10 Amazing Reasons to Leave Extra Space In Your Notes Next Class

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Taking notes during lectures is one of the least enjoyable parts of post-secondary life.  As writers cramp creeps up, and your hands clench and seize, your writing gets harder and harder to read.  These notes, however, are vital and can not be taken for granted.

Everything that the professor says is testable.  Somehow, you need to collect all of these facts floating towards you and horde them in your head for later use.  With this as your priority, you do not want to pay attention to anything except the instructor.  The last thing you are thinking about is what your notes look like, but this is something you need to keep in the back of your mind.

Today, we will count down 10 reasons you should leave lots of space in your notes.  We will also break down why this extra space is so valuable and what you can do with all that room later.

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Why is leaving space in your class notes important?

When you’re in class, all you can focus on is the word salad the professor is tossing at you.  It can be hard to concentrate.  Especially when you take notes by hand.  You have to try not to miss anything while summarizing the professors’ words and getting them down on paper. 

Because it’s so important to keep up in lectures and rephrase what the instructor is saying, it’s easy for your notes to get messy.  Handwriting takes time.  Neat writing takes longer.  All you can hope for is your best.

When you leave lots of space in your notes, you can take some of the weight off and allow your writing to be messy.  No one ever has to see these notes except for you.  What they look like really doesn’t matter.  Leaving lots of space ensures that even when things get messy, you can decipher them later.

There are also a lot of great activities that you can do and insert in this leftover space.  By leaving the room when you write the notes, you can come back and fill it in with study activities before transcribing your notes into a good copy.  You can do all these activities if you leave this extra space in your original rough copy notes.  Then, go back and create beautiful stylized notes with all of these additional resources already inserted, ensuring that your final copy is your best.

How can you use the extra space in your class notes to elevate your study strategy? 

When you leave extra space in your lecture notes, you reduce the stress of having them neat and decipherable.  There are also a ton of study activities that you can insert into these gaps to make your notes as thorough as possible.  You can fill in all of this extra space over a series of study sessions allowing you to review the information and elaborate on the details.  Here are just a few examples of how the extra room comes in handy.

Leave extra space in your notes so you can still read them if your writing gets too messy.

Let’s start with this reason since it’s the most obvious.  Keeping up in class is challenging regardless of how prepared you are.  If you leave extra space while you’re writing your notes, it allows you to scribble as messy as you want and still be able to decipher them later.  It also lets you jump back and add details you have forgotten if you fall too far behind.

If you have not read the textbook before class, this may be your first exposure to the material under study.  This can cause you to want to take much more detailed notes than you would if you were more familiar with the topic.  Your lack of familiarity can often cause your lecture notes to be messy, for you to fall behind, or for you to not completely understand some of the information.  

Leaving space on the page will reduce crowding if your penmanship gets sloppy from trying to keep up.  It will also be more forgiving if you have to add extra notes later for added context or clarification.  Also, sometimes writing larger helps keep your penmanship neater with less effort and attention.

Leave extra space in your class notes so you can add details from your textbook.

Textbooks are mandatory for a reason.  Usually, students need more clarification than a lecture alone allows.  Texts will also offer a different perspective or wording.  Taking notes from your textbook and those from your class is crucial to fully understanding the concept.  

Consolidating these two sets of notes can deepen your understanding of the topic.  As you do, compare what you took in the lecture and what you pulled from your textbook.  As you sort through all the information, purge the excess and the duplicate notes.  This sorting uses problem-solving to think critically about the data and its relevance. 

Keeping these notes all in the same place ensures you recognize the links between the information.  It also fills out concepts so that they can be referenced fully when you review them.  This can be anything from terminology to added details for complex topics and foundational information.  Inserting diagrams from the textbook is also an invaluable asset.

Leaving space in your lecture notes allows you to consolidate information from multiple sources.

Why stop at your textbook?  Leaving plenty of room in your notes will allow you to consolidate information from multiple sources in one place.  This is useful even if you intend to copy all your rough notes into a cleaner, final copy later.  

