The Sentence Method

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Congratulations on making it this far in your note-taking journey. We've gone to war with ourselves over whether our notes are truly formatted in the best way for us. To find that answer I introduced Outline Methods, Column Methods, the Mapping Method, and now the Sentence Method. The fights were full of a lot of information and step-by-step processes, but this is the final battle.

The Simple Guide: 
As we've learned, certain notes follow a linear path (from top to bottom), which is perfect for lectures taught in a linear fashion - with topic to topic bullet points. While others follow a non-linear path - groupings of bullet points branching from one another. What they all have in common are short to the point statements explaining the info on the lecture slides. This method is separate from the others for a reason. All you have to do is write each new point on a separate line . You can even number the lines if you want. For lectures, you write what the bullet point and what they professor says about it. You'll have everything on one place. The Academic Skills Center of the California Polytech Institute (CalPoly for short) lists plenty of examples, and cons, to using this method, but I don't think they gave it a fair chance.

Cons: 

1. Makes it difficult to see which facts are important
2. Too difficult to review
3. Too difficult to edit information

Woah! All of these cons are extremely troubling, and now you're afraid to even bother with such a troublesome method. I get it. I understand. But, I use this method for my notes all the time. It's too soon to decide something isn't for you, especially when there are many pros.

Pros: 

1. Certain bullet points make no sense without a definition
2. Examples are needed to explain info that won't be understood after class
3. Can be used with other note-taking methods

The Sentence Method gets a lot of negative attention when compared to the others, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I see both the good and bad. No method is perfect until a research study proves me otherwise. This is why I introduced you to so many different types. You make them your own, to match your writing style and how you study. There are both benefits and costs for every decision, and hopefully you now have the tools to make the right one for you.

Helpful Hints: 

I had a ton of fun researching these different methods, so make sure to try them all out:

The Original Outline Method
The Revised Outline Method
The Column Method
The Mapping Method

Sources

California Polytech State University. Academic Skills Center (Student Academic Services). Note-Taking Systems, 2018, https://asc.calpoly.edu/ssl/notetakingsystems. Accessed 22 October 2018.