Note Making

Introduction
• Making notes is an essential part of the reading process.
• It helps you internalise difficult ideas by putting them into
your own words and can help you be more focused during the
exam revision.
• You are more likely to remember material you have thought
about and made notes on than material you have read
passively.
• Note-making depends on
• what is expected of you (e.g. learning outcomes listed in
your reading texts)
• what each assignment requires you to do
• how you learn best (so you can choose the most effective
technique)
Steps in note-making

• First step: Identifying and writing down the main points

• Second step: Summarising, and paraphrasing

• Third step: Organising the notes

Step 1: Identifying and writing down the main
points
• Main points help you understand the content, the writer’s
perspective, attitude and the purpose.
• Read and understand the text carefully.
• Look for signposts while reading.
• Ask yourself questions about the rationale behind the title,
paragraphing and discourse structure.
• Think about the purpose of the text.
• Find the main ideas - what is
important
– They may be found in topic sentences.
– Distinguish between main and subsidiary
information.
– Delete most details and examples, unimportant
information, anecdotes, examples, illustrations, data
etc.
– Find alternative words/synonyms for these
words/phrases – but do not change specialised
vocabulary and common words.
• Distinguish between main and subsidiary
information. Delete most details and
examples, unimportant information,
anecdotes, examples, illustrations, data
etc. Simplify the text. Reduce complex
sentences to simple sentences, simple
sentences to phrases, phrases to single
words.
Examples:
• People whose professional activity lies in the
field of politics are not, on the whole,
conspicuous for their respect for factual
accuracy.
• Politicians often lie.
• Failure to assimilate an adequate quantity of
solid food over an extended period of time is
absolutely certain to lead, in due course, to a
fatal conclusion.
• If you do not eat, you die.
Try these out:
• It is undeniable that the large majority of non-native
learners of English experience a number of problems
in attempting to master the phonetic patterns of the
language.
• It is not uncommon to encounter sentences
which, though they contain a great number of
words and are constructed in a highly complex
way, none the less turn out on inspection to
convey very little meaning of any kind.
• One of the most noticeable phenomena in any
big city, such as London or Paris, is the steadily
increasing number of petrol-driven vehicles,
some in private ownership, others belonging
to the public transport system, which congest
the roads and render rapid movement more
difficult year by year.
• Let’s look at a text.
 WHY WOMEN LIVE LONGER
Despite the overall increase in life expectancy in Britain over the
past century, women still live significantly longer than men. In fact,
in 1900 men could expect to live to 49 and women to 52, a
difference of three years, while now the figures are 74 and 79,
which shows that the gap has increased to five years. Various
reasons have been suggested for this situation, such as the
possibility that men may die earlier because they take more risks.
But a team of British scientists have recently found a likely answer
in the immune system, which protects the body from diseases. The
thymus is the organ which produces the T cells which actually
combat illnesses. Although both sexes suffer from deterioration of
the thymus as they age, women appear to have more T cells in their
bodies than men of the same age. It is this, the scientists believe,
that gives women better protection from potentially fatal diseases
such as influenza and pneumonia. (Source: Bailey 2003, p.15)
• British women live longer than men: 79/74
• Reasons? new research suggests immune system > thymus > T
cells
• Women have more T cells than men = better protection
 Step 2: Paraphrasing
• When you paraphrase, you rewrite
information from an outside source in your
own words without changing the meaning.
• Find alternative words/synonyms for these
words/phrases – but do not change
specialised vocabulary and common words.
• Change the grammar of the text: rearrange
words and sentences, change nouns to verbs,
adjectives to adverbs, etc., break up long
sentences, combine short sentences.
 Children spend a very large proportion of their daily
lives in school. They go there to learn, not only in a
narrow academic sense, but in the widest possible
interpretation of the word – about themselves, about
Original being a person within a group of others, about the
community in which they live, and about the world
around them. Schools provide the setting in which
such learning takes place.
(Leyden, S. (1985). Helping the child of exceptional ability. London: Croom
Helm, p. 38).

Leyden (1985)
• Schools - children spend a lot of their time
• Children ‘learn’ – not just school subjects; also,
Sample
understanding self, immediate groups, the
notes
community and ultimately the world.
• Schools – creates opportunities to learn about
many such things