Having the room to elaborate directly on the lecture notes will cut down the accumulation of redundant information.  With adequate space, you can gather information from several sources, including other reference materials or even documentaries.

Textbooks can be boring.  Sometimes, it is helpful to check out outside sources to gather information.  All these extra facts can then be incorporated directly into a single entry.  Rearranging and writing out the data from a single source is simple, and your complete focus can be on organizing the information on the permanent page.

Leave Extra Space in your notes to write a summary paragraph.

The best way to prove that you understand something is to explain it in your own words.  You should write a brief summary when you are done studying and elaborating on a topic.  Using simple words, describe the concept in detail.  Rather than adding it to a separate sheet, leave space for it at the bottom of the page.  This way, when you look back during a later study session, you have the prompt, in your own words, and the raw data should you require clarification or reminders.

The practice of summarizing concepts will prepare you for having to explain them on your exam.  Professors don’t just want you to memorize and repeat definitions and terminology back to them.  They want you to explain the concept in a way that proves you understand it.  Describing what you have learned in simple words ensures you know it now and have prompts for refreshing later so you can explain it on the exam when you need it most.

Leave some space in case the professor adds to these notes in the following class.

Professors are only human, just like the rest of us.  Sometimes they forget to mention something or think of a better way of explaining a piece of information.  Often, prompted by a question or email received after class, a professor will revisit previous information to add clarification or new details.  They should be added to the original notes, and leaving space will ensure that there is room to do so.

Because they are going back to amend the information, this page will not fit chronologically.  Instead, you will have to go back and insert these details.  And if you leave space, you’ll have plenty of room to insert as much as you’d like.

Often professors go back to refine or expand on concepts in this manner.  These topics will almost certainly appear on the exam.  In saying this, you don’t want to miss the most important facts when you’re reviewing them because they’ve been left in the wrong section.  Leave lots of space so you can go back and amend the original notes to include this new information.  That way, it does not get overlooked when you are studying it in the future.

Leave extra space in your notes so that you can insert definitions.

Every time you learn a new word, it and its definition should be added to your notes.  Sometimes, you will learn terminology that is not defined or incompletely described in the lecture.  Leave room to look them up and add their definitions after class. 

Depending on the subject, some definitions will be much more involved.  For example, Anatomy.  If you are given the name of a muscle, several pieces of information will be required to “define” it.  You will need to know:

• Where is it located?

• What do the components of its name mean? 

• Where does it originate? 

• Where does it insert? 

• What motion does it cause?

• What is the antagonistic muscle that it corresponds with?

There will be many different examples depending on your discipline of study.  Most important here is that you leave adequate space to thoroughly flesh out the details and definitions of each concept you are given.

Leave space in your notes to insert hand-drawn diagrams

Diagrams are vital for visual learners.  They are also second to none in demonstrating cycles or dynamic events.  Anytime you use an illustration in your notes, the investment should be made into creating one, preferably by hand.  Leaving space while taking notes in the lecture will allow you to add these diagrams at your leisure.  When you return home, you can take the time to create, label and colour code a drawing to quickly explain and clarify the concept under discussion.

Creating your own diagrams is invaluable not only to your understanding but also to your ability to communicate the details.  Redraw these diagrams to test yourself or to clarify your understanding on the exam when you have difficulty coming up with the words.  This will often save time and translate your thought process more quickly than writing paragraph upon paragraph, trying to describe it.  

When you can’t find the words, sometimes, it’s easier to draw a diagram and reference it to explain a complex thought.  This will help demonstrate to the instructor that you understand the concept and present your point precisely.  Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Leave extra space in your notes in case you miss something or the teacher talks too fast.

When you are deep in frenzied writing mode, dodging the words coming at you from the professor, sometimes your hands have a mind of their own.  You will be scribbling stuff down so frantically that it’s highly probable you will miss a few words.  Try, at a minimum, to double-space your notes, just in case you have to add more once you get home. 

