Sketchnoting, oh Sketchnoting

Without ever having had sketchnoting defined in my life, I was already doing it. I have always been a pen and paper kind of notetaker, where I always believed (mind you this could be placebo) that you retain more information when writing rather than typing. Through my undergraduate degree, I was contantly writing notes. From life cycles of fungi to rock formations and ocean circulations, a lot had to be done by hand. So as we learned more and more about sketchnoting, I thought “huh, this is what I’ve been doing my whole life.”

I have to say, I’m no artist. A subduction zone or volcanic activity? Straight lines and arrows – easy. But little icons or even large scale drawings are harder for me. I’ve always enjoyed summarizing notes via large flow charts, arrows (lots and lots of arrows), and mind maps. As I reflected for this blog post, I was even reminded of my most recent notes for a psych midterm last week.

Sketchnoting will always be a part of my notetaking, and deifnitely something I introduce to students. For me, it’s a great way to introduce academia to visual learners.