HANDOUT

Semester 7 – WRITING – WEEK 1Student’s name & class:………….………

What to be covered:
Note-taking from written texts and spoken texts (part 1):
1. Writing notes quickly by using abbreviations and symbols
2. Identifying the important points of the texts
I. Note-taking from Written and Spoken Texts
1. Test yourself:
Read the following lecture excerpt for 3 minutes and take notes on what you’ve read.
Reading passage 1
In the Americans, two complex societies emerged at the end of the first millennium BCE: the Mayan
civilization in Mesoamerica and the Moche/ Nazca states in Peru. Both these civilizations were founded
on the cultivation of maize and were dominated by ceremonial centers constructed for priestly elite. By
the beginning of the second millennium CE, these states had been replaced by imperial civilizations – the
second millennium CE, these states had been replaced by imperial civilizations – the Aztecs taking over
the Mayan civilization and the Incas, the Moche/ Nazca states.

Compare your notes with your partner’s. Which note is better? Why?
2. Why taking notes:
With your partner, discuss the following questions:
1. Why do students have to take notes?
2. What problems might a student encounter in taking notes?
Taking notes is the most effective way to organize and remember what you hear in class, as well as what
you read outside of class. Here are some reasons you will want to take notes:

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● Taking notes will help you focus your attention on the content of the reading and listening
passages.
● Organized notes will help you to develop a well-organized speech or essay in the time allotted.
● Writing down information will help you to remember main ideas and details.
● If you forget any details, you can refer back to your notes.
To be a good note taker, you need to develop two skills: (1) writing notes quickly, and (2) understanding
what is important in a passage. To write notes quickly, you can learn to use abbreviations and symbols,
use a format, and organize ideas to show relationships clearly. To take good notes on a passage, it’s
important to be able to identify the topic, identify the important points, and understand the logic and the
organization of the passage.
2.1. Taking notes from written texts
In order to take effective notes from a written passage, follow these steps:
1. Read the complete passage. Reread any part you don’t understand.
2. Identify important information: the specific topic and main ideas.
3. Write a quick list of the important points. Use abbreviations.
4. Paraphrase the main ideas to avoid repeating exact phrases from the text.
2.2. Taking notes from spoken texts
Developing effective listening strategies will help you to overcome any anxiety, concentrate on content,
and take better notes. Some strategies for effective listening are listed below:
● Focus on the main points and ideas. They can be recognized by the pause that is made before the
essential information, by the repetition of some information, the emphasis that is placed on certain
points, word signals (…two main aspects…, …second..., …essential…);
● Concentrate on important words, like nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, also names, dates,
numbers, etc.;
● Listen carefully to the questions both professors and students ask and answers given – they often
refer to major ideas;
● In conversation – identify the main problem/ need, the solution and the main participants in the
conversation, as well as the one who is more important or whose problem/ need is the topic of
conversation;
● Do not write down everything you hear, for example you can easily omit auxiliary verbs,
determiners, pronouns, and prepositions;
● Identify how the information is organized: the stages of a process, major points to minor points,
problems and solutions, causes and results, etc.;
● Organize your notes in some logical form – graph, list with major points and sub-points, flow
chart, etc.;
● Write clearly, as the notes will do you no good afterwards if you can’t read what you have written;
● Use abbreviations and symbols.
● When you listen to a conversation, make sure to identify clearly who says what. To do this, divide
the note-taking page into two sides by drawing a vertical line in the middle and writing Man /
Woman (or Woman 1 / Woman 2 or Man 1 / Man 2) at the top of each side. Then write down the
information that corresponds to each speaker.

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● Use Vietnamese equivalents if possible; this helps you paraphrase the ideas better, and it saves
you time.
2.3. Identifying important information
Knowing when important information is about to be presented is an essential skill in effective note taking.
Listen for signals that important ideas or details are to come.
Signals in conversations You can listen for these signals that indicate important ideas:
● One speaker asking the other speaker for an explanation
● One speaker agreeing with a point made by the other speaker
● One speaker adding details to a point made by the other speaker
● One speaker disagreeing with a point made by the other speaker
● One speaker presenting information that conflicts with a point made by the other speaker
You will also need to listen for a speaker’s attitude and degree of certainty. A speaker indicates these
through:
● The use of intonation and stress patterns
● The choice of words – for example, “It must be true that…” or “Experts say….”
Signals in lectures there are several ways in which a speaker of a lecture can indicate an important point.
These include:
● Saying it slower and louder, sometimes with a pause
● Repeating it
● Drawing attention to it – for example, “I want to stress that….” or “The crucial thing to remember
is ….”
Lecturers can indicate a new point or details by:
● Using transitions and connecting words
● Using signals – for example, “There are three reasons why…,” “I’d like to move on to….,” “Next
we have…,” or “Most important…”

