Why Rewriting My Notes Works For Me

I spend plenty of “unnecessary time” copying my notes from a spiral-bound notebook into looseleaf paper in a binder. What about it? Most of you have probably seen this hack in some place or another over the last few years. I know it seems like I might waste a lot of time, or that I’m just in it for the aesthetic *gasp*… but it actually has seemed to make a big difference in my academic performance! 

I started rewriting my notes in my Chemistry 1 Honors class sophomore year of high school. Trying to study from the notes I had taken in class was A HOT MESS AND A HALF. They were messy, unorganized, and a pretty big eyesore. I also didn’t have time during the class to use different colors to make diagrams and math problems make more sense. So, I decided to try this whole rewriting trend. I would go home, pull out colorful pens and clean paper, and rewrite the things from the PowerPoints, class notes, diagrams, and the textbook all at once. I realized being able to review what we had talked about in class every day helped me more readily recall the information when it came to studying for a quiz or test. The aesthetic part of it was also kinda huge. Having “pretty” and organized notes made my studying more organized. I also was able to remember things by association with color. For example, I might recall how to draw the molecular structure of dichlorobenzene because I could see it in my brain drawn out in blue ink. I carried this technique on through most of the remaining classes I took in high school where I could use it. It was super helpful for math classes and my US History class, where I added in information from videos and the textbook.

Now that I’m in college, I continue to use this technique for every class that I can. This semester I’m really only using it for Biology 111. The colors I use for each different thing don’t necessarily have any meaning, its just whatever I feel like using for that particular item unless it needs to be some specific like green for chlorophyll molecules. Here is how my notes go from “oh” to “woah” in a really simple way. 

*Disclaimer: Just because this study hack works for me, doesn’t mean it will work for you. I am typically the only person who sees the notes, so yes, I know there are many spelling errors. I know what it means, though, and I’d be wasting a lot of time if I used whiteout for all of them!

In-class notes:

(photo credits: author)

Rewritten notes: 

In-class notes for cells and structure: 

Rewritten notes where I added in the cell diagrams and cell part functions from the textbook: 

All photos from author

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