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Concept
Note-taking
Summary
Note-taking (sometimes written as notetaking or note taking) is the practice of recording information from different sources and platforms. By taking notes, the writer records the essence of the information, freeing their mind from having to recall everything. Notes are commonly drawn from a transient source, such as an oral discussion at a meeting, or a lecture (notes of a meeting are usually called minutes), in which case the notes may be the only record of the event. Since the advent of writing and literacy, notes traditionally were almost always handwritten (often in notebooks), but the introduction of notetaking software has made digital notetaking possible and widespread. Note-taking is a foundational skill in personal knowledge management.
Note-taking has been an important part of human history and scientific development. The Ancient Greeks developed hypomnema, personal records on important subjects. In the Renaissance and early modern period, students learned to take notes in schools, academies and universities, often producing beautiful volumes that served as reference works after they finished their studies. In pre-digital times, people used many kinds of notebooks, including commonplace books, accounting waste books, and marginalia. Philosopher John Locke developed and published a popular indexing system which served as a model for commonplace books and inspired at least ten different published editions of commonplace book templates in Europe and the Americas as well as Bell's Common-Place Book, Form'd Generally upon the Principles Recommended and Practised by Mr Locke (London, 1770).
Note-taking is a central aspect of a complex human behavior related to information management involving a range of underlying mental processes and their interactions with other cognitive functions. The person taking notes must acquire and filter the incoming sources, organize and restructure existing knowledge structures, comprehend and write down their explanation of the information, and ultimately store and integrate the freshly processed material.
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