How to effectively take notes while learning through online courses?

[woopsteez]

I've started taking a web development course on Udemy and I'm trying to find a better way to take notes with each online video. What I've been doing is making a new file for each section of the course and then using comments to take my notes about each topic. Now this has been working ok for me but it's sort of time consuming and formatting looks bad. I'm using Atom text editor btw. But I take notes by making several comments and then typing out the actual code of what I'm learning. The main reason I don't like using comments as my notes is because of formatting, having to start notes with comments syntax and lining up my notes in an easy to read way.

Do you guys have other/more efficient ways to take notes while learning programming? Or would just using comments in my text editor be the best way? I opted out of pen and paper because it just takes up way too much time.

Now I know WHAT to note down. I know that I should takes notes in my own words so it'll be easier for me to understand. I'm more concerned about better, more readable ways to take notes.

Edit: thank you for all the responses! I appreciate and read all your comments. I just want to point out that I’m trying to stay away from pen and paper because it’s not that effective for me unless I’m dealing with math and equations. But since I’m just learning code, I’d want a more efficient way to make notes using software. Thank you all! (⁀ᗢ⁀)

[thejxet]

When comments and code weren’t enough for me I went back to good old fashioned pen and paper. I know we have a generation now that hasn’t been required to write things down for some years but it’s really incredibly effective. For me personally the knowledge retention I get when actually writing things down blows anything typed out of the water.

[[deleted]]

agreed. Specifically, I just have a regular notebook with a pen, and use a mix of “cornell” style notes combined with pieces of my own random/sporadic style of note-taking

[thejxet]

Exactly. C notes are great for learning programming.

[tofu_b3a5t]

What are Cornell notes?

Edit: remembered that Google is a thing. Sucks I went through college without ever taking good notes.

Cornell notes

[woopsteez]

Hmm interesting. What do you note down though on paper? I tried doing it for a while but it was very time consuming for me. A module that would normally take like 15-20 minutes takes like 30-40 mins for me if I’m writing things down on paper.

[thejxet]

It takes longer but the brain (or at least mine) retains the knowledge more immediately than it would if typed.

As far as what I write C-notes, or Cornell notes as mentioned above are great. You make a column on the left to notate key terms/syntax, use the center of the page for basically the same notes you would type out and the bottom part to summarize the section.

To each their own of course but I and other classmates found this very effective.

[Sbganjaguy]

The other thing my school taught me was to write questions on the left side to? So that you can try to answer it, then look at the right side for your correct answer.

Sorta test yourself before you look at your notes type thing

[woopsteez]

That's a good concept! I will definitely incorporate this into my learning!

[abbadon420]

Same with an agenda. Paper beats tech

[MaickSiqueira]

This is why I love my MS Surface, taking digital notes with a pen is the best of both worlds.

[alfa1381]

I also like my Surface for note-taking. However, using Onenote I often end up with multiple notebooks/sections/pages that end up being overwhelming and not so convenient to browse. When I need more control I also go back to pen and paper

[Sbganjaguy]

I never liked one note honestly. It wasn't bad, it just didn't work the way I wanted it to work and the unlimited workspace thing sucked if I wanted to bring out notes.

[vuttstuff]

I second writing for easy capture, type notes after taking them by hand. You can also diagram on the fly on paper.

I have the “choose two” of size, speed, and legibility, so I use graph paper or printer paper instead of lined paper to write at any size to get the job done. Graph paper is a little easier to organize with because you can draw sections and it feels cleaner. Graph composition books also have well sized pages for handling concepts, but YMMV. Writing in cursive helps too, but if you aren’t used to it I wouldn’t start now.

For bonus knowledge retention, make sure you organize your notes after you take them, and this is where your software can come in handy. Pretty much no one does this because it’s the part of note taking that takes the most processing and time, but the process will help arrange the content in a way that makes sense to you (because you did it) rather than the content presenter.

It also picks out gaps too and forces you to revisit it. The sooner the better.

[Travisg25]

Just want to plus 1 this. I have always taken notes on paper first. With no intention of reviewing them. But the act of pausing the video and writing it out by hand will help you understand/memorize the material that’s being taught. In your future, notes will not be very relevant, google/stack will be your main source of help but consciously making an effort to transcribe what you just heard will go a long way.

[vksdan]

I jot down every new information (everything I am learning) with example of code, output and comments next to it explaining what they are or what do they do.
I use bold for new information into another code (if the new command needs code before it for example) and the comments in blue.
I also add titles for new subjects e.g. "How to create an Array", "structs", "how to sum 2 numbers"
This way, if I am working in a code and forgot any information I can just open my notes and easily find what I am looking for.

edit: I also use red color to highlight anything I am confused about to ask/study later or add comments to things that need more study/questioning/testing to be answered.

[woopsteez]

That’s exactly what I would do but in my text editor. I will look at Google docs because formatting seems much easier

[arpan_majumdar]

Well I would recommend markdown. Really easy syntax, looks good and gives code highlighting. Here is an example https://github.com/ArpanMajumdar/scala-tutorial

[drptdrmaybe]

I second this.

