Processing Time and Cognitive Effort of Longhand Note Taking When Reading and Summarizing a Structured or Linear Text

Author: Olive, T.; Barbier, M.-L.

Description: We examined longhand note taking strategies when reading and summarizing a source text that was formatted with bullets or that was presented in a single paragraph. We analyzed cognitive effort when reading the source text, when jotting notes, when reading the notes, and when composing the summary, as well as time spent in these activities and the content of the notes and the summaries. With a formatted text, students’ perceived comprehension difficulty was lower and they expended less cognitive effort, spent less time reading the text, and noted more ideas. While composing the summary, only those students who read the formatted source text continued selecting ideas in their notes. Finally, the summaries were unaffected by the formatting of the source text. The study shows that formatting a source text with bullets facilitates note taking by helping students to grasp its structure and by reducing the cognitive effort of reading.

Subject headings: Note taking; Text formatting; Signaling devices; Summarizing; Cognitive effort

Keywords: Processing Time and Cognitive Effort of Longhand Note Taking When Reading and Summarizing a Structured or Linear Text

Publication year: 2017

Journal or book title: Written Communication

Volume: 34

Issue: 2

Pages: 224-246

Find the full text : https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0741088317699898

Find more like this one (cited by): https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=14581164870773817641&as_sdt=1000005&sciodt=0,16&hl=en

Type: Journal Article

Serial number: 2873