#certain tips

[pierrotdoesnteat]

hey i need motivation and im unable to create my own so pretty please interact with this post; every note is gonna equal one minute on the treadmill after my MIL goes to bed

[the---hermit]

how I take notes on non fiction books

I recently made a post on my study method, and decided to make a whole separate post on my note taking method. The structure of the notes I write doesn't vary too much from my lecture notes to things I might have to read. A couple of useful informations you might want to know before I start actually talking about note writing is that I am mainly focused on studying history (tho I have had other humanities exams in my degrees), and that I study for oral exams in which the material is mainly composed of non fiction books, but sometimes include articles as well as lecture notes. Somehow I have also failed to mention that I am speaking about HANDWRITTEN NOTES. I only do handwritten notes, I don't work well digitally, so keep that in mind. And with this being said brace yourselves for a very long post. The bullet points I will be making are not really in a specific order and I will be including a few pictures too.

The first step when I am working on the materials for an exam is to figure out in which order I will be reading (and writing notes) the books. This hasn't really much to do with the notes themselves, but it's important to know which of your materials is more general and what other things go more in depth, so that you don't struggle too much while studying. Another plan related thing I always do is to write down each chapter of the book I have to study on my bullet journal and how many pages it is so I can plan my studying more comfortably. If the chapters are very long, and divided in subchapters I sometimes also write those down.

The goal of the notes I write is to fully take the place of the book, so they tend to be very detailed and long. I do this because the very act of writing is part of my study method, and working on things I have written down in my own words is just much better for the type of learner I am. So basically I read the book only once, then it goes back on the shelf and I work exclusively on the notes. This means my notes need to be detailed and well organized.

My method is to read a chapter, underlining important stuff as I am reading, and then right after I am done reading I work on the notes for that chapter before moving onto the next. I do this because it makes the note writing more effortless, I am fresh with informations I just read and I basically just need to skim over what I have underlined.

On underlining, since it is so important. I underline everything I will be including in my notes, it might seem much as sometimes it consists of full paragraphs, instead of key words. But this is okay because my notes I don't just copy and paste.

To create useful notes you need to be re-elaborating the informations. You need to read, understand what you read, and be able to write it down using your own words. That way the notes will be easier to review, they will often be composed of shorter sentences, and by doing so you are also actively making writing part of your studying and not just a mindless activity.

Personally I don't work well with full pages summaries, I need the text to be visually broken into sentences/small paragraphs, and I use a lot of symbols as well as abbreviations.

Symbols and abbreviations are in a way part of your very own language when you are writing notes, you tend to develop these with time, but they are so useful. I personally use different types of arrows, all caps words, position of the text in the page, different methods of highlighting and abbreviations (usually for words that come up often like country names, for example Italy becomes ita, France becomes fr, etc.).

Your notes need to be useful for you, they don't have to necessarily be comprehensible for another person (which means you can and will fuck up sentence structure because sometimes skipping a couple of words makes the notes shorter and still understandable), and they do not have to be pretty. They should be as tidy as possible, but again that might change from person to person, I have some very messy looking notes that make total sense to me. With time you'll learn what works best for you.

I have a visual memory so as I mentioned titles, highlighters, all caps, the placement on the page and other similar things are very important in my notes. I cannot fully exapain some of these things because some definitely only make sense to me in the moment (like the words I choose to write in all caps, or the way I highlight things).

I like to have a clear chapter and subchapter break (so that in case I need to refer back to the book it's super effortless). I like to write those with a red pen, usually the chapter title is in all caps and the subchapter in coursive, but it really depends.

I use only two highlighters in each set of notes yellow for dates, and the colour I associate with the book/the subject of the book (I have synesthesia I don't make the rules when it comes to colours). This of course might change depending your preferences and on the element of your notes you want to focus on. I like to have spacific colour for dates and time periods, because of course while studying history that is a fundamental element. If you are focusing on other subjects you might want to have a specific colour for names, or other elements.

I like to leave a big side margin to add either key words (especially in lecture notes since they might be messier and jump around informations more often), or additional information in a second time (sometimes it happens, after you read another book, or attended a particular lecture you have to add a couple of sentences and I rather have a blank space that never gets used rather than no space at all for emergencies).

I honestly mentioned everything that came to mind right away, but since note writing is now basically a mindless skill I have been practicing for years I surely forgot about something. I might end up adding to this post in the future or write another one. My note-writing method has also changed a lot thought the years from high school to university, it's a skill I have been perfecting for the past decade. This to say that depending on what you are working on things might change, and by experimenting with different things you might find out things that work very well for you. If you have any questions on specific things I didn't mention or that wen't clear my inbox is always open and I am more than happy to help.

Since this post is already very very long I am adding the pictures below the cut

Example of a page of notes before and after highlighting

Example of symbols and structure of the notes and the way I highlight things (in which you'll hopefully be able to understand my handwriting, and in which there might be some spelling errors but alas that often happens in my real notes as well so if there are any it's for the sake of accuracy lmao). If I end up adding informations on the margins I always use a pen of a different color so I can tell which informations I got from what source (ex. main notes from lecture, colorful notes from additional article).