Exercise 1. Thinking about methods of note taking

Below are examples of five different ways to organize notes on one excerpt. Check (✓) the ones that you
think would be useful to you.
⬜ Outline format

I. Pollution
a. Characteristics
- Detail 1
- Detail 2
- Detail 3
b. Causes
- Detail 1
- Detail 2
- Detail 3
c.       Solutions

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- Detail 1
- Detail 2
- Detail 3
⬜ Mind mapping
A mind map is an image diagram that represents semantic or other connections between major ideas. To
use this method:
1. Write the topic in the center
2. Each key word/phrase should be alone on its own line
3. The lines should be connected to the main topic
4. Each key word may be subdivided into a number of details

⬜ Flowchart

  
Following are the five different notes of the reading passage 1.

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⬜ Column or charting method

⬜ 2. Outline method

⬜ 3. Mind map method

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⬜ 4. Pyramid method

⬜ 5. Flow chart method

Exercise 2. Using Abbreviations and Symbols

Here are some common abbreviations and symbols:

● You can use the first syllable of the word and drop the others: reference – ref;
● You can omit the vowels from the words: people – ppl, problem – pblm;
● You can use an apostrophe: admitted – adm’d;
Now practice using abbreviated forms by writing your own short form of the words listed below.
Example:
Department ___dpt______
Percentages ___%s______
Anthropologist ___anthrop. __

1. association __________ 6. equals __________

2. World Health Organization __________ 7. concentrated __________
3. for example __________ 8. chapters __________
4. lexicography __________ 9. developing __________
5. building __________ 10. without __________
Exercise 3. Abbreviating sentences
Read the sentences, and write them in a shortened form.

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Example:
The decrease in the number of birds has had the effect of an increase in the insect population. (

)
1. Ironworking probably spread to the rest of Africa via the Meroitic civilization.

2. Finely ground pigments mixed with a base such as egg yolk was the exclusive medium for painting
panels in the Middle Ages.

3. Trade relations between Egypt and Africa began in 1460 BCE when Queen Hatshepsut sent her ships
to the country of Punt, today’s Somalia.

4. The Freedom of Information Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1966, gives U.S. citizens the right of
access to public records.

5. In the Sonora Desert, the daytime temperatures rise to 50 degree Celsius.

Exercise 4. Taking abbreviated notes

Read the excerpts from texts and lectures. Write abbreviated notes in the format of your choice. The first
one has been done as an example.
Example

PRACTICE
Use the strategies you’ve learned, take notes on the following reading passage.
Time allowed: 3 minutes

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Homeschooling is becoming more and more popular in the United States. Parents who decide to
homeschool their children keep their children out of traditional classrooms with one teacher and twenty to
thirty or more children in each room. These parents educate their children by themselves in the home.
This move toward homeschooling does not seem to be best for the children who are homeschooled. For
one thing, children in homeschools will not learn as much as children in traditional schools. This is
because traditional schools demand that students learn a huge amount of material to pass from grade to
grade. Homeschools are not set up in such a way that they can demand, as traditional schools do, that
students master a certain amount of material before they pass on to a new level. For another, children in
homeschools do not have much social interaction with other children. Children in homeschools do not
have a classroom full of students to interact with, as children in tradtional schools most certainly do.
Children in homeschools generally have only a parent and perhaps a few siblings to interact with on a
regular basis. Finally, children in homeschools will not have the broad curriculum that is available in
tradional schools. Traditional schols offer a wide variety of subjects, more subjects than it is possible to
offer in a homeschool. Tradtional schools have an established and wide-ranging curriculum that cannot
possibly be matched in a homeschooling environment.

Listen to a lecture related to reading passage 1. Take notes on the main points of each listening
passage.

