【英语语言学习】用本子记笔记可以更好地帮助记忆

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

When you take notes on the puzzle or maybe when you sit down in class, do you pull out your laptop, or do you pull out a piece of paper? A researcher at Princeton University says it matters which one you choose because you'll learn more if you write your notes by hand - a lot more. Pam Mueller joins us now to explain why. Thanks so much for being with us.

PAM MUELLER: Thanks for having me.

MARTIN: Your study shows that writing notes by hand makes you focus your attention in some way that just typing it doesn't.

MUELLER: So when people type their notes, they have this tendency to try to take verbatim notes and write down as much of the lecture as they can. The students who were taking longhand notes in our studies were forced to be more selective because you can't write as fast as you can type. And that extra processing of the material that they were doing benefited them.

MARTIN: That's so interesting. So you're saying that if you're typing notes, you're really, like, taking dictation, whereas¹ if you're doing it by longhand, there's no way you can keep up that way. And so you're inevitably² synthesizing information and that's a kind of learning?

MUELLER: Exactly, particularly when you're asked a question that involves conceptual understanding of the material. We found that on factual questions, the students did approximately equivalently³. But when it came to the deeper understanding of material, that's where the longhand note takers really shown.

MARTIN: Do you want to out yourself? Are you a longhand note taker or were you, in college, a computer note taker?

MUELLER: So when I was in college, nobody really had a laptop.

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: (Imitating whispers) Me either. But we won't tell.

MUELLER: (Laughter) When I was in law school, it was a huge debate about laptop versus⁴ longhand. And I wished maybe that I'd taken longhand notes there.

MARTIN: But what about for all the college students out there in the throes of exams, probably right now, who are frantically⁶ taking notes? Is it just unrealistic to think that people would switch it up and go old school?

MUELLER: I think it is a hard sell to get people to go back to pen and paper. But they are developing lots of technologies now like Livescribe and various stylus-and-tablet technologies that are getting better and better. And I think that could be sort of an easier sell to college students and people of that generation. I think that these results resonate a lot with people who are a little older. But as we showed in our studies, even when we told people they shouldn't be taking these verbatim notes, they were not able to overcome that instinct. So that frantic⁵ note taking you were talking about is actually really, really bad.

MARTIN: Pam Mueller is lead author of a study about note taking. Pam, I've been listening carefully and writing things down, all in longhand of course. Now this means I need to work on my penmanship, by the way.

MUELLER: Yeah, it helps if the notes are comprehensible later. But even if they're not, the content is in your brain better than it would be otherwise.

MARTIN: Oh, good. Wait, before I let you go, do you know who we're talking to next on the show?

MUELLER: I heard that Alex Trebek is on this week.

MARTIN: Alex Trebek is on. And I hear that this matters to you. You were on "Jeopardy⁷!"?

MUELLER: Yeah. So I was on the college tournament a long while ago and then on the "Tournament Of Champions" and then the "Ultimate Tournament Of Champions." And then two years ago, they had a 30th anniversary tournament where they brought a bunch of us back. Yeah.

MARTIN: Was he nice to you, Pam?

MUELLER: Oh, yeah. He's a big fan of mine.

MARTIN: Pam Mueller, also known as Dr. Mueller, thanks so much.

MUELLER: Good to talk with you.

1 whereas   

conj.而，却，反之

参考例句：

• They want a house,whereas we would rather live in a flat.他们想要一座房子，而我们宁愿住在一套房间里。
• Some praise him,whereas others condemn him.有些人赞扬他，而有些人谴责他。

2 inevitably   

adv.不可避免地；必然发生地

参考例句：

• In the way you go on,you are inevitably coming apart.照你们这样下去，毫无疑问是会散伙的。
• Technological changes will inevitably lead to unemployment.技术变革必然会导致失业。

3 equivalently   

adv.相等地

参考例句：

• Its nonlinear effect has been dealt with equivalently in this thesis. 本文对井架绷绳的非线性效应进行了等效处理。 来自互联网
• We therefore reject our hypothesis that these 4 constructs would function equivalently. 因此，我们拒绝先前关于4种装置在功能上等同的假设。 来自互联网

4 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

5 frantic   

adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的

参考例句：

• I've had a frantic rush to get my work done.我急急忙忙地赶完工作。
• He made frantic dash for the departing train.他发疯似地冲向正开出的火车。

6 frantically   

ad.发狂地, 发疯地

参考例句：

• He dashed frantically across the road. 他疯狂地跑过马路。
• She bid frantically for the old chair. 她发狂地喊出高价要买那把古老的椅子。

7 jeopardy   

n.危险；危难

参考例句：

• His foolish behaviour may put his whole future in jeopardy.他愚蠢的行为可能毁了他一生的前程。
• It is precisely at this juncture that the boss finds himself in double jeopardy.恰恰在这个关键时刻，上司发现自己处于进退两难的境地。