Now you've been through the first five steps of the note-taking process: preparing, listening, reading, summarizing, and organizing. Why add review as a sixth step? After all, summarizing and organizing notes are a form of review. The review can be redundant in a great many cases, especially where templates are involved, with their pre-defined categories and limited space. But if you have a broad audience with contrasting concerns and no pre-determined guidelines or standard template, a review is in order.
You should review your notes for consistency in content and depth:
You should review your notes for consistency in content and depth:
- Content – Ensure each reported section gets equal treatment among each talking point (e.g., problem - impact - solution - benefit, or, criteria - condition - cause - effect, or, issue - method - options - analysis - recommendation)
- Depth – Provide the coverage that each talking point deserves with sufficient detail.
Of course, you can take care of these matters during the drafting stage, but you would be better off with a strong plan because of the increased efficiency it will bring to the writing. Now you are ready for step 7: rewriting, the stuff of the next post.
***
Read previous installments in this series:
