How To Get The Most Out of A Book Pt. 2 - Note-taking Basics

Part 2 of the series: How To Get The Most Ouf of A Book, where I share my personal note-taking method for effective analytical reading.

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Other Resources:
My new course on keeping a writer's diary:
Selected Writings:
My Essays:
My playlist on Reading:
My collaborative novel about Melbourne: There's A Tale To This City:

Chapters:
Introduction: 00:00
Step 1: 00:53
Step 2: 01:19
Step 3: 02:37
Concluding Thoughts: 04:30

[thealchemistfan]

Annotating books, for me, brought fun back into reading. Any book is more immersive if you can focus on how certain things make you feel, which writing your thoughts down forces you to do. I've tried for a good 3 years to read Sherlock Holmes to no avail, but I'm up to page 572 of my mum's copy, which she's given me, because I've been analysing the queer subtext of Watson and Holmes' relationship. The same applies for non fiction books. The Spanish Inquisition seems more fun if you force yourself to react to it by taking notes. That's my take on it

[senoritaclavelita]

I get so much out of these videos. I've always struggled with note-taking and studying in general, but your videos have made it so much easier for me to engage in my readings. Thanks for all you do!

[knightnxk]

Basically, read the book, when you spot something interesting monologue with yourself about the chapter or paragraph, write it down in summary, yes, it will take you a bit more time overall, but it will downsize the time required when you will need to turn back to it, instead of rereading the thing, you just need to reread what you have written in your notes
you can downsize dozens of pages into a few sentences each, which saves time, which = efficiency & proficiency

[bill_jennings]

I also prefer taking notes in a journal as I read along, and then doing a broad summary in that same journal after I've finished a chapter. And it does help me not to have to reread the chapter later since I've hit all the highpoints. And I'm really enjoying your Mug of Insights content too. Good stuff.

[ervenpeety]

I’d like to thank you. This six minute video, and its precedent, have improved my note taking skill in a manner that has increased my comprehension, and, to use your term, “lucidity” of the works I’m studying. Watching these was time well spent. I appreciate the work you’ve done!

[Riyad-]

Thank you Robin for making these kind of videos. Love From Bangladesh.🇧🇩❤️

[msanzesbri]

J ' aime WALDUN!!! Jour de vidéo tien, jour de fête. Super intéréssants et amusants. Longtemps despuis mon dernier commentaire mais je te cherche toutes les semaines. Félicitations cher Prof! Je t' embrasse très fort et MERCI! Merci pour le cadeau de ta vie. ❤

[BrittanyBWrites]

I used to take notes along with the books, but it'll be mostly my thoughts. I don't read a lot of nonfiction (gonna try some good ones this year) and taking notes while reading is a really good idea. also I might need to try this with my reads for class. Also I'm really loving your Mug of Insights-it's like a little break from everything else that's going on in my mind at the moment.

[johneric]

I really appreciate your straightforward fast honest approach to your methods of learning.

[merellinsohail]

Thank you for
providing such great content. Your handwriting is really Beautiful too, God bless you

[trombonist-boyi]

This makes note-taking a lot simpler for me. Thanks!!

[mavywavy]

I tend to do a lot of note taking for both fiction and non fiction books, mainly my theories, what I like about the storyline and a bit of a summary of the scenes I like as well as some nice quotes. Writing those down also helps me relax and even recall characters, scenes and what I learned not to mention I borrow alot of library books so I can’t write in them 😂.

[cowz]

Thank you so much i really been needing to take reading a bit more seriously with high school this seriously helps!

[jenniferrosebruce]

Excellent Robin, yes I read the whole chapter first, go back then do my annotations. Time consuming but worth it.

[Actuallyusefulthings]

I think Step 2 is the most important tip because when I was planning to adopt a dog I read this really amazing book titled "Adoptable dogs". Most dog books are tailored to puppies you get from the store so this book was a very unique one because its tailored to puppies who have already had home and is moving to a new one which is a whole different emotional aspect to think about. Anyways, when I finished the book I remembered a lot of amazing tips and I wanted to save them since I had to return the book back to the library but that didn't work out. Why? Its because it was a lot of effect to reread the book I took months to finish and to reread it again is just pain stacking. So, TAKE NOTES WHILE READING THE BOOK! Please don't make the same mistake I did because it really was a good book and now I will have to re-read it again to take notes to look back at the amazing tips I learned.

[NottaVideoSummary]

00:03 Tips for taking better notes while reading a book
00:49 Take notes while reading the book.
01:29 Taking notes while reading helps in retaining insights and understanding.
02:11 Structure your notes for effective note-taking.
02:54 Identifying the author's propositions and arguments is key to getting the most out of a non-fiction book.
03:40 Organize your notes under general concepts and arguments
04:27 Note-taking technique is more difficult but involves replicating the logical structure of the entire chapter.
05:09 Review part 1 and practice signposting technique before taking notes in this read-along.
----From Notta's video summarizer

[Clementine_]

I am currently reading consolations of philosophy and I written about half a page about the first page of the book 😂

[ignjat]

Now the book page would not be absolutely demolished like the last time 😂

[VedderGirrl]

Currently reading Byung Chul Han on my daily commute and yeah, margins are not enough!

[syedghaffarhassan]

Well the idea is good about taking notes on a notepad/notebook but can I take my notes on google docs because it's easy for me to take long notes on google docs as it syncs everything I write on all my devices so I can check and edit my notes anytime anywhere whether on my smartphone or laptop and writing with pen is a bit hectic process you know. Writing on a laptop or smartphone would be a bit easy and writing with a pen on a notebook is a bit of a vigorous process although it's manageable but writing on docs would make it a bit easier. Thoughts?