I Need Fast, Legible, Relaxed, Consistent Handwriting Asap

[Zipzap]

@htom: I guess I can try reviewing my notes for a given day every evening, it wouldn't hurt me. If I'm proactive enough, I can find enough time to give each class a decent amount of time.

As for writing down the details, the problem is that I'm in the situation where the majority of the people in my class can actually succeed at writing down the details (in addition to the ideas/relationships/consequences). It's almost as if I'm the only person who can't keep up via handwriting. Sadly, I'm enrolled in classes where the majority of the details are orally delivered. You would be hard-pressed to get a good grade if you used the text to search for said details in preparation for a test/essay.

I'm in full agreeance with what you said about multi-tasking, and catching up is sure a big pain. I just never figured that switching colours during note-taking could possibly have such a profound effect as to be considered multi-tasking as well. I'm glad you brought it up, because I never would have otherwise given it a second thought!

I'm going to take your "ideal" cycle into consideration, it'll probably help me a lot with my classes!

 

@*david*: Well, most of my courses require the memorization of literally ever detail of a lecture. I'm good at discerning the most obvious things (like your example of the lecturer and his cat), but once it gets less obvious than that I'm a little more screwed. =P

I'll still take down your criteria for notetaking as something to follow by during my remaining lectures, they sound simple but effective!

[*david*]

If you really truly are required to memorize the lectures word for word (probably not true, and both hilariously silly and blatantly unfair if it is true) then you need a sound recording device. There is no other way really.

 

What kind of course is it again, that seems to have this insane requirement of word-for-word memory of lectures? Could it be that you've been made to take a class in which your previous knowledge of the subject is a bit sketchy, and you are scrambling to keep up? In a situation like that, a person might FEEL as if they had to memorize the lectures...

[Zipzap]

That's where another dilemma of mine comes in, unfortunately. Some of my professors won't allow recording of the lectures and yet they refuse to slow down. On average I would have permission to record 3/5 of the lecture classes that I'll have in a given semester. Guess I'm going to have to buy a new recorder.

 

The courses where this happens (well, this semester for me) would be Psychology, Biology, Biochemistry, Anatomy, and a Philosophy class that I'm taking. In other words, every course that I'm taking this semester. And it's not even the lack of previously taught knowledge, it really is how the professors teach and expect their students to be on the day of the test/exam.

[*david*]

1. Again, I express strong doubt that anybody is actually expecting you to memorize lectures word for word. It's ridiculous for anyone to expect that. Frankly, I think you're making up this word-for-word concept because you're worried about your grades and thinking that every little bit helps. If so, that's understandable - the competition in some fields must be ruthless. However, I recommend that you actually try listening intensely to what's being said, and avoid distracting yourself away from learning by making foolish attempts to get it all down in writing. Maybe I'm wrong about some parts of your situation, but I do know for sure that every little bit does NOT help. Some little bits, like writing down every. last. damned. word. , are harmful to learning and will get you lower grades and a worse education.

 

2. Modern recording devices are often very small, are usually provided with protective "hold" buttons to prevent their being accidentally turned off in a pocket or bag, and have fairly sensitive microphones built in.

 

 

 

 

The fact that you have written something does not mean that you know or understand it. There is a student note-taking fetish that seems to presuppose that writing equals knowing, and it simply isn't true. Taking down your lecturer's speech word for word means that you believe he is speaking crazy nonsense that you are going to have to go home and spend hours trying to interpret - that you don't trust him to even speak coherently. And if you have just said, "Exactly!" , then I sincerely pity you and your classmates/adversaries, and I take back most of my remarks on this topic. I've had bad professors once or twice, but all of them had at least the minimal language skills required to get their points across.

 

 

Trust yourself to be capable of learning. Trust your professors to be at least minimally coherent. Taking notes is a single tool, not an all-purpose solution. Frantic clutching at straws does not make for good learning.

[P.A.R.]

