How Do You Take Your Notes?

[merrycitrine]

Hi everyone,

 

Here's a question for all those of you who use your fountain pens for note-talking (especially for classes). How do you organize your notes? What colors do you use? How do you control yourself from going crazy with the colors?!

 

I used to use black, red, blue, orange, only for taking notes until last semester. I used these colors to organize headings, important theorems, remarks and general text. However, I have recently, uhm, spent a bunch of money on new pens and lots of inks. So now I am thrown off my game. This is going to sound silly, but I wanted to make the use of color meaningful, but I am not sure how to do this with so many colors!

 

How do you use color in a way that helps you study/remember later?

 

Thanks!

[Sasha Royale]

How do you control yourself from going crazy with the colors?!

 

This is going to sound silly, but I wanted to make the use of color meaningful, but I am not sure how to do this with so many colors!

 

In college, I only had Parker blue. The rest of the issue ?

"Control" is futile. Abandon hope, all who enter here.

[View from the Loft]

I used only black ink, with layout being used to help emphasise points etc.

[inotrym]

One color for titles, underlining, side notes etc.

A second for theory and examples.

A third for exercises.

 

Graphs and schemes are usually done in pencil, although sometimes I also have to use one of the colors too, to avoid a mess. (color depends on context, if this is part of an exercise, I'll use the third one)

Notes added later on when I study by myself at home are taken in a fourth color. Most likely black.

 

 

Currently I am using:

 

Diamine Kelly Green

Pelikan Edelstein Turmaline (2012)

JHerbin Bleu Nuit

Pilot Black

 

edit: I try to maintain the same color scheme throughout the semester. If that in not possible or I get too bored, I will use a shimilar shade.

Edited June 25, 2015 by inotrym

[NinthSphere]

In class, I generally only have three 51s on me, a fine with Pel Turquoise, a med or 1mm with Nightshade, & a med with Antietam (Galileo's Manuscript Brown, reddish version, as of last fill).

 

If I'm in a Turquoise mood, Nightshade is used for section titles. If I'm in a Nightshade mood, the other way around. Antietam/GMB is sprinked in for important numbers or specs.

 

Last semester, we were working on air conditioning, so notes on the high pressure side were in Antietam, low pressure side in Turquoise, & general notes were in Nightshade.

 

If I'm working at home, it's all over the place. I use whatever I feel like at the time.

[Ernst Bitterman]

From last year of high-school to the finish of university, it was all Quink black. Some things got underlined. There were occasional appearances of block printing for really important stuff.

 

Having said that, I'll admit that it was a couple of decades ago and no extravagance in inks was possible, and I'll suggest that if the previous regime was working for you, return to it.

[ac12]

KISS

 

I just used Parker Black in college.

 

I suggest max of 3 colors.

Too many colors gets confusing, later on as you are reviewing your notes.

I went crazy with highlighters, and it was BAD. I had to cut back on my highlighting to make sense of things.

Edited June 25, 2015 by ac12

[Nomad]

How do you find the time during a lecture to fiddle with all these pens?

 

I suggest you use one color and pay more attention to the lecture.

[merrycitrine]

In college, I only had Parker blue. The rest of the issue ?

"Control" is futile. Abandon hope, all who enter here.

One color for titles, underlining, side notes etc.

A second for theory and examples.

A third for exercises.

 

Graphs and schemes are usually done in pencil, although sometimes I also have to use one of the colors too, to avoid a mess. (color depends on context, if this is part of an exercise, I'll use the third one)

Notes added later on when I study by myself at home are taken in a fourth color. Most likely black.

 

 

Currently I am using:

 

Diamine Kelly Green

Pelikan Edelstein Turmaline (2012)

JHerbin Bleu Nuit

Pilot Black

 

edit: I try to maintain the same color scheme throughout the semester. If that in not possible or I get too bored, I will use a shimilar shade.

This is very similar to what I did!

 

 

How do you find the time during a lecture to fiddle with all these pens?

 

I suggest you use one color and pay more attention to the lecture.

 

No, I am not usually that distracted by it, since the professors usually write on the board and this take a while, and I am a faster writer. In fact, it helps a lot to find things quickly in my notes. I am a math student. I use black for headings, and for marking different objects such as definitions, propositions, lemmas etc. I use red for theorems and important points, blue for general topics and proofs, and orange for important remarks and things to be careful about. This helped a lot when studying for exams to quickly find things. It also keeps one awake early in the morning to do a bit of conscious physical movement in class.

 

The issue is not so much: how can I incorporate 10 colors in class. I would probably stick to ac12's advice and use 3-4 colors, but rather: how can I rotate these colors so I can use all the inks I have.