In the moment, you will not always have time to read back a line to make sure a sentence makes sense.  This extra space ensures that you can simply add words directly onto your draft to finish or flush out a sentence.  This will turn your frantic illegible notes into something comprehensive.

Leaving extra space in your notes can help you if you find yourself struggling with the material.

Sometimes, during class, you are so busy listening to the professor and trying to take in the information that you don’t fully appreciate how difficult it is.  You are sitting there, taking your best notes, agreeing and understanding the entire time.  Later, when you revisit them, you realize that on your own, you really don’t understand it as well as you would like. 

You then read your textbook and elaborate on the notes, but something is still missing.  Your brain just can not complete that connection.  Something like this you can not ignore.  You will need to pull out the big guns and further research, email the professor, or visit them during business hours.

This issue can be solved by using your syllabus to stay ahead of the professor.  Learn the main idea about new concepts before they are introduced in class.  You can also watch a documentary or research tutorial videos on YouTube while accumulating more notes.  These should be added in the space left on the original notes so you can revisit all these facts when you study for the final.

When taking notes, put different concepts on different pages.

Try to have only one or two concepts on a page.  This will leave the space to delve further into the specifics and fine details that are vital for you to expand your understanding of the topic.  The deeper your knowledge of a topic, the less likely you are to forget it organically.

For lengthier or more complicated concepts, leave lots of space.  Try double or even tripling the lines, especially if it is a topic that you feel you will struggle with or have a hard time with.  It’s best to leave plenty of room, to add all the rough notes you need, even if you plan on rewriting them later.

Best Tools for Note-Taking 

I am partial to taking notes by hand whenever possible.  This works best for me because I have difficulty focusing in class and get distracted easily, especially on my laptop.  Because of this, I have experimented with many different utensils and methods over the years.

My absolute favourite pen is the BIC Velocity 1.6mm.  It is so incredibly smooth I feel like I am writing with butter.  I use black because I can then colour code more efficiently.  I generally use blue writing or highlighting for names, places, and dates, so using a black pen allows me to keep that consistent.

I don’t take my binders to class with me.  Instead, I carry a clipboard with extra paper.  This way, I can use it to take my notes for the day, and when I get home, I can empty them into my respective class binders.  These notebook binders allow me to easily add and remove pages as I work through my study routine.  They are thin and lightweight, so they take up little space.  I use binders because I prefer to print off a copy of my final notes to stylize and study.

This clipboard is just one piece of my organizational strategy.  I use a sorting method to help me organize and stay on top of my entire study routine.  I demonstrate it in full in my Study Skills Digital Course.

Ipads and tablets are now a solid option for taking digital notes by hand.  Writing on the screen takes a little getting used to, but it is helpful and saves time.  There are a ton of great note-taking apps you can try and experiment with.  This is half the fun.  Customizing your notes on Ipad is also so fun and easy because there are endless stylistic options to choose from.  You don’t even need to horde stationery supplies to do it!

If you use your Ipad, make sure to get an Apple pencil.  This will combine digital note-taking with all the benefits of handwriting.  This bridges both worlds effortlessly so you can make the most of the mental associations and organization!

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Confidence in note-taking comes over time and practice.  Note-taking during class time is always going to be intimidating.  It’s a high-stakes environment where many moving pieces happen in real-time.  You can’t pause and rewind the instructor.  They say what they say, and you either get it down or don’t.  It’s no wonder this is nerve-wracking and stressful.

You must remember that missing a line or two is not the end of the world.  Leaving lots of room in your notes allows you to go back and fill in missing information even if you don’t know that you missed it.  This will transform what appears to be oversight into a learning opportunity.

Use the space to add data from multiple sources over several study sessions.  Pull notes from your textbook, watch a tutorial, or do your own research.  These activities not only fill in this extra space in your notes but also deepen your understanding.  Once you have filled all that extra space with detailed information, you can always create a beautiful final copy, stylize your notes, and make them your own.

If you need more study suggestions, download my study guide template.  It has more than 20 study activities that you can track over the semester to ensure that you study every topic as thoroughly as possible.  It is free, and you can download it here.

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