On the note of using a recording device:

 

I've seen people (mostly students) complain about not having the time to go back over an entire lecture to find specific details. One remedy I've thought of for this, though I don't use a recorder, is to start a timer at the beginning of a lecture and note the time elapsed periodically in the margin of your notes. Assuming you start timing and recording at the same time, you should be able to go to the same general area of the recording based on your written index to see if you missed any necessary details/ideas.

Edited April 11, 2012 by P.A.R.

[mcg1355]

I would strongly recommend getting a livescribe pen based on the new information you have posted. It records the audio and syncs it up with your notes and digitizes your notes all as you take them. You just download them to your computer and it's all there. The pen is the recorder so any nutso prof's wouldn't know you were recording. Seriously they don't allow you to record?!? You pay top dollar for the information and you can do whatever you damn well please with it! They have no right to tell you how to learn. If they dont want to go on record with what they teach then they need to get a new profession. Also, technically they're discriminating against students with learning disabilities (I'm one of them) but I won't get into that here... rant over.

 

But yeah I'd say go check out the livescribe system, YouTube some reviews and look at their web site because there's a bunch of features I'm sure I've missed. The only real drawback is that you have to use livescribe notebooks and you have to charge the pen. Of course it isn't a fountain pen but we can't have everything, also you're not a FP nut (yet) so it shouldn't matter to you.

 

-Nick

[rcarlisle]

I cannot really add to the loads of advice that you have already gotten. But for the long-term goal of better handwriting "Teach Yourself Better Handwriting" by Sassoon and Briem is the best book out there. I started reforming my handwriting three years ago from an ugly Palmer American cursive to cursive italic. This book is sensible and does not try to make you calligrapher. It just teaches you how to write legibly. Rosemary Sassoon was a professional calligrapher but she admits in the introduction that her handwriting is not like her calligraphy, but she can always read what she wrote and so can other people. I tried many different books and I think this book is the best.

 

If you can afford it get a Pilot Vanishing Point fountain pen. It is my best pen for taking fast notes of a lecture and I don't have to hold the cap in one hand while I write with the other.

[Zipzap]

@*david*: Ok, maybe I was over-exaggerating that we have to actually memorize the concepts word-for-word. I'll grant you that much. I'll aalso grant you that I'm worried about my grades and thinking that every little bit helps. As somebody who would like to go to medical school one day (if I can get in LOL), 'ruthless' wouldn't be sufficient enough to describe the competition in this field within my year right now. However, I will say though that with the amount of detail the professors expect us to know and actually test us on, you may as well memorize what they write word-for-word because you never know what sneaky trick they'll pull out of their sleeves to screw everybody over. :roflmho:

See, I'm in agreement with the theory behind what you're saying. Listen intensely to stuff being said, because writing EVERY single little bit can actually be counterproductive (lower grades, inefficient learning, etc.). I do agree that it's better to listen attentively than distract myself away from learning by these "little attempts". But my problem is that I'm such a slow writer to begin with. While I'm writing, the instructor will make another good point on something, and so I have to scramble with the previous point (i.e. getting it down on paper) while trying to listen to this next point. This repeats for 4-5 points, and then after that I'm either lost or I've missed something extremely important. This endless process occurs enough times during the lecture such that I don't get what I needed to get down on paper, ON paper. This is why I type and end up typing almost everything verbatim because otherwise I won't have squat down. What I'm getting at in my case is that it's better to have an overabundance of detail than to be missing out on a couple of them and bomb the test.

As for the recording devices, is the recording option on an iPhone sufficient? If not, I'll buy myself a new one. How much would it cost me to get a decent one that gets the necessary job done?

I'm in agreeance that writing something =/= you understand it. I have this fetish as well, but it's only there for the reasons I mentioned above. And to be fair, I am going to say "Exactly!" because a lot of our professors don't speak very well. Most of them go off on unnecessary tangents of which it's not clear whether it's important or not, speak way too fast, or are just plain disorganized with teaching the material.