Example of messier notes in which the main text in black are the notes I took during lectures and the additional colorful text was added while writing the materials (I rarely do this, it usually happens when the lectures follow a book precisely, which happens when we have to study books or summaries written by the professor). As you can see I often use post it notes to add more writing space, and sometime I even use them to create visually separated sections. If I end up adding some drawings I also usually like to have them on post it notes so they stand out more (and if you are wondering why the hell would an history student need drawings it's usually either because I need a map or a region/state to mark things out, or when studying for archaeology exams I often needed visual references, for example to identify different types of vases or decorations).

[linthehero]

some of yall are about to be real mad at me but, bryce tankthrust.

[springseventeen]

[gr8writingtips]

writing tip #3715:

if you're not sure how to promote your book, just tell everyone what the twist is! they'll appreciate it. promise

[watchyourbuck]

YES I’m all for buddie drama bc guess what? It’s inescapable in this tv show but do you know what other thing I’m a whore for ???? Absolutely unhinged Buck and Eddie stealing a firetruck to fuck, making out in a storage room, using the firehouse’s hoses to wet, uh…, something other than the equipment. Just Eddie raising his eyebrows suggestively at Buck so they can suck each other off in the locker room or Buck eating his lunch a liiiittle too provocatively so Eddie has to adjust himself in front of everybody

And yes, Hen and Chim and Bobby are all disgusted by this situation because that is government prOPERTY, but you know what? They look happy and it has never once interfered with their jobs (except maybe that one time Eddie was in charge of strapping Buck for a rope rescue and the guy moaned out loud)

[befuddled-calico-whump]

just because packaged food has passed the "best by" date doesn't mean it's gone bad! as long as the food item has been stored properly, has a normal appearance and texture, and doesn't smell bad or "off", it should be safe to consume (if you're uncertain, better safe than sorry)

For stuff like eggs, it can be difficult to tell at a glance, so here's a quick test you can use to check if eggs are still good to go:

- Fill a container with water (I use a mug or bowl), make sure it's at least twice as deep as the egg is wide

- gently drop the egg in the water

- if it sinks, it's safe to eat

- if it floats it's a witch there are gases under the shell, indicating it's started to rot

Use your best judgement, but I've used this method often and it's been pretty handy!

[infamous-if]

Can you share your beat sheet? Like the format?

it’s called “save the cat” beat sheet and it will make writing a whole narrative so much easier !

Almost every story from movies to traditionally published books follow something like this. Once you learn to recognize it, you can learn to write any story tbh.

[cepetriwrites]

Me: I’m going to get so much writing done tonight!

*ends up spending 40 minutes on the phone with my anthropologist sister assigning languages to the different free cities to give me a better reference when writing*

[siena-sevenwits]

💜💜💜

Hey, do you want a hug, my friend? This is a hug for you. It's going to be okay. Really.

[jadetheblueartist]

Help guys, what’s some sort of feature I can slap on my character to make her more distinct? Right now she’s resembling some other characters too closely and I don’t want that you know??

[dragongirltongue]

I'm gonna 6e fucking real, i hate that ro6otfucker chaser post going around. Idk as a transfem ro6ot fucker, I just really don't think a joke 6eing all "haha in the hypothetical scenario where your fantasy is possi6le plus these other ar6itrary rules to make my hypothetical work, you're the chaser now!" Is actually all that funny

[tip]

[shufaya]

When I first started dressing modestly, I would ask myself “Can I pray in this?” with every fit.

A year later and I can’t even recognize the person I used to be. That question was the game changer.

[7-kingdomz]

What are you hiding?

[cinamun]

What advice would you give to a simmer just starting out writing stories with their sims? How do you build engagement with your posts?

Oh hey friend!! I think the biggest draw for people is your screens! Do you have nice sets? Is your background filled in behind your characters? Make sure your visuals are just as engaging as your dialogue.

For building engagement, don't hesitate to reply to people who reply! Ask questions of your readers (and yourself). Use the tags to call out little things that your readers might pick up on. Most importantly you need to enjoy what you're writing, etc. Its contagious! If you're having fun others pick up on that.

Finally!!!!! Don't be hard on yourself. You might have a story post with 5 notes and you put a lot of work into it and its going to feel shitty. Just keep going if you're invested. I've seen too many stories go poof because the notes weren't note-ing. I can only speak from experience here but engagement that is organic grows with time. So keep pushing!

[tvok]

there's a lot I like about this little interaction. Declan casually dropping that he knew dennis was a spy the whole time, and even though Dennis is apologizing For Being A Spy, he still gets sort of rankled about it - because it's declan, so of course declan comes off as cold and vaguely threatening - but he doesn't mean anything by it at all. In fact this is basically Declan's way of saying "nah man it's cool". He's always been a straightforward (and trusting) guy.

"You said you've apologized, so why should I be wary?"