This book is for college students who are serious about being successful in study, and teachers who want to know how best to help their students learn.

Being a successful student is far more about being a smart user of effective strategies than about being 'smart'. Research has shown it is possible to predict how well a student will do simply on the basis of their use of study strategies.

This workbook looks at the most important group of study strategies – how to take notes (with advice on how to read a textbook and how to prepare for a lecture). You’ll be shown how to:

When Niklas Luhmann, the German sociologist, became professor, he was asked about his research project. His famous answer:

"My project: theory of society. Duration: 30 years. Costs: zero."

Twenty-nine and a half years later, he published the last chapter of what is probably the most systematic and comprehensive sociological theory ever written. In these 29 and a half years, he published roughly another 60 books and hundreds of articles on a huge variety of subjects. And all of it was achieved by writing one smart note at a time.

Think about how you take notes during class. Do you use a specific system? Do you feel that system is working for you? What could be improved? How might taking notes during a lecture, section, or seminar be different online versus in the classroom?

Adjust how you take notes during synchronous vs. asynchronous learning (slightly).

I calculated that as of notebook #94, I had been writing in Field Notes for 3,469 days*. Since the notebooks are 48 pages long, that puts me at 4,512 pages. So it looks like I average 1.3 notebook pages per day.