More and more often, among the rows of students studiously listening to a teacher or professor’s lecture, you will find laptops dotting the desks in place of the traditional paper and pencil that has ruled note-taking with an iron fist for ages. Rather than laboriously forming letters and struggling to keep pace with the material, proficient typists clickety-clack, often transcribing the notes verbatim as the educator speaks. As technology becomes more accessible, laptop computers have evolved into the preferred method of note organization for college students. But at what cost?
Typing on a computer seems like a serious benefit as those struggling to keep up with a pencil and a pen lose much of what a teacher presents in class. However, recent studies indicate that rather than improving learning, those using laptops find remembering the material more challenging than those who write notes by hand. While this may seem incongruous since typing makes it easier to record more knowledge in a shorter time than handwriting, several reasons explain these difficulties.
Here are some reasons why writing your notes by hand can improve your recall and help you perform better on examinations than when using a laptop:
Handwriting Is More Engaging
Many people go through weeks without writing anything more than a few phone numbers or a sticky note or two. Consequently, when taking notes, the writing endurance may not be up to par, resulting in a lot of wrist-shaking and sweaty palms. Nonetheless, writing things out by hand is far more engaging during a lecture than keying the information on a computer.
A significant reason for this is because people are unable to keep up with a speaker (especially a fast one) when having to form each letter legibly enough to be useful for studying later. The note-taker must listen carefully to what the speaker says because they know they will have to pick and choose what they write to get the necessary information. The brain actively seeks understanding so the writer can shorten the knowledge to a central idea and significant points.
On the other hand, when someone is an avid typist, they are more likely to get most of the words and are tempted to transcribe as much information as possible. The focus here is on successfully compiling vast quantities of words quickly enough so that they miss very little. This in itself is an arduous task, so instead of focusing on the knowledge the educator is delivering, they are concentrating on the words themselves and ensuring they have written everything accurately.
They may not really be aware of what the content means at this point, likely expecting to read back through the information at their leisure during studying; however, when they do so, they will not have the intimate engagement that comes through handwritten content; it will be more like they are reading and learning the information for the first time.
Organization Makes a Difference
As part of the writing process, note-takers often use charts, graphs, and other organizational features to abbreviate content so they can write as much as possible. While this may seem like a simple tool to cut the workload, these features are helpful because they connect with content and create lists of essential ideas that are more likely to stick with the reader. They will also be much easier to study in an organized format than simply reading through blocks of text on a screen.
The methods of organization are often unique to the individual writing, so these notes also have a personal touch that provides a connection to the writer. Seeing and arranging information and deciding which data goes where are part of content interaction, which embeds these ideas into the brain, making them easier to recall later. The proper organization also helps with memorizing important ideas and making comparisons and links among concepts and ideas.
While laptop users can undoubtedly make their own charts and graphs, it can take time to set up the page or prepare suitable columns and charts, which detracts from their ability to compile as much information as possible. Due to this, far fewer users organize information in this manner when typing. Likely, they expect to arrange the details better later on, but whether they do this is primarily based on the writer’s personality and how proactive they are with their education.
The Power of Paraphrase
There is an added benefit to having a writer wrangle with the content to figure out what to write and where – they often have to write the details concisely, in their own words. Otherwise, they may miss something crucial as they struggle to get things down in time.
While they may use shortened versions of the teacher’s speech, many times, they will have to grapple with what the speaker says, form an understanding of the meaning, and jot down the data in their own words so that they will remember the key points.
Because of this propensity, when they re-read their notes later, they often understand their own writing and ideas, which gives them the major topics and features to know and remember, consolidating the report to the most crucial information. This helps save time on unnecessary points or extra details, which can make it hard to recall needed material later.
The Bottom Line
Ultimately, writing notes by hand creates a powerful, condensed version of the lecture in which the writer has formed a personal connection. The writing is mainly in the note-taker’s own words, making it easier to understand, and they have already had to build content knowledge to determine which information to include and where to put it. Writing with a pen or pencil establishes an engagement that proficient typists may lack, firing the brain to quickly interpret data, choose the main concepts, and organize it efficiently for later recall.
For those who choose to type, the temptation is to include far more words, many of them verbatim, which tends to detract from understanding as the focus is on transcription rather than content. Often the result is large blocks of text which may read like new material to someone using them as a study tool, often lacking a suitable organization that facilitates learning.