 Hi, everyone. My name is Vivian. I did my PhD in film studies and now I help university students to write and study well. Videos can be a fantastic way to learn. They're short and you can watch them whenever you like. But when using videos to learn complex subjects, it's important that you take active and personalized notes. Taking notes increases your capacity to remember what was in the video and makes stronger connections in your brain so that you can apply that information later on to new situations. So no matter whether you're going on to university or to join the workforce, refining your note-making habits will help you to develop your understanding of new ideas. But what do I mean by active and personalized notes? Well, first of all, don't just think of your notes as a copy of the teacher's script. Instead, use that time to think about your own ideas and questions. You can re-watch the video at any time. Take your notes so that they're useful to you when you don't have the video anymore, like when you're solving problems or sitting exams. Also, avoid the trap of thinking that you can watch the video without taking any notes at all. It's really tempting to watch videos while you're doing other things, like when you're on the bus or doing other study. And it would be nice if that multitasking worked. But for videos about complicated topics, it just means that your attention is diluted. And if you have to use the information later on, it would mean that you would have to re-watch the videos and re-learn the material instead of simply looking at your notes. So instead, aim to make notes that help you to develop your own understanding. Let's see an example of how you take useful notes from a video. Psychologists have studied how best to take notes. And in this example, we're going to look at the Cornell note-taking method. I highly recommend this method because it divides up the information. There's a section for dot points about what the teacher says. That's the notes section. There's a section for your own ideas and questions. That's the cues column. Finally, there's a section for your own summary. Also, break your note-making into three stages before, during and after watching a video. Before you watch the video, identify what you do and don't know. So what is the topic about? What do you already know? How is it similar or different to other concepts that you've already learned? What are your own assumptions? What are you curious about? And what are you confused by? Put these kinds of thoughts into your cues column so that you can put in the answers if they come up during the video. Then, during the video, identify the connections between the ideas. Translate the ideas into your own words and continue to ask yourself questions. Your goal is to understand the material easily now and later on when you're revising. Remember, it's a video, so you can always pause it to finish writing something down or to search for something online. One approach is to actually do a quick watch of the whole video first to identify the main ideas. Then, do a slower re-watch, pausing as you go to make detailed notes and concentrate on the most difficult ideas. As you go, use arrows, color coding, dot points, diagrams, any kind of activity that you like to make sure that the information is clear between ideas. So make those connections between ideas. You can also pause the video and explain the connections to yourself as you go. You could record yourself or write it down. Translating the information into your own words is going to really help you to understand the ideas. If the video uses unfamiliar terms, write down the definitions using words that you will remember. For example, say for instance, I'm learning about a film that I haven't actually seen and the teacher is talking about a particular film technique. So if I haven't seen the particular film that the teacher is talking about, I will write down an example of a film that I have actually seen that does use that same technique, and that way I'll be able to remember that technique easily later on. In fact, you might better understand the information if you actually present it to yourself in a different way. Say you needed to understand the momentum velocities of multiple objects, but a written description isn't sticking easily in your memory. Instead, you might arrange some items on your desk to represent those objects and their momentum and take a video or a photo or sketch it to explain it to yourself and jog your memory later on. Save those files along with your notes and note down any questions and reminders to yourself. Test out those methods and see what works best for you. Finally, after you've finished watching the video, do a short one or two paragraph summary or at least some dot points to help you revise. The goal of a summary is to capture the key ideas and why they're important. So ask yourself how do the videos compare to the others in this series? Why are the ideas important? What kinds of problems will these allow me to solve? What do I need to practice and what are my next steps? Identify other sources of information that can help you, such as practice questions in your textbook, online information and ask peers and teachers for advice. Afterwards, you can also talk about the topic with your friends and family. By talking about it and having somebody ask you questions about it, you're actively revising and you'll be able to identify where there are gaps in your knowledge that you need to revise. In fact, when they're preparing for exams, the students who I talk to who have taken really good notes throughout the semester are really relieved because it means that when they study for the exams, they don't have to rewatch all of the lectures. Instead, they can go to their notes and test out their knowledge. So to wrap up, take active and personalised notes. Ask questions as you go, identify what you do and don't understand, explain the ideas in your own words and identify what you need to follow up on. These techniques are going to come in handy for learning about all kinds of topics.