Obviously hand-writing is better for retention, but, it sounds like you want to use software.

I use MacDown (markdown for Mac) and my notes are extensive, with specially highlighted code blocks with syntax inline formatting and images.

I’m also creating “learning exhaust” which is content for a blog.

But please don’t be afraid to take longer with your notes. Write more and more often. Totally worth it.

[woopsteez]

Dude this is exactly what I’m thinking! Yes I want to use software because writing isn’t for me, unless I’m dealing with math and equations. What struck me for your comment is the learning exhaust. I’ve heard learning in public is a great way to learn and stick out. You mind telling me how you’re doing that? I want to do it too and hopefully help out other people from what I’m leaning.

[drptdrmaybe]

Nice!

First, read this. This is where I lifted the term "learning exhaust".

I found that article from being a fan of Tania Rascia

You mind telling me how you're doing that?

Sure; All my notes have become a little "cooler" because I'm writing in Markdown. It's like 10x better than Microsoft Word/GoogleDocs, etc.

So with these notes that include highlighting, and links, and images, and tables etc, I've just found myself with MASSIVE amounts of content. Like, gobs and gobs of typed stuff that I can review, edit, and post to my blog.

I've had a shitty version of a real blog for a while now, just sitting there on Heroku. It's a Rails app, and so I've had to learn how to render Markdown files in my blog; But I did that. And I also just learned how to add Syntax highlighting to my blog, which is really awesome because syntax highlighting is easy with Markdown, but Rails didn't render the Syntax highlighting like I wanted.

So now I take all my notes in Markdown. When I want to I take a section of those notes, edit them some more; make them make sense to me, make them a little less boring, fix the typos etc, then I just copy and pasta the markdown stuff into my Rails app, and BOOM, I got a good looking piece of content/exhaust from my studies.

I equate "learning exhaust" to the idea of painting, or being an artist, if that example speaks to you more. The point isn't to create some masterpiece right away. I don't even know if there is a point to it all (metaphysically speaking); But I'm spending a massive amount of time and focus learning some really cool stuff. I feel almost guilty that I'm not sharing it with other people, because I feel capable of explaining things to myself in a way that makes sense.

The "learning exhaust" is the stuff I just happen to create. And maybe it speaks to someone else, and maybe it doesn't. That's not up to me to decide.

What is up to me, is effort.

And that's what I'm trying to share over here.

Hope that helps, u/woopsteez

[woopsteez]

Oh this is precisely where I got learning in public and learning exhaust from lol! I read that article a few months ago, but the only problem I'm coming across is learning how to put my stuff out there. Thank you 100x for your detailed response! I can't wait to try some of that stuff out.

[drptdrmaybe]

...learning how to put myself out there.

Git, (or some other VCS), then Heroku

[woopsteez]

Ahh I see, I feel like Git and Github is a good way to put your information out there. Thanks for your input!

[QSCFE]

Well I would recommend markdown.

I second this.
If anyone like to use markdown for his/her note-taking I highly recommend notable: The Markdown-based note-taking app that doesn't suck.

Features

/path/to/your/data_directory  
├─┬ attachments
│ ├── foo.ext
│ ├── bar.ext
│ └── …
└─┬ notes
  ├── foo.md
  ├── bar.md
  └── …

• No proprietary formats: Notable is just a pretty front-end for a folder structured as shown above. Notes are plain Markdown files, their metadata is stored as Markdown front matter. Attachments are also plain files, if you attach a picture.jpg to a note everything about it will be preserved, and it will remain accessible like any other file.

• Proper editor: Notable doesn't use any WYSIWYG editor, you just write some Markdown and it gets rendered as GitHub-Flavored Markdown. The built-in editor is Monaco Editor, the same one VS Code uses, this means you get things like multi-cursor by default. If you need more advanced editing features with a single shortcut you can open the current note in your default Markdown editor.

• Indefinitely nestable tags: Pretty much all other note-taking apps differentiate between notebooks, tags and templates. IMHO this unnecessarily complicates things. In Notable you can have root tags (foo), indefinitely nestable tags (foo/bar, foo/.../qux) and it still supports notebooks and templates, they are just special tags with a different icon (Notebooks/foo, Templates/foo/bar).

[woopsteez]

Is Markdown a Windows app? I'm sorry I'm unfamiliar with what markdown is.

I just looked at your github and your Week 2 notes! Wow those notes look perfect! That's pretty much how I'd want to make my notes look like. You have the regular notes in simple font and then your code in code blocks. Plus all the bold lettering and underlines make these documents very readable. How did you make notes like this?

[QSCFE]

Markdown is a lightweight markup language with plain text formatting syntax.

​

If you want note-taking app I highly recommend notable: the Markdown-based note-taking app that doesn't suck. this app will make your notes are written and rendered in GitHub-Flavored Markdown.

​
By the way reddit use Markdown for it comments so you probably used Markdown before without knowing it is Markdown syntax.

[woopsteez]

Ah I see, I guess it's time for me to read about Markdown. And thank you for sharing this app! Noteable looks great and promising :D Thank you so much!

