Abbreviations and Symbols for Note Taking

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Abbreviations and Symbols for Note Taking

Abbreviations and Symbols for Note Taking

Note-taking is hard work. If you find it impossible to write fast enough to get the information down and still be able to read your notes, you may want to use some abbreviations and symbols in place of words when taking notes. You should use only the abbreviations that fit your needs and ones that you will remember easily. A good idea is to introduce only a few abbreviations or symbols into your note taking at a time. Remember, within 24 hours you should review and edit your notes. At that time you may want to write in the complete words if you think you may have trouble remembering their abbreviations. Listed below are some frequently used symbols and abbreviations you might find useful to you when you take lecture notes.

1. Leave out the periods in standard abbreviations.

PhD doctor

Dept department

NYC New York City

2. Borrow technical symbols.

& and

+ and, plus, positive

- minus

/ divided by

x times, multiplied by

= equals, is the same as

< less than, is increasing to

> greater than, is decreasing to

_ is parallel to, parallel

→ leads to, causes

↑ increases

↓ decreases

% percent, percentage

# number

$ dollars

c cents

( ) parenthetical

@ amount, the amount of, at

? question, the question is

! here’s a surprising fact

3. Use standard abbreviations from Engl and other langs.

cf compare

eg for example

c/o care of

lb pound

4. Use the entire first syllable and only the first letter of a second syllable.

subj subject

cons conservative

tot totalitarianism

ind individual

5. Eliminate final letters. Use just enough of the beginning of a word to form an easily recognizable abbreviation.

assoc associate, associated

ach achievement

biol biological

info information

intro introduction

chem. chemistry

conc concentration

max maximum

rep repetition

6. Omit vowels from the middle of words, and retain only enough consonants to provide a recognizable skeleton of the word.

bkgd background

ppd prepared

prblm problem

estmt estimate

gvt government

7. Use an apostrophe to abbreviate.

gov’t government

am’t amount

cont’d continued

educat’l educational

8. Use “g” to represent ing endings.

decrg decreasing

ckg checking

estg establishing

exptg experimenting

9. Generally, spell out short words such as in, at, to, but, for, and key. Symbols, signs, or abbreviations for short words will make the notes too confusing with “shorthand.”

10. Leave out articles a(n) and the.

11. If a term, phrase, or name is initially written out in full during the lecture substitute initials whenever the term, phrase, or name is used again.

First writing: University of Maryland

After : UMD

12. Use symbols for commonly recurring connective or transitional words.

& and

w/ with

w/o without

vs against

∴ or \ therefore

Adapted from http://www.ucmo.edu/Documents/abbrevfornotetaking.pdf

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