Note Taking in Circuit Class

[Cujo]

When I'm ether taking notes or doing practice examples of circuit analysis questions, I find it hard to keep my circuit schematics neat and tidy in my exercise book. If I try to draw my circuits neat, I'm kind of wasting time that could be used to analyse the circuit. But I like to take pride and care when doing notes and practise problems.

Any suggestions that I could do to keep neatness and not take up time?

[Mr.B]

Experience Grasshopper… Experience.

However, after those words of little wisdom…

I have recently purchased a “Remarkable 2”. (Google it)
It is quite simply an expensive digital notepad.
I have always been a pencil and pad sort of person.
It does not enable you to surf the net or watch youtube videos. It is a very niche market product.
It simply allows you to make notes and sketches using an array of template backgrounds.
However, you can lasso an area of your sketch and shrink it, expand it, and move it.
The hand written documents can also be converted to PDF and emailed.
You can hand markup PDF documents, which is handy to note that the specs in a datasheet are a lie.
Not for the faint hearted – it is an expensive piece of kit.
[no affiliation with Remarkable – just a customer.]

[NiHaoMike]

I have recently purchased a “Remarkable 2”. (Google it)
It is quite simply an expensive digital notepad.
I have always been a pencil and pad sort of person.
It does not enable you to surf the net or watch youtube videos. It is a very niche market product.
It simply allows you to make notes and sketches using an array of template backgrounds.
However, you can lasso an area of your sketch and shrink it, expand it, and move it.
The hand written documents can also be converted to PDF and emailed.
You can hand markup PDF documents, which is handy to note that the specs in a datasheet are a lie.
Not for the faint hearted – it is an expensive piece of kit.
[no affiliation with Remarkable – just a customer.]

Looks like a cool device but overpriced considering entry level Android pen tablets like the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite cost a little more than half as much. (Was considering getting one to replace my ancient TF101, now going for the S7 since quite a few users say it's worth it in the long run.)

What would be neat would be an app to allow using an Android pen tablet as a display tablet for a PC. I recall there was one to relay the pen strokes to a PC but I don't think it did display.

[rstofer]

I thought Microsoft OneNote on a Surface Book or Surface Pro might be handy.  I wasn't able to get the Surface Pen to do anything useful on my HP Envy laptop.  I didn't really think it would work.

[NiHaoMike]

The pen input needs a specific kind of screen to work. The only kind of pen that works on a regular touchscreen are the dirt cheap conductive plastic and rubber sticks that are not very precise at all.

For those wanting to use an Android tablet with pen as a display tablet for their PC, I have found the free app "MultiVNC" to be pretty good. Don't expect it to work well for graphics heavy apps, but how many 3D apps work well with a pen?

[rstofer]

Any suggestions that I could do to keep neatness and not take up time?

Scribble  the in-class examples in a separate notebook and clean them up later for the real notebook.  It's important to keep up with the lectures and drawing precise schematics doesn't help with that.  There's probably some learning in having to redraw the schematics.

Then there is the problem where the professor erases just a small bit of a schematic and inserts something else.  You need to completely redraw the circuit and there just isn't time.

[Tomorokoshi]

Any suggestions that I could do to keep neatness and not take up time?

Scribble  the in-class examples in a separate notebook and clean them up later for the real notebook.  It's important to keep up with the lectures and drawing precise schematics doesn't help with that.  There's probably some learning in having to redraw the schematics.

Then there is the problem where the professor erases just a small bit of a schematic and inserts something else.  You need to completely redraw the circuit and there just isn't time.

In one of the classes, I don't remember which, the professor was working through diagrams and calculations. All the students were busy taking notes and attempting to follow the concepts and equations.

After 20 minutes, the end of the problem was reached, with the professor stating that...

"... and that's why this doesn't work."

[JohnnyMalaria]

Any suggestions that I could do to keep neatness and not take up time?

Scribble  the in-class examples in a separate notebook and clean them up later for the real notebook.  It's important to keep up with the lectures and drawing precise schematics doesn't help with that.  There's probably some learning in having to redraw the schematics.

Then there is the problem where the professor erases just a small bit of a schematic and inserts something else.  You need to completely redraw the circuit and there just isn't time.

+1

[AJ3G]

Any suggestions that I could do to keep neatness and not take up time?

Scribble  the in-class examples in a separate notebook and clean them up later for the real notebook.  It's important to keep up with the lectures and drawing precise schematics doesn't help with that.  There's probably some learning in having to redraw the schematics.

Then there is the problem where the professor erases just a small bit of a schematic and inserts something else.  You need to completely redraw the circuit and there just isn't time.

+1

I too agree with this approach. During my first semester and I was taking AC/DC Circuit Analysis I would copy as much as I could in class, but it was messy, for the reason you lay out in your post. I would then go home that evening, or later in the day and redo all of my notes, which was also helpful for me to absorb and understand the material.

To this day I have the redone notes, and they have also proved to be excellent reference material for me on occasion, not to mention they take me on a walk down memory lane.. 

Rich

[ledtester]

Ask your prof if you can take pics of the blackboard.

This will give you more time to absorb the "big idea" during the lecture.