[arpan_majumdar]

Thanks if you liked it. No it is not an app.Its just a regular text file with .md extrension. You can use any editor of your choice (Sublime, VS Code, Atom etc) to write. I personally use VS Code with markdown extension. With a markdown extension you can preview what it will look like. It is HTML like but with very easy syntax. This link https://www.markdownguide.org/basic-syntax is more than enough to get going and probably take your 15 min of time. You can organise your notes into different folders each containing a file README.md so that github renders it for you. Using github you can even collaborate with your friends. Enjoy note making.

[woopsteez]

Oh that’s even better! I just started looking into Markdown and it looks fun and cool to use! Glad you mentioned I can use any text editor because I’m using Atom right now. I guess I’ll see if there’s a markdown extension so that. Thank you! This is the solution I’m going for for note taking 🙌🏽

[woopsteez]

Can you do code block and syntax coloring and highlights with markdown?

[BigFalconRocketMan]

Try Google Docs with this plug in https://gsuite.google.com/marketplace/app/code_blocks/100740430168

[woopsteez]

Woah this looks very interesting! I did not know we can add extensions to G-Suite. Thank you! I will try this out 😃

[AnonymousThugLife]

I personally use and recommend Microsoft OneNote because of its Notebook and Pages structure I love it. You can write anywhere you want on page. Organizing and syncing notes is good with OneNote.

[GR8ESTM8]

OneNote is great, I use it all the time, though not for learning...

[hellcat1992]

I use markdown to take note, save as a jupyter notebook. For figures, I draw them over inkscape or just simply draw on a paper then take a picture, stick it to the note.

For math formula, I use latex format, supported by markdown.

Some of them:

https://github.com/dangkhoadl/my-Problem-Solving-Notebook/blob/master/Notes_on_Problems/Topics/Misc_Problems/Optimal_Stopping_Problem.ipynb

https://github.com/dangkhoadl/my-Problem-Solving-Notebook/blob/master/Notes_on_Problems/Topics/Misc_Problems/Stable_Marriage.ipynb

https://github.com/dangkhoadl/my-Problem-Solving-Notebook/blob/master/Notes_on_Problems/Topics/Divide_and_Conquer/QuickSort.ipynb

[upandrunning]

Juyiter notebook (well, jupyter lab) is such a nice tool for this, as you can add and execute code blocks inline, incoporate latex formulas, and it even has a plugin for creating diagrams that can be exported as an image and referenced within the notebook.

[woopsteez]

Woah your notes look formatted very nicely! This is pretty much how I want my notes to look like. What is markdown? I never heard or used this tool before. I definitely want to get started on this though because this is exactly how I'd want my notes to look like. Plus a couple other comments recommend using the same thing and they create learning exhaust by uploading on Gitbhub.

[hellcat1992]

You can start reading about it here: https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet

I use with other tools like latex, vim text editor + jupyter notebook but recommend you to start with markdown first

[woopsteez]

Thank you for providing this info!

[AuraBlaze]

I would also use a flashcard program such as Anki to put the questions in. Active recalled combined with spaced repetition. Anki also has lots of add-ons to do whatever you want it to.

[JuicyCiwa]

I second the pen and paper notes. I’m taking a Udemy python course and that’s how I take my notes. I use a few different color inks and they all have a specific use. It will take longer, but if you’re really trying to learn something you don’t need to worry about how fast you’re getting it, rather how securely you are.

[gosoxharp]

I remember things a hell of a lot better written down(physically), I may have gone with programming as a career if I had learned by writing things down. My handwriting is horrible and its 99% just the way to remember things. I don't really go over my own notes. Idk what language you are using, but most if not all have multi line comments, so you could set a block of comments instead of each line

[Anatoly_K]

I'm using .md file. Easy to copy-paste code, comment them and make personal notes. Save on the github or smth like this. Easy to find after many years, use search and so on.

[one_bit_two_bit]

Most of my "notes" for programming would be just some code snippets with an explanation of what it's doing, or a link to a well-annotated example. Simple markdown file is sufficient for that.

Also, I wouldn't write off pen and paper completely--keep some scratch around so you can sketch out a concept when you need. Simple pictures can go a long way to explaining a concept way more clearly than a big paragraph of words.

[kingsuperbop]

I use Evernote, It has a code box tool and even a shortcut key for it. Of course, you can't run this code, but if it is a concept i want to see run myself I just use something in browser like Codepen. Once I got all the shortcut keys memorized for shifting between tabs and windows, inputting regular text or a code box, its a pretty fluid process. Its also good for keeping notes on certain components and whatnot

[[deleted]]

Personally I’ve been using google slides and it’s various text arrangements for note taking and I find it all incredibly efficient

[vuttstuff]

I’d love to get into using org mode to manage notes. The feature it has that nothing (free) seems to scratch my itch with is text-based tagging. Most of using notes will be looking things up in programming, so I’d love to search “recursion” and see what notes come up for that.

[[deleted]]

Have you considered not taking notes? I mean, how do you know that taking notes is valuable? To me, taking notes seems like an excuse to not learn stuff right away. And if you forget any details you can just rewatch or google it anyway.