Note-Taking vs Note-Making: Transform Your Learning

Note-taking means, taking important notes while you’re listening to a lecture, watching a video, or reading a book. This is for our future reference.

Note-making on the other hand, is the process of rewriting what you learned in your own words. It helps you to solidify what you are learning.

From the above do you understand the difference? Let us see some differences.

Sources

While you are making a note you often refer to many sources. Whereas in note-taking you usually focus on a single source — listening to a lecture or watching a video — while capturing information.  

Note-taking is Easy In, Easy Out

Active vs Passive

In the note-taking approach, you tend to be passive just listening and writing down things on your notes. In note-making approaching, you are not only listening to the source, but also you are trying to understand what it is, collecting the thoughts, linking them to something else and then jotting them down in your own words which is in understandable form.

Cognitive Energy

Note-taking doesn’t require much cognitive energy since you are just writing down what the author is saying. Whereas Note-Making involves more cognitive energy since you are actively involved in processing, connecting and rewriting the material in your own words.

Note making is Mindfully In, Magically Out

Nick Milo

Easy of understanding

The advantage of note-making is that it will be easier to understand while you are revisiting the notes since it is a simplified version of your own thoughts and understanding. In the note-taking approach, since you copied the original content from the author it may take some time to understand while you are revising the notes.  

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Now, let me share some tips for Note Making, from NOMA method. NOMA stands for Note Making. This approach originated from Nick Milo’s Linking your Thinking. Here are some prompts from NOMA that help you in making notes:

• “That’s interesting because…”
• “That reminds me of…”
• “It’s similar to… because…”
• “It’s different from… because…”
• “It’s important because…”

Let us explore an example of note making with the above prompts:

1. Note-making is interesting because while I was taking notes, I thought that was the right approach to learning. No doubt about it. However, the note-making method is interesting since it introduces a fresh perspective on making notes.

2. This reminds me of days when I was learning Clanguage and taking notes during lectures. Often, I simply copied what was being taught, to forget later. If I had known earlier this technique back then, my learning would have been effective.  

3. It is similar to note-taking since both methods involve absorbing information.

4. It is different from note-taking because it requires your active involvement and engagement. While you are making notes, you often refer to various sources.

5. It is important because it changes the way you learn something, and helps you remember with less effort.

As I discussed in my previous article, the summary section of Cornell Notes method is also a good example of note-making.

How do you feel about this? Do you like this approach? Will you try it for your future learning? Let me know in the comments.

If you like to see video explanation of NOMA method, you can watch below video: