In today’s digital age, note-taking has expanded beyond the traditional pen and paper. As per Paperlike, over 50% of students report bringing their laptops to class at least once weekly, indicating a significant reliance on digital tools for notetaking. Several online note-taking templates are available that can boost students’ productivity. These templates simplify complex information and help students organise their thoughts.
Using the templates, you can break down the big ideas into digestible pieces and follow a hierarchy for work. Informational essays require students to arrange a lot of data in a summarised form. Adequate organisation of the content is necessary for producing coherent essays.
This article will guide you through our top five best note-taking templates, each based on an efficient method. These templates can improve the effectiveness of your note-taking methods.
Let’s dive deeper into the details.
What Is the Best Note-Taking Templates for Informational Essays?
As per Tutors, the information essays educate the audience about a unique topic. These essays can introduce new concepts, explain research ideas, or provide detailed insights into a chosen niche. Often, the best essay writing service assists college and university students in meeting the requirements of such assignments.
Several note-taking templates can be used to organise all the information and data for these essays effectively. These templates make students arrange the information in distinct categories. Let’s discuss each of the templates in further depth and detail.
1. Cornell Notes
This is the most effective note-taking template for informational essays developed in the 1940s. It makes students remember all the cues and important keywords for a given data source.
In this template, students divide a paper into the following three sections:
- Notes
- Cues
- Summary
In the notes section, they can write down the main ideas and jot down the main details from the lectures and the reading material. In the cues section, you can write the keywords that can help you remember all the information. Finally, in the summary section, you will be asked to write a summary of the material.
Using this note-taking template, students can actively recognise the visible links between the data sets of various kinds. Also, this template helps them review the material and test their understanding. By looking at the cues and remembering the relevant information, students will be able to identify all the areas where they need to study more.
2. SQ3R Notes
You can more like a systematic note-taking template for informational essays that promotes the active engagement of students with all the relevant material. The SQR3 is an acronym which stands for the following elements:
- Survey: Get a general idea of the material by quickly scanning the headings, subheadings and other features that stand out.
- Question: Before you start reading, you can turn each heading into a question. It helps you to set a purpose for the deeper reading.
- Read: Here, you have to read all the material carefully and look for the answers to your questions.
- Recall: After you have read a section, it will be best to recall the answers to your questions. It can further consolidate your comprehension of the given concepts.
- Review: Once the reading part is complete, you can review your notes and reinforce the existing understanding. You may also identify the areas that you need to revisit.
This method has been designed to promote a deeper understanding and improve the retention of the material. When you are actively engaging with it, you will be more likely to remember all the information in the long run. It also improves their ability to survey, read and recall all the information that they write down in the notes of the informative essay.
3. Boxing Note
In this note-taking technique, students can learn how to organise information in a segmented and visual manner for their informational essays. In this template, it will be better to divide the information into several boxes, each showing a different topic or subtopic. Inside each box, you have to note the relevant information, details or ideas.
Needless to say, students can use this technique when they are dealing with complex subjects and informational topics. The advantages of using this template for notes-taking purposes are the following:
- It provides a clear visual structure for the notes you write.
- Furthermore, the notes in the form of boxes are quite easy to review and comprehend.
- It is also known for encouraging active thinking and grouping different ideas.
- Students can also be flexible in organising notes as they can rearrange and remove ideas quite quickly.
Students can also make a link or relationship between different ideas and concepts. They can work on different activities that require visual organisation of their thoughts and ideas. This technique is also good for the brainstorming of new ideas. The boxes can be shuffled or placed together depending on their relationship. If the information is closely linked, it can be arranged similarly.
4. Chart Notes
This method is considered another form of note-taking template for informational essays. You can divide the information into different rows, columns and charts, which is particularly useful when dealing with a large amount of information. You can categorise the information in different and distinct headings.
The benefits of using chart notes templates are the following:
- It provides a clear visual structure that helps students remember all the information.
- It is ideal for the comparison and contrast of different pieces of information and data.
- Students can find it ideal for actively organising and categorising all the researched data.
- You can arrange the ideas for making an outline for informative essays.
Students can improve their active learning skills because it requires the note-taker to identify different categories of information and use them accordingly. Students can also get a clear visual representation of the different aspects of information. However, it can be a bit time-consuming for students to prepare all the categories.
5. 5WIH Note
This is yet another structured template used for taking notes that requires students to categorise the existing information based on some questions. The questions include the 5W’s, including the following:
- What
- When
- Who
- Where
- What
- and How
This technique is useful for summarising and comprehending complex information. It ensures that students can cover all the necessary aspects of their informational essay research. Students who are working on notes on technical subjects can mainly use this technique to retain information better.
Using this template, you can categorise the information in these six questions and ensure that your notes have all the relevant details. It also helps better understand the concept being researched and recall all the information. This method enables students to provide a comprehensive overview of the essay topic.
What Are the 5 R’s of Note-Taking?
When you are taking notes for the informational essays, you should make a cue column on the template. When it is time to take notes, you should enter the relevant information in the designated sections. According to the University of Maine at Fort Kent, the 5 R’s of note-taking are the following:
- Record: During the lecture, you should record all the main information in the form of columns. It can have as many meaningful things as you can jot down.
- Reduce: You should also summarise the given things in the cue column. The summarisation refers to the clarification of relationships and meanings. It reinforces creativity.
- Recite: Here, you have to cover the note-taking area and use the cue column for jotting down the notes. You can mention the ideas and facts in your own words.
- Reflect: You can also from different thoughts and perspectives from notes and utilise the work as a basic starting point for your reflections on the subject you are studying. It can show the sense of relativity in both sections.
- Review: Here, you will be expected to review the entire informational essay for 10 minutes every week. It will help you retain most of the things that you have learned.
When students follow these five R’s when working on their papers and taking notes, they can improve the data retention capacity of their minds. Also, they can find visible links between the information that they write in the templates. It helps them relate the data effectively when writing full-fledged essays.
Conclusion
We have explored the five best note-taking templates for writing excellent informational essays. Using these, you can categorise all the information and use it in the relevant sections when working on informational papers.
Informational essays need students to explore a given niche of studies. If they require help, they can contact professional essay writing firms online. Well-versed writers know how to fulfil all the requirements of an academic essay, and they can provide you with the right tips.
The bottom line is that when it feels hard to organise all the research work in one place, you can use a note-taking template to write your informational essay. The templates that we have shared are particularly well-suited for topics that use a lot of words.
Author Bio
William Francis is an academicessay writerwho guides students in writing their papers and fulfilling all the academic requirements. Williams has been working in an educational institute as a counsellor for students. When he is not helping students, you can find him whipping out delicious treats in the kitchen.