I'll start trusting myself a bit more, and I'll trust my professors to be at least minimally coherent (doesn't seem likely to change in the future). Agreed on the note taking part, it's only one of the many ways we learn and do well!

 

@P.A.R.: I like your idea of how you use the recorder to take notes, I can't remember if you've previously mentioned it before but I'm definitely going to take that into high consideration once I buy a recorder!

 

@mcg1355: WOW, that looks really cool! I'm not 100% sure if I'm going to end up using that but I'll definitely give it a second thought and recommend it to other people who might like it! Thanks for the recommendation!

[Zipzap]

Hey rcarlisle,

 

Thanks for the feedback! I mentioned earlier in the thread that I bought this book at a nearby Chapters, so it's good to hear that you've had great success with it! I'm hopeful that this book will help me too. Out of curiosity, did it really take you three years with that book just to improve your handwriting, or was this the total time that you spent with the book? Any additional tips you'd like to give me before I start repairing my handwriting (specific to the book, its exercises, etc.)?

 

Also, can you give me a link to this pen that you're using? I keep ending up at the ones that cost ~$150, and I don't have that sort of money on me for just ONE PEN!

[rcarlisle]

You're very welcome Zipzap.

 

I did not take three years with Teach Yourself Better Handwriting. But I got it and absorbed Sassoon and Briem's philosophy (if that's the right word) of handwriting in a few weeks. They taught me to relax and not be intimidated by all the experts who say "Thou shalt write exactly like me, using exactly the method that I use!". I like the italic hand because it is easier than looped cursive (aka Palmer Cursive) to write fast and still have it be legible. I don't feel guilty because I slouch in a chair when I write, and write by moving my fingers and hand instead of my whole arm. I like Sassoon and Briem's approach to joining up my letters but they tell you to use what works best for you. They say, italic is nice but you don't have to have an italic broad cut nib to learn to write the italic cursive. It is also known as Chancery Cursive because the guys who invented it worked for the Pope in 16th century Rome in the Vatican Chancery writing documents out for him.

 

What was important was that I practiced for about 30 minutes every night before I went to bed and I wrote out things out of books that I liked to think about. I'd say my handwriting was switched over in four or five months from Palmer cursive to Chancery cursive. I took notes at a lecture last night. They are not pretty calligraphy, but anyone who reads English could pick them up and read them easily. People tell me I have nice handwriting now, though I know what really beautiful handwriting is like. Look up Ann Finley and Caliken here for beautiful writing.

 

I use pens with cursive italic nibs and pens with regular "ball" tipped nibs. For a good cheap pen there are many choices. I got a Pelikano Junior the other day for $14 US at Paradise Pens here in Dallas. They are so called school-pens but they write great. At the same time I got myself a Lamy Al-Star for $45 US at the same store. You can get them cheaper online though. Lamy Safaris are even cheaper, they are identical to the Al-Star, except they are plastic instead of aluminum. Target carries the Pilot Plumix. It is an italic nibbed pen. Any pen made by Pilot is great in my experience, from the $4 Varsity, to the Plumix for $7, to a 78G for $20 to $30 US, to a Vanishing Point for $140, to the really expensive Pilots and Namikis for over $200.

 

I got a Rotring Surf for $20 from Pendemonium (they don't have them now but JetPens carries them) and a Cross Solo for $25 from Fahrneys in DC. Both great pens. I got a Waterman Phileas for $55 from Speerbob on eBay. He is a great and honest eBay retailer. Gouletpens and Jetpens are the best place to see lots of good cheap pens.

 

I sent my Phileas and a Targa off to http://www.pendemonium.com and their nibmeister, Leatta, custom ground the nibs to a Cursive Italic for just $25 apiece. Good luck with your studies and I look forward to hearing about your progress.