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What is the relationship between the reading and the listening passages?
If you are to combine the information from both the reading and the listening passages, how will you
organise your notes?
TAKING NOTES FROM THE LISTENING PASSAGE
Listen to the following conversations between two students and take notes on the important points. You
will hear the recording TWICE.

HOMEWORK
Exercise 1: Take notes on the following reading passages. You should spend 3 minutes reading each
passage.
1. It is very common in English for one word to have many different meanings. This condition, where one
word has different meanings, is known as polysemy. (This term comes from poly – meaning “many” and
semi- meaning “meaning.”)
Sound is one such polysemic word. As a noun, it refers to a noise (as in a loud sound) or a body of water
(as in Pudget Sound). As an adjective, it can refer to a state of health (as in sound mind and body). It can

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also be an intransitive verb (as in sound angry), a transitive verb (as in sound the alarm), or part of a verb
phrase as an outburst (as in sound off) and an inquiry (as in sound out).
You may think that the word sound is a truly wondrous polysemic word. After all, its definitions cover
seven pages in one major dictionary and include 19 meanings as a noun, 12 meanings as an adjective, 12
meanings as a verb (some transitive and some intransitive), 4 meanings in verb phrases, and 2 meanings as
an adverb.
But what about the extraordinary word set? It looks like such a short, simple word, only three little letters
in all. However, if you look it up in an unabridged dictionary, you will find at least 57 meanings for set
when it is used as a noun and over 120 meanings when it is used as a verb.

2. Anthropologist Margaret Mead is known for her groundbreaking research on the effects of culture on
gender roles. Her working hypothesis was that if gender behavior was the effect purely of biology, then
what was considered masculine and feminine would be the same in all cultures. If gender behavior
differedin different cultures, this would demonstrate that gender behavior resulted from culture rather than
biology.
To test this hypothesis, Mead studied three different societies in New Guinea. The first society that she
studied was the Arapesh. In this society, she observed that behavior by men and behavior by women were
remarkably similar. She found that both men and women exhibited characteristics that are traditionally
considered feminine: they were sensitive to each others’ feelings and expressed emotions.
The second society that she studied in New Guinea were the Mundugumor, which was a society of
headhunters and cannibals. The society was the opposite of the gentle and feminine Arapesh. In this
second society, both men and women exhibited characterstics that are traditionally considered male: they
were harsh and aggressive.

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In the third society that she studied, the Tchambuli, Mead found that males and females exhibited very
different types of behavior. What was unusual was that the roles were the opposite of what we have come
to expect. Mead found that in this society, the men were emotional and submissive to the women, and the
women were dominant and aggressive.
Based on these findings, Margaret Mead came to the conclusion that culture, more than biology,
determines gender behavior.

3. Rube Goldberg earned his degree in engineering, but a love for drawing led him into the cartooning
profession. Although Goldberg’s career in cartooning involved a variety of different creations, he is
perhaps best known for the absurd inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts. Typically, these
inventions, sometimes referred to as “Rube Goldberg’s inventions,” consisted of outrageously complicated
designs for machines that perfomed ridiculously simple tasks. Every year, a nationwide Rube Goldberg
invention contest is sponsored by the engineering fraternity at Purdue University. University students are
required to design and engineer at impratical machine to perform in less than 9 minutes a simple task
using more than 20 processes. Past assignments have included designing a device that turns off an alarm
clock and one that cleans and peels an apple.

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4. When sound waves hit an object, they are reflected back. This is called an echo. Several species of
animals use a system of emitting sounds and listening for the subsequent echoes in order to navigate or
find food. This system is called echolocation. Echolocation makes it possible for these species to reduce
their dependency on sight while hunting at night, living in dark areas such as in caves (as in the case of
bats and some birds), or swimming through cloudy or dark water (as in the case of whales and dolphins).
You may be surprised that not all whales use echolocation. Only the toothed whales, Odontoceti, have this
capability, although baleen whales do have the apparatus for echolocation in a vestigial form, which
suggests that they may have been capable of using echolocation in the past. I will go on now to discuss
odontocete skull anatomy and how echolocation is achieved.

