When listening and taking notes, you should concentrate on the following three things:
the academic topic, transition words, and examples.
There are certain keywords or sentence patterns that professors use to introduce new academic concepts:
1. X is a/an ______ that/who/which/where _________________________
2. X occurs when/where ________________________________
3. A concept/idea/situation________ that/who/which ___________ is referred to as/known as/called X
4. X refers to the idea/concept that ____ or X___ refers to the situation/circumstance where ____
Examples:
Verbal communication is a type of communication that uses words and language.
VC occurs when we use language and speak to each other
The style of communication that uses words and language is referred to as VC.
VC refers to a style of communication where language and words are used
Pay attention to the following transition words that help you capture the main ideas and examples:
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Type of connection
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Transition words
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These words can help you show the order of ideas.
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First/Second/Third
Firstly (or "First of all")/Secondly/Thirdly (or "Lastly")
For one thing/For another thing/Finally (or "Lastly")
In the first place/in the second place/Finally (or "Lastly")
Instead of "First", "First of all" and "Firstly", we can use "To begin with", "To start with", or "For starters". We can also use "First and foremost" to state that the first key point is the most important one among all key points.
Likewise, instead of "Finally" and "Lastly", we can use "Last but not least" to state that the final key point is just as important as the others, despite it being mentioned last.
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These words can help you add information
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In addition, furthermore, additionally, also, next, moreover, what's more, on top of that
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These words can help you conclude or to summarize:
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To sum up, in summary, in conclusion, to conclude, all in all, all things considered
,overall, taking everything into consideration, in a nutshell
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These words can help you demonstrate contrast
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Conversely, on the contrary, by contrast, by way of contrast, on one hand/on the other hand
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These words can help you compare or demonstrate similarity
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Similarly, likewise, by the same token, along similar lines
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These words can help you state a result.
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As a result, as a consequence, consequently, therefore
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These words can help you state a generalization.
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Generally, on the whole, in most cases, in general
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These words can help you clarify a point.
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That is, in other words, to put it simply, That is to say, just to reiterate
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These words can help you give examples.
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For example, for instance, take something, for example, to give a clear example
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These words can help you state an alternative.
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Alternatively, as another possibility
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Examples:
Good morning! Class! Today I want to talk about an interesting psychological phenomenon: word framing.
Basically, a concept that people make choices to describe a situation in a positive or negative way is referred to as word framing.
For example, if the weather today is forecast to be cloudy and there is a 50% possibility of rain, according to the forecast
many people may take umbrellas with them, but if the weather forecast was delivered as there is a 50% possibility of sunshine then
very few people would prepare for a rainy day. Naturally, as you can imagine, word framing can produce significant effects on buyers’ decisions,
so many advertisements are carefully worded to render the best outcome. For example,
we often hear or read that a certain medicine works for 90% of the patients.
That sounds pretty cool right. Let’s say there is another medicine claiming it does not work for 10% of the patients.
Which would you choose the first one or the second one? So. Of course, customers would find the first one more attractive and buy it,
but both medicines have the same percentage of workability.
Alright! For those of you who don’t know what a self-fulfilling prophecy is.
Today’s lecture I am going to talk about self-fulfilling prophecy! So.. a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when a person acts based on a false presupposition, forcing their thoughts to become the reality.
I'll give you an example. A bank is run properly for many years, there are no problems whatsoever, and everybody's money is safe.
One day, a large group of people came to the bank, the reason is unknown, and many of the customers falsely perceive this to mean the
bank is in financial trouble, so they decide to withdraw their money so they do not incur any losses. Unfortunately for the bank,
the rumor continued and more people began withdrawing their money and finally the bank did go into financial trouble and ended up going bankrupt.
Therefore, the false rumor indirectly became true as a result of their actions.
Here are symbols you can use in your notes.
| Symbol | Meaning | Examples |
| = | refer to, occur, ..etc |
A concept that people make choices to describe a situation in a positive or negative way is referred to as word framing
Word framing = ppl describe a situation in ✓ or X way.
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| ∵ | Because, as a result of, due to, because, owing to |
Due to the increasing popularity of e-books, there has been a fall in paper book sales.
∵↑e-books, paper books $↓
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| ∴ | Therefore |
Element 43 has radioactive decay, therefore element 43 doesn't last very long, which means if that ever had been present on earth,
it would have decayed ages ago.
Elem43 has radioa. decay ∴ it ≠ last long
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| => | result in, lead to, contribute to, give rise to, cause |
Carbon dioxide significantly contributes to global warming.
CO => global warming
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| ≠ | isn't, doesn't, don't, can't etc. |
Element 43 has radioactive decay, therefore element 43 doesn't last very long, which means if that ever had been present on earth,
it would decayed ages ago.
Elem43 has radioa. decay ∴ it ≠ last long
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| + | many, lots of, a great deal of, etc. |
Because potatoes have the ability to provide abundant and extremely nutritious food crop, no other
crop grew in Northern Europe. As a result, the nutrition of the general population improved tremendously and population
soared in the early 1800s.
∵ potatoes /nutri crop/+vitamins => popul↑ in Europe 1800s
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| ++ | Comparatives |
Older and more experienced birds who nest in the high density shrub areas have significantly more offspring than those
in low density areas, which suggests the choice of where to nest does have an impact on the number of chicks they have.
older birds /nest in high shrub ++offsprings birds/nest in low shrub
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| +++ | Superlatives |
What was even more surprising were all the large
organisms that lived down there. The most distinctive of these was
something called the tube worm. Here, let me show you a picture.
The tube of the tube worm is really, really long. They can be up to one
and half meters long, and these tubes are attached to the ocean floor,
pretty weird looking, huh?
! +++special = tube warm /long/tubes attached to ocean floor
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| - | Little, few, lack ,in short of/ be in shortage of, etc. |
As I said the monsoon migrated itself, so there was less rain in the Sahara.
The land started to get drier, which in turn caused huge decreases in the amount of vegetation,
because vegetation doesn't grow as well in dry soil, right? And then, less vegetation means the soil can't hold water and
the soil loses its ability to retain water when it does rain. So then you have less moisture to help clouds form, nothing
to evaporate for cloud formation.
- rain in Sahara
land ++dry => vegetation↓
--vegetation => soil ≠ hold water => -water to form cloud
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| ! | Important, interesting |
But what's particularly interesting about these volcanoes is that most of the volcanoes here on Earth are not shield volcanoes.
Instead, they are other volcano types, like strata volcanoes, for example, which are a result of tectonic plate movement.
! volcanoes on earth ≠ shield volcanoes = strata volcanoes
tectonic plate => volcanoes on earth
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Other symbols:
| Symbol | Meaning |
| & | And, also, in addition, etc. |
| ~ | about/around, approximately, etc. |
| ... | And so on |
| $ | Sales, money, cost |
| e.g. | For example |
| i.e. | That is |
| x | Wrong, incorrect, bad, detrimental, negative, etc. |
| ✓ | Right, good, positive, etc. |
