Question

Under what circumstances would it be appropriate to use the sentence method of note taking, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of this method?

Answer 1

With the sentence method, you write down the key ideas from a lecture in a numbered list. You can combine this method with other techniques such as using abbreviations or acronyms so that you can further reduce note-taking time and space.

The sentence method allows you to record a lot of information and is easier than writing down whole sentences or paragraphs. On the other hand, you usually end up with an extensive list of ideas. Related ideas are not grouped together and the main ideas and supporting ideas are not clearly distinguished.

Because of this, you would need to take an extra step, which involves reviewing, editing, and organizing your notes to make sense of what you have written down.

Your revised notes might look like this:

TOPIC: CHANGES IN MATTER

   Matter: has mass, occupies space

   Can undergo 2 types of change: physical and chemical

   Phys: id and properties do not change

       Example: boiling water returns to water

   Chem: id and prop change

       Example: burning wood becomes ash and gas

       Evidence: change in properties, like bubbles (not in H2O), change in form; temp/color change

Answer 2

The sentence method is writing every new thought as an individual sentence. The advantage of this is that it is much easier to go back and find where a specific topic's notes are as opposed to having to read through a paragraph of notes. The disadvantage of it is that it's harder to convey a deeper meaning when every thought is written in its own line.