You will have noticed that in the examples of note taking you have seen, there have been many abbreviated, or shortened, words and well as symbols and punctuation used to make the note taking process faster. This is crucial when taking notes in a real academic environment when professors will rarely stop and wait for students to catch up. Look at some examples that have already been used in this course.
Abbreviations
- ex. = for example
- lbs = pounds
- ft = feet
- kg = kilograms
- Dr. = doctor
- mill = million
- cm = centimeters
- L = litres
- yr or yrs = years
- S. America = South America
- Cent. = Central
- choc. = chocolate
- perm. = permanent
- cyl. = cylinder
Symbols
- % = percent or percentage
- / = and
- / = per
- - = linking of ideas
- = = equals or similar
- # = number
- CO2 = carbon dioxide
- w/ = with
- > = more than
- & = and
Exercise
Look over this list containing more abbreviations and symbols with your group. Which abbreviations or symbols are you familiar with? Are there any that you think you would be able to use? In Exercise 1 add more to the list that you think would be useful for you.
| Abbreviation | Meaning |
|---|---|
| approx. | approximately |
| b/4 | before |
| b/c | because |
| c. | century -21st c. |
| diff. | difficult |
| e.g. or ex. | for example |
| esp. | especially |
| etc. | and so on |
| excl. | excluding |
| incl. | including |
| info. | information |
| max. | maximum |
| min. | minimum |
| prob | problem |
| s/th | something |
| s/o | someone |
| w/ | with |
| w/o | without |
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ✔ | correct |
| x | wrong |
| ? | question |
| / | and - or - per |
| & or + | and/plus |
| # | number |
| % | percent |
| > < | more - less than |
| - | join ideas |
| @ | at |
| " | same as above |
| = | equal to, is |
| 1st | first |
| 2nd | second |
| 3rd | third etc. |
| 1920s | 1920-1929 |
Listening to short passages and take notes in Exercise 2. Try to use as many abbreviations and symbols as you can.
Listening
Number 1
Transcript
Number one. Grasshoppers are common insects which are approximately five centimeters long and, as the name implies, can be found in dry grass which they hop around in. They have four wings, two large compound eyes, and weigh in at up to two grams.
Number 2
Transcript
The Colosseum, which still sits in Rome, Italy, was the pride of the Roman Empire some 2,000 years ago. It could hold a maximum of 80,000 spectators who would gather to watch gladiators fight each other and various type of dangerous animals, sometimes without any weapons at all.
Number 3
Transcript
Before the work of American Charles Goodyear, rubber was a natural material from South American trees that became sticky when it was hot and was easy to break when cold. Goodyear was first to develop a technique to stop these problems in 1839. Today, of over 20 million tons of rubber produced each year, over 41% is still natural and uses Goodyear's technique.
Number 4
Transcript
One animal that seems unlike other hoofed animals, for example horses and cows, is the camel. It is an animal that seems custom-designed for its environment. The dry deserts where they lived, such as those in Africa and the Middle East, pose two main problems. How to survive with such little water and how to travel easily over the ever-shifting sand dunes. First, the hump on a camel's back is full of fat, from which it extracts water when it needs to. Second, its feet are specially designed. They have two large toes which spread when the camel walks, stopping it from sinking into the sand and allowing it to keep walking.
Number 5
Transcript
Number five, over 20 million tons of peanuts are grown in the United States each year, but that wasn't always the case.
The big cash crop in the southern U.S. used to be cotton, but it is hard to make money from cotton over a long period of time because it drains a great deal of nutrients from the soil.
Around 1900, George Washington Carver would change this situation with his work and development of alternate forms of agriculture, most notably the peanut.
He worked hard to develop over 300 new uses of peanuts from cheese, milk, and flour to ink and soap.