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Dahlen comments on Open thread, August 26 - September 1, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Is it effective to study by writing down all the information you want to learn? When I'm faced with the task of studying from some source, say a textbook, my first impulse is to write all of it in a notebook. But recently I've been worrying that this makes me shift my focus away from learning and towards doing a scribe's work -- and also I think I'd be a little more motivated to start studying if my mental image of the activity involved less writing and more reading.
How does this method compare, in terms of information retention per time spent, with other study methods?
When I was a student I spent a lot of time in class writing down what was being said, and reading my notes later on, there's a lot of stuff I don't remember learning. When I look stuff up on Wikipedia because I'm curious, I don't think I remember less than when I was writing everything down.
Now I tend to only write down a very short summary of the most interesting/surprising bits, ideally with a diagram or silly drawing, but then I haven't been reading much textbooks recently. If I was back in "I nead to learn all this new information" mode, I'd probably do a mix of exercises, and Anki.
Depends how well you retain it. Note-taking is a highly effective mnemonic technique for some people; not so much for others.
If you're going to be doing the work of transcribing it anyway, it might be a good idea to put it into an Anki deck or other spaced repetition framework, so as to make later reinforcement easier if you need it.
Question:
Answer:
Gosh, do you really think so?
Thing is, there's no better answer than that, because it's too variable. You have to experiment for yourself.