Passive and Active Note-taking
Active learning helps you make meaning from what you learn. Being involved in learning means learning through doing. Passive learning does not support remembering, organising and making meaning from the reading passage.
Passive note-taking:
  • copying sentences from the reading passage,
  • underlining words,
  • writing notes on everything you read.
 
Active note-taking:
  • writing notes using your own words,
  • looking for answers to the questions you have about the topic,
  •  thinking about the content of the reading passage.
 
If you are not sure what is important, if you do not evaluate the sources you read and accept them as suitable evidence, then you are a passive note-taker. An active note-taker looks for connections within his topic and other topics and records direct quotes only when itʼs important to have the exact words.