By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed.
Itâs no secret that top-performing students take notes. They take notes in class, they take notes when reading text, and they take notes while watching videos.
Why? Because they know their notes serve an actual purpose (more on that in secret #2) and are directly related to getting good grades.
But thereâs a difference between how straight-A students take notes and how other students take notes. In this blog post, you will learn three note-taking secrets of straight-A students.
Three Note-Taking Secrets of Straight-A Students
Below are the note-taking strategies that top students donât talk about. Itâs not because they donât want you to know. Itâs because they assume everyone else is already doing it too.
For the past decade, I have written extensively about note-taking on this blog. Iâve also created many YouTube tutorials covering foundational principles of taking notes in class, from books, videos, slides and more. I will link those resources in the appropriate places.
Secret #1: They Complete Their Notes in Two Parts
One of the best well-kept note-taking secrets of straight-A students is that they understand note-taking is a two-step process.
Most students think of note-taking as a single activity: take notes. But this is only part of the picture. The real magic comes in Part Two when students complete their notes after class.Â
Thatâs right. Top-performing students take notes in class, and then later that day, they complete those notes.
You might be thinking: Katie, nobody does this! None of my friends do this!
Youâre wrong. They do do this. But as I said, they just donât talk about it. Itâs part of their system, part of their daily routine they just do when theyâre working on homework.
Letâs dig into this secret a little more by answering two questions:
- Why does taking notes in two parts work?
- How do we actually âcompleteâ our notes? (In other words, how do we do Part Two?)
Why does taking notes in two parts work?
Step one of taking notes is capture. Capture means just what it sounds like: capturing information as itâs coming at you and writing it down as quickly as you can.
Typically, a teacher is teaching a lesson in front of the classâ with or without notes on the board â and you are doing your best to write it all down.
Taking notes during a lecture class can be a challenge, primarily because teachers talk faster than we can write.
In this video and in this blog post I share strategies for how to take notes in a lecture class. Those strategies are important if you want to do Part One correctly.
But hereâs the catch: when weâre taking notes in a lecture class, we are always going to miss information â either because the teacher spoke too fast or we simply didnât hear or understand what they said. This is normal. We have to expect this. This is one of the note-taking secrets of straight-A students.
Top-performing students take notes during class expecting their notes to be incomplete or unclear, which is why there is always a Part Two.
To prepare for the second step of notetaking (remember, thatâs the secret!), top students do a few important things during class:
- When they miss something the teacher said, they indicate that in their notes, often with a question mark.
- If theyâre taking notes on paper, they leave white space so they can fill in this missing information later.
- If they have a thought or question about what theyâre taking notes on and they canât ask it during class, they write their question in their notes to be answered during part two.
How do we actually âcompleteâ our notes?
Step two is where the magic happens. This is where straight-A students take 10 to 15 minutes later that day to complete their notes. Completing Part One and Part Two on the same day is critical.
Part Two can look different for everyone, depending on whether youâre taking paper or digital notes.
Regardless, here are some fundamental steps to completing your notes as part of step 2:
- Go through your notes line by line and make sure that everything makes sense. Sometimes we take notes in class but donât fully understand what weâre writing down. If you donât understand something, do what you need to do to understand it: look it up in your textbook, Google it, ask a friend, etc.
- Scan your notes for any question marks you added during class. Remember: Question marks indicate missed information. Now is the time to fill in this missing information. How? Google, textbook, friends, etc.
- Expand on any parts of your notes that are incomplete. Come up with examples of concepts. Spell out abbreviations.
- Scan your notes to find places to re-organize. During class, we simply write things down in the order our teacher delivers the content. But this isnât always the best organization. Re-organizing notes is simpler if you have typed your notes or used a note-taking app with a stylus. However, if you wrote your notes in a notebook, this is still doable. You can rewrite your notes entirely (best method if you actually want to learn the material!). Or you can draw arrows or number the different sections of your notes in the order you want them to be organized.
The key to remember is that top students understand taking notes is not about getting words down on the page. They know itâs about having something useful to study or reference in the future.
