Note-Taking Strategies

October 01, 2025

Posted by STLCC in Tutoring Resources 

As a student, you take notes every day from lectures, textbooks, articles, and other materials. If you are like most students, though, it is challenging to keep all the notes organized and ensure they are useful. These strategies and tips will help you take your note-taking to the next level, which will help you be successful in college classes.

Learning Styles and Note-Taking Strategies*

Your note-taking strategy depends on what works for you. Consider your learning style and the challenges you encounter as well as your positive and negative habits. For example, do you sometimes daydream or get distracted? If so, then you may want to sit in the front. If you learn through visuals, what do you do if you have an instructor who does not use them? If you sometimes get lost during lectures, what do you do to focus? Review the following strategies and think about what works best for you.

• Auditory – Listen and record lectures in your own words. Fill in details while information is fresh in your mind.
• Visual – Make graphs, diagrams, lists, and charts using the information in your lectures.
• Applied – Think about questions as you go; note what you want to learn.
• Conceptual – Look for patterns in what you already know and what you are reading.
• Spatial – Organize the information in ways that make sense to you, including charts, lists, diagrams, etc.
• Nonspatial – Translate diagrams and charts into your own words.
• Social – Discuss the lecture with others and fill in details you missed.
• Independent – Sit close to the front and interact with your instructor and lesson.
• Creative – Annotate your notes using markers, highlighters, post it notes, and technology.
• Pragmatic – Organize notes in a way that makes sense to you.

* McWhorter, Kathleen. College Reading and Study Skills, 11th ed. Pearson, 2010, p. 73.

Customizing Your Note-Taking Approach

Once you decide what note-taking strategies work best for you, you can develop your approach for each class. As you can tell, your approach may be a work in progress, as it depends on the instructor and the subject as well. What works for you in Psychology class may not work for you in Chemistry. When you need to brainstorm note-taking and organizational ideas with someone else, Academic Success & Tutoring has many professional tutors who can help.

Organizing and Studying from Your Notes

One of the challenges students often face is how to integrate their lecture and textbook notes. One way to tackle this is by taking notes on your tablet or laptop. This provides lots of benefits:

• Editing – You can review, edit, and correct your notes.
• Adding – You can add graphs or textbook notes and cut and paste from other sources.
• Summarizing – You learn a lot by summarizing important sections in your own words. Think about answering who, what, where, when and why about what you just learned.
• Annotating – You can annotate your notes by adding questions and thoughts as well as by making connections with other course materials.
• Reorganizing – You can move information around and put it in an order that makes sense to you.
• Sharing – It is easier to share your notes with classmates.
• Recording and Dictating – Many apps allow you to record lectures, and Microsoft Word allows you to dictate notes. You then can edit them and add information, annotate, and reorganize as needed.

Studying From Your Notes

Most students, at some point, review notes, having no idea how to fill in the details. By reviewing your notes following a class lecture or presentation, you will remember details and determine what you need to add. You also can make notes for yourself, thus connecting lectures to other course materials, required reading or questions you may have.

Here are some questions to consider:

• How can I apply this information?
• What can I analyze and how can I use that analysis?
• Do I understand the information? If not, what do I need to know?
• Can I summarize this information in my own words and explain it to another person if needed?
• How can I use this information to create study aids?

Additional Resources

Sometimes you just need to discuss your note-taking strategies and plan with someone, and STLCC’s Academic Success & Tutoring has professional tutors and academic coaches and reading specialists ready to help you. Not only do we have tutors in a wide variety of subject areas available at each campus, but we also have online tutors ready to help. These tutors will meet you where you are and help you develop your approach.