 

  On 4/11/2012 at 10:18 PM, Zipzap said:

Hey rcarlisle,

 

Thanks for the feedback! I mentioned earlier in the thread that I bought this book at a nearby Chapters, so it's good to hear that you've had great success with it! I'm hopeful that this book will help me too. Out of curiosity, did it really take you three years with that book just to improve your handwriting, or was this the total time that you spent with the book? Any additional tips you'd like to give me before I start repairing my handwriting (specific to the book, its exercises, etc.)?

 

Also, can you give me a link to this pen that you're using? I keep ending up at the ones that cost ~$150, and I don't have that sort of money on me for just ONE PEN!

Edited April 12, 2012 by rcarlisle

[Goldengirly]

  On 3/24/2012 at 3:10 AM, Zipzap said:

As I mentioned before, I'm using my 5-in-1 pen to make all colour changes. Thus, there is no need for me to carry five separate pens.

 

I do change colours quite frequently, hence my need for the multi-pen. It takes a second or less to switch on the pen from one colour to the next. Are you possibly suggesting that even this short transition might already be too long? If I do all the colour stuff in class, I don't have to both with any additional modifications when I leave the class!

Hey zip zap,

 

Late to read your thread, just joined, my thoughts are:

 

1. When I make colour swap notes I find it faster to have a colour in my left hand which rests on the page, write in the main colour in my right, and then since both are uncapped and ready, it's fast to swap to colour by swapping pens to the other hand, faster than if I had to click a button or otherwise make the pen ready

 

2. Your writing, without seeing a sample, sounds like you made it out of primary school without a coherent and consistent method that suits you to use. I'm teaching my son at the moment and have had to look into the school font as its different than when I learned and so am trying to learn his way so I when I write him anything I'm modeling it the way his teacher does. What I've learned from that is that he's learning a print font now until year 3ish, then the matching cursive after tht- meaning that the shapes and strokes he imprints now will simply evolve with joins later, not really learning 2 as such. I also found out that the school font has been developed with ergonomics, ease and later speed in mind, and to facilitate a move from printing to cursive with minimum change. It's designed to be legible easily rather than beautiful or artistic, and quick to master.

 

When i apply that to how i write as an adult in a variety of situations this makes sense to me, I learned print first then cursive but now find as an adult I switch between without knowing- if I go slow, or am doing technical or number/symbol work or at start of class I seem to print, maybe join the odd letter or two. Then as the pace heats up in the ideas/lecture coming from out the front or say it's an essay exam, I move into cursive without knowing. as others have said, it's faster, less tiring and better allows me to keep up with the note taking or my own thoughts in the exam situation.

 

I personally don't believe you can totally keep up enough pace in the lecture where you find you're missing stuff unless you can effectively join your letters, and I think that's why others keep suggesting it. I can hear you saying "it's science, I need symbols" but is that really the only place youre frustrated in class? Wouldnt it be more effective to be able to make fast margin notes, explanations, reasonings etc in cursive right beside your printed formulas and symbols etc?

 

I don't know if our school font here would be anything like yours, so no links, but my suggestion is that maybe you might like to look into the school font in your area, see if it was designed in the modern way for speed, ergonomics etc, and see if doing that might be more effective for you than say learning a totally new hand. Do you know any teachers, is there an education faculty/teachers college at your university that uou could ask how they see the learning to write issue? As someone else said, the neaty perfect girls you see keeping up are doing it via imprinting and practice, so if your modern school font seems effective as I'm finding my sons, it may not be so hard to adapt from what you learned and therefore may already have imprinted at least a bit at school. For me, i see the benefit of my son's school font, and can get it happenning pretty easily as its different but not much different from what i practiced at school, simply a case of making a couple of letter changes and taking a few other things out of my habits and back to the basics I had years ago. By contrast I would find it very challenging to start with something totally new.

