In "The “Paper Effect” – Note Something Down And You’re More Likely To Forget It" (2014), Christian Jarrett reports on some recent research which suggests that it's not only the internet that might be weakening people's memories, but that writing paper notes is just as harmful. Contradicting the common assumption that the more active form of study of taking notes results in better memory, a study using a card game showed the opposite.
Why would a stressful experience at the hands of an arrogant and rather unpleasant old bishop come to mind when I read this? Because that was the first time I remember having the courage to say that the evidence, the facts, were on my side and that everyone else, however sure and united they were, were also completely wrong.
Actually, the bishop memory from more than four decades ago was my second response. The first was some pleasure that something I had long suspected and applied in practice might indeed be true: that the students who took the most notes, especially neat and beautiful notes, did not do as well academically as more reckless people who either took no notes or very few. This has always worried me when I've taught AEP Listening and Speaking classes, because I disagree strongly with the excessively detailed note taking that Quest encourages, in a most artificial fashion. I'm not very fond of the extensive focus on presentations, either, but at least I can see some value in that, but we can save my worries about presentations for another blog post, unless someone wants to pursue in the comments below.
When I was at university, I took almost no notes, whilst watching with some amusement the different approaches of those around me, from some who frantically tried to copy down every word, to some who copied down whatever the lecturer wrote on the blackboard (yes, back in my university days, we still had blackboards and chalk!), to others who took my own very relaxed approach. I had no solid empirical evidence to back it up, but it seemed to me that the brightest people took very notes. This made sense to me at the time because if you're straining your mind to make masses of notes and worrying about them being pretty of whatever, how can you also be worrying about your comprehension of the material being presented and asking questions to fix any confusions? I used to note down citations the lecturer mentioned so that I could look up the book or journal article later, and I would note down points where the lecturer's explanation was illuminating and unlikely to be in a book. Except in mathematics, where I wrote down everything written on the board, which tended to be an essential step in a proof and which the lecturer gave us time to jot down before he explained and invited discussion on what we were dutifully recording.
I think notes are important, and some other research I've read recently (sorry, I don't remember it exactly, and this time I'm not going to stop to do the research to get it again) suggests that students with good notes do perform better in exams: but consistent with the research reported by Jarrett, it doesn't seem to matter whether the students themselves made the notes - they are useful study tools, but don't have to have been created by the student users.
A couple of other points have come to mind as I wrote the last paragraphs, but I want to finish and go back to bed and Sherlock Holmes, also a tasty masaman chicken leg and thigh, since I'm still feeling a bit unwell, so will conclude by reporting that the wretched bishop did redeem himself when he subsequently heaped considerable praise on myself and Judith for standing firm on what we were sure was the truth, even against an overwhelming majority. That felt rather good. The good bishop probably wouldn't have been so thrilled had he realised that I decided his whole religion was false while I was in high school, another decision I've stuck with. But this too is a topic for another blog post, and I've already read the BBC News article that prompted the response.
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Reference
I was keen to post another response writing blog post as an extra example for you to analyse. Like the others, this one follows the same organization into three parts, followed by a reference section.
ReplyDeleteDo you think the study is right? If not, why not?
If it is right, what sort of response might that suggest is useful for students, for example students in an academic English program?
Actually, that last question especially was something I had a few ideas on, but I thought my response was already quite long enough, and I'm sure you will have lots of useful ideas to share.
So, your turn.
In case your wondering about the sentences in my introduction. The rule is that there not be more than three sentences, and I try to limit mine to a maximum of two, which sometimes entails some complex grammatical organization.
ReplyDeleteThe rule for the summary section is even more strict: you may not write more than two sentences.
These limiting rules add a bit more of a challenge to our response writing.
There is, on the other hand, no such limit on the length of your response, which we expect to be of some length consistent with Hartmann and Blass's instruction to write, and write, and write, one sentence, then the next sentence, and then the next sentence, although I did start to think that my response was getting a bit long here.
And even in response writing, we do want to end with a strong conclusion.