Ask HN: Why are students taking handwritten notes? Typing is much more efficient
19 comments
I disagree and am not sure what you mean by "efficient". I have never liked typing notes, be it in school or at work. Handwriting flows much better for me and I also find reading through notes, or just finding them, on paper easier.
I still usually show up at meetings with only a notebook and a pen... (added bonus: no-one asks me to connect to Teams/whatnot because they have a problem)
I still usually show up at meetings with only a notebook and a pen... (added bonus: no-one asks me to connect to Teams/whatnot because they have a problem)
I think by ""efficiency" OP means that WPM is typically faster when typing vs. handwriting. That's certainly true for me.
- Fewer distractions from other things on the computer
- digital becomes harder if you want to sketch things or write formulas (some friends in uni could type LaTeX as as fast as the lecturer could write on the blackboard, I certainly couldn't)
- digital becomes harder if you want to sketch things or write formulas (some friends in uni could type LaTeX as as fast as the lecturer could write on the blackboard, I certainly couldn't)
And even if you type the LaTeX perfectly, when the lecturer draws something around some terms or an arrow or some other doodle, now you'd better be quick with your TikZ too! Even more so in something like engineering where you have to draw all sorts of diagrams, sometimes all mashed up together.
Efficient for what, though? It's certainly faster for rote recording of information, but I learn complex information in less time when I hand-write it out. Also, you have to be really well-practiced in LaTeX math packages to type arbitrary math well. Hand-writing math is much more straightforward with limited learning time.
I write notes when I want to retain the information in my head.
I type notes into my "second brain"[1] when I want to be able to later refer to that information but not retain it in my head.
1. Currently, a Markdown file in Obsidian.
I type notes into my "second brain"[1] when I want to be able to later refer to that information but not retain it in my head.
1. Currently, a Markdown file in Obsidian.
It depends on the topic. Math notation is a 2D horrible domain specific mess, and it's much faster to draw it in 2D than forcing it into a 1D symbol chain. (Bonus point for Greek letters or $\weird$ symbols.)
I remember doing a page of notes involving nu, and then v got involved! I put little tails on the nus after that.
When I have to write "U" and "V" by hand in a math text, my "V" looks almost like a "Y".
When studying CS questions for software engineering interviews, I found being able to sketch and freehand draw helped me understand concepts such as memory, cpu architecture and recursion better
Absolutely not more efficient when dealing with Mathematics or math-heavy notation which is 90% of my notes. Maybe an iPad might help but it's out of my budget right now.
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Why at all? If you want to record the lecture, use photo, video, audio recording.
- Spending 15 minutes to read your notes takes less time than re-watching 1+ hours of lectures
- Writing things down in your own words makes concepts easier to understand
- Not everything is in the textbook, sometimes lecturers provide key insights that will be lost if not written down
Citation needed.
1) Writing is more efficient when taking notes in real-time for maths notation
2) Better rentention of knowledge from the act of writing vs typing
Now as I teach, more students use tablets to take notes. But they're still writing, not typing