Nursing Notes
Sawyer P (Obtaining a Bachelor's in Nursing)
This student takes both longhand and electronic notes. The first image is handwritten notes from a class lecture that was accompanied by a PowerPoint. The main body of the text is copied from the PowerPoint, but we obtain real insight into her studying methods from the marginalia of the text. There she writes notes such as visual indications of the symptoms being discussed, simpler terms, and catchwords to remember certain sections. The student finds that annotating her notes helps her understand what is written down when she goes back to look at them for her exams. Furthermore, she states that most of her academic evaluations are comprised of verbal simulations, where she must “treat a patient”. Therefore, the annotations give her the ability to remember diseases, symptoms, and medication in layman’s terms that she can easily explain to a patient that doesn’t have a lot of medical knowledge. The second image is a personal word document that contains images, diagrams, and text. These notes were taken from her textbook, so she had to select and record information she believed to be relevant. She prefers this method of notetaking because she can print it and annotate it further. Not only is she able to have marginalia to help her recall the information, but she also has a visual aspect that is extremely important for a nursing student whose main purpose is to identify symptoms and help diagnose patients.