How can I make my notes more useful for future reference?

Question

I was looking at this previous question on writing lecture notes he says:

Most students think that the reason to take notes is to have a reference for later, but we know that the real reason to take notes is to make your brain process the material. As a result, many students frantically write down computations instead of thinking about what is going on -- and reserve the "thinking about what is going on" until later!

From: How can we help students learn to effectively take notes?

This may have been true when I was a student. Now as a adult, there's a chance I'd have wanted to use my notes for future reference or even to distribute to others - if my ability to write had improved any since high school.

As we progress through school, our knolwlege has beceome more specialized and there's a chance I am the only person in the wrong who is knowledgeable on a given topic.

Theorem-Proof format works well for serious students Yet, I have seen many examples of lectures notes which are logically clear but very painful to read visually and logically disorganized.

I don't feel like writing a textbook, I am just looking for strategies for laying out materials on the page, and building narrative or logical sequences from the material that I have been given.

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I don't even know if it's possible to translate the principles of good writing in other disciplines to a technical subject like math. Are there examples of really clear, easy to read lecture notes?

Answer 1

I try to keep my work reusable, and from all things (which work or not, YMMV) I would stress one:

$${\Huge\text{context}}$$

There are many issues with searchability, readability, complexity, etc., but whatever you do, it is much easier to reuse your work when you know the context in which it had been done or used.

(All the arguments I would add were either obvious or pointless or unnecessary in some other way, so I cut them down.)

I hope it helps $\ddot\smile$