 

In class, I generally only have three 51s on me, a fine with Pel Turquoise, a med or 1mm with Nightshade, & a med with Antietam (Galileo's Manuscript Brown, reddish version, as of last fill).

 

If I'm in a Turquoise mood, Nightshade is used for section titles. If I'm in a Nightshade mood, the other way around. Antietam/GMB is sprinked in for important numbers or specs.

 

Last semester, we were working on air conditioning, so notes on the high pressure side were in Antietam, low pressure side in Turquoise, & general notes were in Nightshade.

 

If I'm working at home, it's all over the place. I use whatever I feel like at the time.

I quite like this idea of switching around colors to use what you're feeling like using. I am thinking: use 4 for one class, different 4 for another class!

 

Its all in good fun! I want to broaden my horizons!

 

EDIT: Wanted to add:

 

Blue: Pelikan Blue

Red: Diamine Wild Strawberry

Black: Monteverde Black

Orange: Diamine Autumn Oak

Edited June 26, 2015 by merrycitrine

[ac12]

KISS

Don't fuss with the inks, or one day you will get them mixed up. And you may have 2 pens with black ink, and no red pen. Get a routine and stick to it.

 

If you want to rotate colors do it with other pens.

[merrycitrine]

KISS

Don't fuss with the inks, or one day you will get them mixed up. And you may have 2 pens with black ink, and no red pen. Get a routine and stick to it.

 

If you want to rotate colors do it with other pens.

You mean stick with my current routine?

[WaskiSquirrel]

When I was in college, it was all Quink Black or pencil. Now, if I take a class, I have more multicolored notes, but my main rule is to include a bright pen so I can highlight things. I try to take notes in a format that makes sense rather than a necessarily organized outline like I used to do.

[merrycitrine]

When I was in college, it was all Quink Black or pencil. Now, if I take a class, I have more multicolored notes, but my main rule is to include a bright pen so I can highlight things. I try to take notes in a format that makes sense rather than a necessarily organized outline like I used to do.

This is interesting. Can you elaborate on your format?

[zuerincolour]

I use one colour for my notes and another colour for annotating (I always leave room on the right to do this). Headings and underlining are used with the same colour though my headings are always written in full caps.

[LexicalCat]

I am a huge fan of the Cornell Note Taking system (You can google and a bunch of great PDFs pop up as search results). I would write lecture notes in one color and then in review, I'd add the tags in the left column, and write summary in other colors. Also, i used colors after the lecture to spiff up any diagrams. Pretty basic, but hey, it got me through a PhD. ^_^

[ildbig]

How do you find the time during a lecture to fiddle with all these pens?

 

I suggest you use one color and pay more attention to the lecture.

 

I actually suggest my students take multi-colored notes, because I use multiple colors of chalk!

[ac12]

 

You mean stick with my current routine?

 

Yes.

If you rotate colors, you may end up doing your general note taking in a color that you used for highlighting the week prior.

Or use DARK colors for general notes and a bright color for hightlighting. If you keep within the same color family, it will be less confusing. Example, general notes could be in various shades of medium to dark blue. That way there is some consistency.

[Cryptos]

Currently at Uni I use two Pilot 78G fine nib pens. One is black with black ink, one is red with red ink. Since I sold my penultimate 51 this is the only pen I have with red ink. Anyway, I take notes in black and only use the red for key points and concepts as they crop up. Often I will write a summary statement of the lecture in red too, but that's usually after the lecture is over.

[AAAndrew]

My problem would be spending too much time fiddling with the pens to find the right color that I'd lose track of the lecture. But then I was in humanities.

 

I take a lot of notes in my current profession. For that, it's the color of the pen I'm using. I use format and symbols in the side bar margin to indicate actions, special emphasis, etc... I also have a space at the bottom of the page for special actions or issues or further questions.

 

I get my different colors in by switching pens from day-to-day. That way it's also easy to see one day from another.

 

I then type up my notes in OneNote. This second review helps trigger further remembered information, or additional follow-up, and I have an electronic and searchable version of my notes. It's sometimes a pain to take the time, but I've been saved several times by this practice. And I keep my to-do list in One-note as well so it's easy to move back and forth with actions.

 

The page I use is one I designed based on a standard format. I print it on HP Premium Laser paper and use it in a Circa-type notebook (ARC system from Staples). Here's the page I use.

 

[Cataleya]

I know your problem...!

For me it's about Stabilo Fineliners. I love them and the colour range, you can have.

In my case, it's just black for plain text and about three matching colours for headlines, myself-explaining stuff and the third for important formulas. But every class has it's own colour code.

 

Experimental Physics for example have the turqoise ones and a dark red for the most important things, anorganic chemistry is about two different blue pens and lime green for highlighting.

In addition I use arrows and brackets and write on a blanco notepad...

Works well so far.