 

3. Tripod grip refers to balancing your pen well between your 3 fingers- thumb, index and middle finger for ease of control

 

4. I'm willing to take back all of the above upon seeing your writing and understanding what is really the issue. Don't wait and fret on this until you can write a sample, just grab a random page of notes from this week, scan or even mobile phone photograph them, and let's have a lookee see. Seeing those real notes would be more helpful than a sample to be honest

 

5. This will be unpopular, but here goes- many folk, me included, find fountain pens beautiful and ballpoint pens easier or faster. I choose to use fp and have gotten pretty good in terms of speed, but really a good ballpoint would be what I'd pull out in an exam. For that, what I love is a big grip, and a very fine point in blue, though my husband is totally illegible in anything but a medium point in black so do experiment. No affils, but here is my favorite exam pen My link

 

Good luck! And good on you for trying to change this, many people would just keep on thinking they just can't do it!

 

Sorry so long,

 

G

[DanF]

I got through school using a mini tape recorder (I guess that dates me )taking some notes in class, listening to the lecture again and filling in what notes I missed the second time. I think that really helps to get the material into memory, and saves a lot of worry and stress about the possibility of missing something.

 

Dan

[JustinJ]

I like the Palmer Method of Business writing for quick and easy writing. http://www.iampeth.com/books/palmer_method_1935/palmerMethod_1935_index.php It will not look beautiful like Spencerian Script but it allows for more speed and legibility. You can download the pdf file to look or print offline. One of the keys to using this method is getting the correct angle to hold the paper and using your non writing arm to move the paper along. Your writing arm is more like a piston going up and down (vertical motion) and the the non writing arm moves the paper (horizontal) instead of your writing hand moving across the page. The above method uses arm movement, which keeps your hand from getting tired.

 

 

A Safari pen is good to use for this method of writing, as has been mentioned. It will force you to use a tripod grip. You can buy a Safari Pen $23.00 dollars at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Lamy-Safari-Fountain-Charcoal-Medium/dp/B00133X1V8/ref=sr_1_sc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1334429428&sr=8-3-spell . I would add a converter, which is five dollars, so that you can use different inks. http://www.amazon.com/Lamy-LZ24-Refill-Converter/dp/B001DVXWRI/ref=pd_sbs_op_3 I think the Safari pen is one of the best investments as far as a writing instrument. You can get a fine nib, which will not be as smooth as the medium but a little more narrow for writing. You do not have to use a fountain pen, but it makes writing more enjoyable.

 

 

 

Before starting the Business writing method, do the exercises on this page http://www.paperpenalia.com/handwriting.html . Someone already listed it but if you will get comfortable with using your arm, it will make learning the Business method much easier. It will feel unnatural but soon it will become easy. You will wonder why you ever wrote with your fingers.

 

I would think with 30-45 minutes a day that you would see a vast improvement over three weeks time. It is really not that much of a time investment, especially for better handwriting over a lifetime.

[zoniguana]

  On 4/14/2012 at 7:06 PM, JustinJ said:

A Safari pen is good to use for this method of writing, as has been mentioned. It will force you to use a tripod grip. You can buy a Safari Pen $23.00 dollars at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Lamy-Safari-Fountain-Charcoal-Medium/dp/B00133X1V8/ref=sr_1_sc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1334429428&sr=8-3-spell . I would add a converter, which is five dollars, so that you can use different inks. http://www.amazon.com/Lamy-LZ24-Refill-Converter/dp/B001DVXWRI/ref=pd_sbs_op_3 I think the Safari pen is one of the best investments as far as a writing instrument. You can get a fine nib, which will not be as smooth as the medium but a little more narrow for writing. You do not have to use a fountain pen, but it makes writing more enjoyable.

 

I have a Safari with an extra fine nib - it was my first FP purchase, and it is a fantastic daily writer - especially for those of us with tight (one could even say cramped) handwriting. It is inexpensive, durable, and reliable. Even with an XF nib, I find it writes smoothly over most notebook, filler or copy paper... Even when I set it down uncapped for a little while, a few strokes later, the ink was flowing again pretty quickly.