5. If scores on IQ tests are anything to go by, it seems that people are becoming more intelligent. Since the
1950s, test scores have been rising, and although many studies have been undertaken, the reasons for the
rise in IQ scores remain a mystery. Factors such as the decrease in family size, improved nutrition, higher
living standards, access to a better education, or a combination of these factors may account for some of
the increase. Since increases have tended to be in those areas measuring abstract reason, it has been

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suggested that children have been stimulated by the visual effects of television and the problem-solving
challenges of video games. But beyond just IQ, researchers are also beginning to study Emotional
Intelligence, or EI. A person with high EI has a self-awareness that enables a better understanding of his
or her own emotions and how to manage them. Furthermore, that person has the ability to be empathetic
toward others. You might call this having good social skills.
There are people with high IQs who lack emotional intelligence. However, people with emotional
intelligence tend to have the capability to keep their emotions from interfering with solving intellectual
problems, and therefore, they do well on IQ tests. It has also been shown that IQ scores drop dramatically
when people with low emotional intelligence have allowed negative feelings to interfere with intellectual
tasks required on IQ tests.

Exercise 2: Listen to three passages related to reading passages 1, 2 and 3. Take notes on the
main points of each listening passage.
Listening passage 1:

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Listening passage 2:

Listening passage 3:

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Reference
1. Gear, J, Gear, R. (2006). Cambridge Preparation for the TOEFL Test. 4th Ed. Cambridge University
Press.
2. Phillips, D. (2007). Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL Test. Next Generation iBT. 2nd Ed.
Pearson Longman.
3. http://www.slideshare.net/dinhhuongvn2003/savedfiles?s_title=toefl-i-bt-note-taking-
strategies&user_login=DiKaKo retrieved 8 August 2014
4. http://www.slideshare.net/AjaanPaul/toefl-integrated-writing-task retrieved 8th August 2014

----- THE END -----

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APPENDIX

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SUGGESTED NOTE
Topic: Homeschooling vs. traditional schools

Reading Listening

Disadv. o. homeschooling vs. traditional Adv. o homeschooling vs. traditional

schools schools

● Less learning ● More learning possible

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● Less social interaction ● More social interaction possible

● Less varied curriculum ● Varied curriculum possible

LISTENING SCRIPT
Man: Have you signed up for the GRE test yet?
Woman: Yeah. Have to if I wanna get into graduate school.
Man: you sound upset.
Woman: Yes, I am. I don’t understand why we’re gotta take that test. I mean, the university can tell
whether we’re up to graduate work by looking at our grade-point average and letters of recommendation.
Man: You’re just suffering from text anxiety.
Woman: Yes, I am. Don’t you know those tests are gender biased? Did you know that the average mean
scores for women are about 60 points lower than men’s on standardized tests, whereas women’s grade-
point averages are higher?
Man: Really? No, I didn’t know that. So, uh, what’s the deal?
Woman: Well, test anxiety may count. Women tend to suffer anxiety levels that negatively affect their
scores. You know, there was a study not long ago in which a control group and an experimental group,
both with an equal number of men and women, were given a standardized test. The people in the control
group were just given a test, and those in the experimental group were told that the researchers were
looking at gender differences. The women in the experimental group scored even lower than the women in
the control group.
Man: And they think the women in the experimental group were more anxious?
Woman: Well, that’s probably a part of it, but other studies show that men and women approach the tasks
differently.
Man: So what do we, us guys, do differently?
Woman: Uh, for one thing, you guys take risks. We’re more cautious and try to analyze the items and
check our answers. So we work slower, and that’s a disadvantage on a timed test.
Man: I can see that. What else?
Woman: Men seem to enjoy trick questions, whereas women find them distracting.
Man: Well, I guess I can understand your feelings. But don’t you think a university takes these differences
into account?
Woman: I’d hope so. You know, it isn’t just women, but ethnic groups and even non-native English
speakers have been shown to do better on open-ended tasks like essay tests.
SUGGESTED NOTES
Man’s points/ Man/ Woman’s points/ Woman/ Female (F)
Male (M)

Test anxiety concerns Instead of GRE result, uni. c’n require

- Grade point aver.

- letters o. recommendation

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gender bias

- female/ women 60 pnts lower aver. Mean

- higher grade pnts aver.

Wonders abt. Females/ F:

Differences
- more prone 2 test anxiety
- approach task differently (diffnt)
- more cautious & analytical
- work slower
- find tricks distracting

Males/ M:

- risk takers
- like finding trick Qs

Uni. take this into Open-ended tasks better 4 F, ethnic groups + nonnative Eng. speakers
consideration

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