What are the different types of short-notes for Mains Exam

What matters more is making sense of what you read, developing a method to recall it, and identifying a few essential keywords and data points to enrich your answers.

Note-making can be seen in two ways:

One, as an instrument to record information.
Two, as a by-product of how you learn and what you learn.

For Mains, your goal is to learn in a way that maximises your score.

To maximise your score, you must be able to generate multiple dimensions, place relevant keywords, and include high-value examples.

To generate dimensions easily, learn to identify patterns and group related points from the content. This approach will help you create your own frameworks, logic charts, mind maps, diagrams, comparison tables, timelines, etc.

For keywords, learn to pick those that convey depth and relevance—terms and facts that create the impression that you're well-versed in the topic. (See Figure 02.)

If high-value examples are scattered across a body of content, extract them—whether they’re statistics, case studies, or anecdotes—and compile them separately. This will help you reproduce them effectively across different answers.

All of these note-making attempts need not be perfectly organised. They can be scribbled in the margins of your answer keys, done digitally or handwritten. They also don’t need to be filed neatly into subject-wise folders.

Will they be scattered and untidy? Possibly. But that’s perfectly fine. Through daily answer writing practice, you will develop the ability to connect what you’ve learned from diverse sources.

So, in essence, note-making itself is not the most important part. What matters more is making sense of what you read, developing a method to recall it, and identifying a few essential keywords and data points to enrich your answers.

If note-making helps you in this process, by all means, do it.