOOOOOOOO

A method that has been found helpful is to use a double-page system of
notetaking, using the left-hand page for the bare outline, with
largest divisions, and the right-hand page for the details. This device
makes the note-book readily available for hasty review or for more
extended study.

READING NOTES.--The question of full or scanty notes arises in reading
notes as in lecture notes. In general, your notes should represent a
summary, in your own words, of the author's discussion, not a
duplication of it. Students sometimes acquire the habit of reading
single sentences at a time, then of writing them down, thinking that by
making an exact copy of the book, they are playing safe. This is a
pernicious practice; it spoils continuity of thought and application.
Furthermore, isolated sentences mean little, and fail grossly to
represent the real thought of the author. A better way is to read
through an entire paragraph or section, then close the book and
reproduce in your own words what you have read. Next, take your summary
and compare with the original text to see that you have really grasped
the point. This procedure will be beneficial in several ways. It will
encourage continuous concentration of attention to an entire argument;
it will help you to preserve relative emphasis of parts; it will lead
you to regard thought and not words. (You ar