How to Abbreviate Words for Better Note-Taking

Why Knowing How to Abbreviate Words Matter in Note Taking

 Abbreviations (Collins Word Power)

Note-taking is an art, but I didn't recognize that until recently. To take better notes, you have to know how to abbreviate words. When you abbreviate words correctly, you speed up the note-taking process. I take notes when I read books and take courses. Sometimes I take better notes than at other times.

What I have noticed, especially when I have read a book and have not written the review in a day or two, if I have not taken very good notes, then I have a very difficult time remembering all the important points in the book.

Although I would love to think of myself as Wonder Woman, the reality is that the curve of forgetting is a fact of life. When we learn new information, if we have not taken steps to remember what we just learned, within an hour, we forget over 60 percent of the information.

Have you read?

How to Improve Learning
How to Remember What You Read

Effective Note Taking Tips

Have you ever communicated a message that you later learned was as clear as mud? I found myself in that situation not very long ago. For a long time, I have been telling my readers of The Invisible Mentor blog to take detailed notes when they are reading a book. To me, the instructions made perfect sense, until a professor called me on it.

I've been working on The Invisible Mentor Model, which is more like a learning system that walks you through a process of up-skilling and ongoing learning. In the model, like I have done countless times, I instruct prospective users to take detailed notes when they read a book or take a course.

A professor, who looked at the model, asked me what it means to take detailed notes, and I was genuinely stumped. Note-taking was something that I did, but didn't really think about. I discovered the Cornell Note-Taking System, and it made sense to me, but I didn't spend much time really thinking about it.

The professor who reviewed The Invisible Mentor Model, recommended that I create a module on note-taking. To do that required that I do a lot of work to make sure that I could explain note-taking to others.

On top of that, because I have been taking my informal liberal arts education, I also discovered that taking notes when reading a book is very different from taking notes while taking a course. When taking a course in person, you have to have a shorthand or an abbreviation system that you use, so that you are able to keep up with the lecturer. If you are taking an online course, you have the ability to stop the video and rewind, but that wastes time, which is a scarce and precious commodity. How to abbreviate words suddenly become important in the note taking process.

 Word Power Made Easy: The Complete Handbook for Building a Superior Vocabulary

While researching note-taking, I learned that the topic is so important that some universities have a course on the topic. Because I need to learn how to take better notes, I decided that after I had gathered the information, I would teach what I have learned to readers because it would cement what I learned.

Additionally, good note taking techniques, is a necessary skill that is taken for granted. It's assumed that we all know how to do it. I am not sure about you, but I cannot take good notes on the computer. I'm not the fastest typist, but I find that I remember more, when I write things down the old school way – longhand.

Pam Mueller of Princeton University and Daniel Oppenheimer of the University of California conducted research and found that students who took notes by longhand, performed better than those who took notes by computer. But students who paraphrased, instead of writing down verbatim what the instructor said, remembered more. This information is important and applicable to taking notes while reading or taking a course. When you paraphrase key information from books and courses, you have to think critically, which helps you to absorb more of what you are learning. It's easier to paraphrase words when you improve your vocabulary.

Further Reading

To Remember a Lecture Better, Take Notes by Hand

Why You Learn More Effectively Writing Than Typing

How to Abbreviate Words: Common Abbreviated Words

If you have never taken a course in shorthand, or have an abbreviated system for taking notes, this first post in the better note-taking series will help you to get started. The abbreviations for note-taking listed below are a guide – you can easily create and use your own system.

The intent of an abbreviation system, is that when you are learning new information, your focus should be on absorbing the information and not on thinking about how to abbreviate words. If you have a system in place, you will automatically abbreviate words without thinking about the process. Using abbreviations consistently is the key.

Abbreviated Words List for Note-Taking

@	at	yr	year	p/pg	page
#/no.	number	mth	month	ff	following
/	per	max	maximum	Q	question
<	less than	min	minimum	*	most importantly
>	more than	prob	problem	etc.	and so forth
=	equals	b/4	before	wd	word
%	percent	b/c	because	vs	versus; against
≠	not equal to	w/	with	diff	difference
&/+	and	w/o	without	dept	department
~/approx	approximate	w/i	within	ref	reference
2	to, too, two	lk	like	4tn	fortune
Ch	chapter	wrt	write	rt	right
Ex/e.g.	example	govt/gvt	government	prps	purpose
intro	introduction	c/o	in care of	lwyr	lawyer
lrn/lr	learn	ie	that is	cmptr	computer
ng	no good	cf	compare, in comparison to	DC	Washington DC
lb	pound	oz	ounce	prntr	printer
math	mathematics	info	information	app	application
–  –	there is	assoc	associate
x	no, not, incorrect	xx	definitely not, disproved	⇒ or ∴	therefore, thus
↑	increasing	→	leads on to, produces, causes	m	a million
↓	decreasing	asap	as soon as possible	k	a thousand
eval	evaluation	eqn	equation	v	very
mgmt	management	ed/educ	education	vv	extremely
mkt	market	mktg	marketing	ppl	people
¶/para	paragraph	ckg	checking	ppd	prepared
am	morning	♂ / ♀	male/female	wrt	with respect to
pm/aft	afternoon	∆	change	btw	by the way
natl	national	intl	international	rep	repetition
amt	amount	contd	continued	ind	individual
H2O	water	°	degrees	thru	through

How to Abbreviate Words: Simple Guidelines for Abbreviating Words

• Omit vowels and keep only enough consonants to recognize the work.
• Use only the first syllable.
• Eliminate final letters in the word.
• Ad ‘s' to abbreviations when plurals are needed.
• Add ‘g' for ‘ing' endings.
• Use ‘n' for ‘tion' ending
• Leave out the words ‘a' and ‘the'.
• Use entire first syllable and only first letter of second syllable.

Good Note Taking Techniques – Next Steps

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In other installments in the Good Note Taking Techniques series, I will focus more on how to take notes, but I thought it was important to learn and present information on how to abbreviate words to make it easier for taking notes. I figured since I needed to learn that information, others might benefit from it.

Additionally, I have created a handy guide to walk you through the process of taking better notes, while listening and reading. In the guide, I include common abbreviations to speed up the note taking process, as well as a lot of tips and hacks. This will also give you what you need to thrive in 2020, because you'll know how to take better notes while reading books to learn a new skill.

UPDATE: First Published December 2014

How to Abbreviate Words: Books for Improving Note Taking Skills

Word Power Made Easy: Build Your Vocabulary Skills! Abbreviations 

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