What do you think of when the word “notebook” is mentioned? Well, that would depend on the context in which you use that word. The term “notebook” has two different meanings. One type of notebook is a book filled with blank pages, while the other type of notebook is a portable computer. Imagine if your friend asked you if he/she could see your notebook. In such cases, you better ask them to clarify; you don’t know which type of notebook your friend wants.

It’s strange how we now call portable computers “notebooks”, but from a certain point of view, portable computers can be considered as “notebooks”. They’re not paper notebooks, so I guess we can call them “electronic notebooks”. Everyday, when I go to my classes, I notice that students have different ways of taking lecture notes. Some use the traditional notebook-and-pencil method. They sit in the lecture hall with their spiral-bound notebooks, writing down key concepts with their pens or pencils. A few students using this method would even bring in colored pens and pencils, to make their notes more colorful or to emphasize certain topics, concepts, and terms. Others use their electronic notebooks to take lecture notes. These students do not have to bother with pencils and pens. The keyboard is their writing utensil, and for many students, using the keyboard is much more efficient than writing with a pencil or pen. Why is that? For one reason, keyboards do not require the user to drop their writing utensil in order to pick up an eraser (or white-out). A simple push of the “delete” button on the keyboard can fix typing errors. Another reason is the lack of effort needed to type. Writing with pencils or pens requires you to hold the instrument and push down on the medium on which you’re writing. If you push down too hard, your hand is eventually going to tire, but if you don’t push down hard enough, you’re writing may not be visible enough. With keyboards, all you have to do is lightly tap each key, and you’ll have something written down on the document. Furthermore, most people often type faster than they write. This can be particularly useful if your professor speaks really fast in the lecture.

With all these benefits in using electronic notebooks for note-taking, why is it that some students still use the notebook-and-pencil method? One reason could be that those students are used to taking notes with the notebook-and-pencil method. Another reason could be that those students do not like the idea of carrying their electronic notebooks in their book bags, especially if their notebooks are heavy. A third reason could be that they have desktops instead of electronic notebooks. However, from a note-taking perspective, there are some things that a regular paper notebook can offer that an electronic notebook cannot. For one thing, paper notebooks allow you to draw important figures such as charts, tables, diagrams, chemical compounds, to name a few. While electronic notebooks do allow you to create charts and tables within your word-processing application (e.g. Microsoft Word and Pages), it takes a while to input the data, create the chart, and format the table and chart such that they are on the right position in the document. You can also draw in word-processing applications, but most people find that drawing with a mouse is not as efficient as drawing with a pencil or pen. So, if you’re taking courses like General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Physics, or some other course that requires you to draw a lot, then the notebook-and-pencil method would probably be more efficient.

So far, I’ve been talking about notebooks, but some of you may be wondering, “What about the iPad?” Well, the iPad is a completely different story, and I think I will talk about the iPad in another post. In the meantime, think about how you’re using your notebook these days.