 

I would also agree with a previous poster that a fountain pen, as it does not rely upon friction to lay down ink, also makes writing easier and less tiring. The Safari also, as yet another poster mentioned, encourages a good grip, as it is uncomfortable to *not* use a good grip.

 

Over time, as funds improve, and interest develops, there are nicer pens out there, etc., but a Safari is a great starter. I actually "loaned" mine to a friend, and it never came back, so, I got another one, even after I had purchased a couple of nicer FPs - I just liked having that Lamy on hand.

[Zipzap]

Wow, thanks for that feedback rcarlisle! I'm glad to hear that the book helped you improve your handwriting! If it's not too much trouble, can you post your "before" and "after" handwriting so that I can see what improvements you made? Also, I'll take a look at all those pens you've recommended. I've got a lot of pen shopping to do after my final exams at school are done!

I have four months of summer this year, so hopefully I can have my handwriting improved by the time school resumes again! (thumbs up)

 

Goldengirly, you put a lot on the table, so I'll respond to your points one-by-one:

1) I've tried doing that before, having one pen in my right hand and a different coloured one in my left hand. I can't vouch for you, but personally I've found no difference in colour-switching speed between two separate pens and a multi-pen. In my other hand I'm usually holding the paper down or doing something else with it that helps me take down notes. I feel like it's a personal thing, so I guess that different things work for different people better...

2) Sadly, your assumption is completely true. My primary school did a terrible job of teaching handwriting, as majority of people in the class did, to some extent, struggle with it. All the girls seemed to be good at it though, never knew why. Maybe they practiced much more than us guys, or some other valid reason. Anyhow, I've taken a look at the school font, and its design from what I've understood really isn't that great. Also, having put more research into this, the models I've looked into (italic vs. cursive business writing) are 10x better in all accounts. As for switching between writing and curves, I could potentially reach that point one day where I'm very efficient with both styles and I can easily switch between the two. I agree that my "science" plea may have been a bit unfounded, and that it would be more effective to use more cursive for writing explanations out, but I think at my stage it's better for me to improve my "printing" handwriting and make sure that it's consistently good before I look into incorporating an additional handwriting style.

3) I've heard about that grip, it even mentions it in the handwriting book that I bought. I'll need to seriously look into that more….

4) Yeah, I'm still trying to find some sample of my handwriting that best reflects how it looks like on a consistent, daily basis. Don't worry though, it'll be up real soon!

5) From what I've gathered here, it seems that FPs really are the way to go. I don't think anybody has anything against ballpoint pens, but I guess it's just experience in the end. In terms of an exam though, I'll have to wait and see what works best for me. I've never been required in university to write any examination in pen (except for a quiz or two), so I've always used a pencil. If I ever have to use a pen, I guess I'll just go with the one that helps me write faster + neater. I'll check out that pen you posted, I can always use more good pens at my disposal!

 

Hey DanF, it's good to see more people who can testify to the usefulness of a tape recorder in class. Thanks for being one of those people!

I have a general question though: Will an iPhone be sufficient enough to record lectures, or am I better off buying a legitimate audio recorder for my lectures? I'm just asking so I can see if I can save money, or inevitably have to dish out cash for a decent-quality recorder….

 

JustinJ: Thanks for the recommendation, and the helpful links! I'm currently going to be working on an italic (or cursive italic) handwriting style for the summer, but if I ever choose to learn a cursive method I'll end up choosing Palmer Method or mono line Spencerian as Mickey recommended. It seems like both of them are the best choices for purely cursive writing!

 

zoniguana: Wow, sounds like the Safari pens are really something else! I always had the feeling that I'd choose an XF nib if I were to buy it right now. I can't wait to start using that pen, that way I'll have no choice but to use the tripod grip (which sounds much better than my current grip).

[JustinJ]

I would suggest also getting an early start this summer on courses that you will be taking in the fall. Pick the courses that are the hardest for you or cause the most anxiety. If you are taking Organic Chemistry, then study it in the summer on your own. If math is difficult for you, then start studying now.