If youâve gotten this far in the blog post and you’re questioning why on earth you would take the time to rewrite or complete your notes, youâre missing the real purpose of taking notes in the first place. And that brings us to secret #2.
Secret #2: They Take Notes with a Purpose
Straight-A students take notes with a real purpose. They know note-taking is about more than looking smart in class or writing random things just because they see other people doing it.
Straight-A students know there are two reasons we take notes.
- To understand the information better. Writing down what we hear and paraphrasing/summarizing that into something simple improves our comprehension of the material
- To create a valuable resource for the future. In this post, I teach you how to take notes that are easy to turn into study resources. Thatâs the key: top students know their notes are going to be valuable when it comes time to study, write an essay, or do something with the material theyâre learning.
In other words, top-performing students take notes because they want to learn the material. They donât care if itâs temporarily âeasierâ to sit in class and zone out. They know not taking notes is the harder option and taking time to think, write and learn the material during class is the shortcut.
Also, high-achieving students take notes differently depending on what the purpose is. If they know theyâll be writing a future paper on the notes, they may use a certain note-taking format. If they know theyâll need their notes to study from, theyâll use a different format.
Secret #3: They Think About What Theyâre Writing Down
Top-performing students understand their notes serve a real purpose, which is why they think about what theyâre writing down.
Remember, secret number one is that straight-A students take notes in two steps. Capture (Part One) and complete (Part Two). Straight-A students are thinking about what theyâre writing down in both parts.
During the capture phase, when youâre listening to a professor deliver a lecture, itâs tempting to write down the teacher’s words verbatim. Not only is this a bad note-taking strategy because it takes too long, but it also reduces your comprehension of the material.
Ideally, we hear a teacher explain something one way, and then we process those words and write our own version of it in our notes. For some students, this process is instantaneous. But if this is too challenging to do during class, do it in Part Two when youâre completing your notes later that day.
This strategy works because comprehension and retention increase when we use our own language to describe something.
Straight-A students also pay attention to why theyâre writing something down. They constantly ask themselves: Whatâs the point of this information? How does it fit into the bigger picture of what Iâm learning? By asking these questions, theyâre training their brains to identify key ideas, relationships, and patterns in the material. These are skills that make studying later much more effective.
Tip: If youâre wondering how to get started with forming questions about the material youâre taking notes on, start with this: whenever thereâs a pause in the lecture class, look at your notes and ask yourself whatâs the point of this information? Actually ask yourself that question. Go a step further and write your answer in your notes.
Another powerful way top students think about their notes is by trying to predict what might be important for future exams, essays, or projects. For example, if a professor emphasizes certain themes or repeats a concept multiple times, theyâll make a note of it in a way that stands out. They may star it, underline it, or write a quick annotation like âlikely test question.â
Finally, thinking critically about their notes also means straight-a students donât treat everything the teacher says as equally important. They filter out unnecessary details, focusing on the big ideas and supporting evidence. This approach makes it easier to make study materials from their notes because they arenât sifting through pages of irrelevant information.
The takeaway here? Thinking about what youâre writing doesnât just make your notes better; it also helps you start learning the material as you write it down. This is what separates top students from the rest. They use note-taking not just to record information, but to process, understand, and prioritize it as they go.
Final Note-Taking Secrets
Becoming a top-performing student isnât about talent â itâs about strategy. The note-taking secrets youâve just learned arenât complicated, but they do require intention and effort. Taking notes in two parts, understanding the purpose behind your notes, and thinking critically about what youâre writing down are habits that can transform how you learn and retain information.
The good news? You donât have to implement all of these strategies perfectly right away. Start small. Try completing your notes after class today or focus on paraphrasing your notes instead of copying them verbatim. Over time, these small efforts will pay off, and youâll find yourself working smarter, not harder.
If you want to take your note-taking skills to the next level, check out the resources Iâve linked throughout this post. Whether itâs mastering lecture notes, annotating textbooks, or creating study-ready notes, Iâve got you covered. Of course, for the ultimate note-taking skills, join me inside SchoolHabits University. Your notes are more than just words on a page â theyâre a tool for deeper understanding and better grades.