 

Do not wait until you get to class to start learning the subject. This is the wrong way to encounter a difficult subject. The class can be too fast to assimilate new knowledge. If you wait, your hardest course will take all your time away from your other classes. You end up doing worse in the other classes, because your hardest class takes up most of your time. I learned this the last couple of years of school. Everyone else will be stressed and you will have more time to devote to other subjects.

 

 

Also the act of teaching yourself will help you in your other classes. It is also a very valuable life skill. You learn quickly what works for you and does not. You want to use your university library to find the books on the subject that you will be studying. It is free and you can browse and see what book is the most efficient for you to learn.

 

Always read the information that the professor will be lecturing over before going to class. Usually, it is much easier to follow along and retain information. You will be surprised how much easier it is to take notes. Also, you already have a familiarity with the subject matter and hearing it again is another way of remembering it. If you will review your notes later in the day from class, the information will stay with you longer.

 

 

If you learn how to use mnemonics, it will make your life much easier. I took a lot of science classes and would use mnemonics to memorize information. Courses like Animal Physiology are memorization intensive. There are many book on mnemonics or you can look online for more information. You still have to put time in with mnemonics but it takes a lot less time than pure rote type memory.

[caligatia]

zipzap, I'm also a college student. I know what you mean about some professors. My biology prof expected the class to remember even things he said as a random aside. To use someone's example above: if our prof mentioned his cat, we had to write that down. He'd put anything and everything on the exam. I got through it with an A, but I don't hand write notes. I use a netbook to write down words, and keep a notebook to the side (or under the netbook, depending on how much space I have) and I write down any weird symbols, charts, or equations there. I number them, and then in my types notes I'll put "see fig. 2" to reference the second drawing/handwriting I did. It was a heck of a lot faster than trying to do it all on the computer, and I type much faster than I write so it really did work out to be the best for me.

 

As far as handwriting goes, I'm currently trying to teach myself italic. I don't use it for school notes, but I write pen pals and I'd like to make my words more legible.

 

Good luck!

[htom]

Figures separately is a good idea; I do that still. Digit with a circle means a figure on the page (I start making them at the bottom and go up), circle with a tail to the left means previous page's n, tail to the right is next page, tail down is somewhere else. Keeps you from having to count higher than three or four on a page, usually.

 

There are roller balls with water-based ink (that is, not gel inks) that I feel have a touch on paper much more like a fountain pen. UniBall Vision Elite is one such. I don't know what else those refills will fit into.

[Zipzap]

See JustinJ, that's not my problem though. I've never had (or felt) the need to start studying courses prior to the start date. I'm not professing myself as a genius, but I've always found the time given within the semester to assimilate and learn information in time for a midterm/exam is sufficient. I've always found that the beginning was ok, but then poor time management (which always throws me off because I end up choosing something that's not very sustainable) screwed me over. I've found this to be true for my easiest and my hardest courses.

Given that most of my professors (IMO) aren't that great at teaching the actual subjects myself (since the 11th grade and beyond), I've pretty much become self-sufficient at teaching myself. It's never been a problem for me and I've always had great success when I did so in a timely fashion.

I've always wanted to review my notes before coming to a class, but was too lazy. I guess I should really get on doing that more often....

As for mnemonics, I use them only when I can find some sort of noticeable pattern. I generally don't use them because I found that understanding of the material is sufficient enough for me to recall any patterns/structures that I need to memorize.

 

caligatia: The sad thing for me is that this is usually 4/5 of the professors at my university, so it's never "that one professor who was silly enough to make us memorize every single thing", but rather "I'm so glad I had that one prof who didn't need me to memorize every single detail!"

 

htom, I'll check out that pen and consider your figure idea, it sounds pretty innovative!

[topaz]

I just want to say, on behalf of future nurses who will work with you, thank you for wanting to write legibly!