
How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim - rcap
https://castel.dev/post/lecture-notes-1/
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blastbeat
In my math classes there was one guy who took notes with LaTex. He was quite
fast due to his tweaked Emacs environment. He also uploaded his notes and the
sources to some public SCM server. What sounds like a good idea turned out to
be nonsense. His scripts where ridden of typos and serious errors. There where
only a few people who tried to volunteer and edit the sources, but it did not
do any good. The lecturers weren't impressed by the quality, and even warned
students to not use those notes for exam preparation.

In the end nobody could use the notes, including the guy himself, as he
underperformed in exams. Instead of concentrating on the content, he was
concerned with LaTex aesthetics, fixing typos and tweaking his environment.

I would never ever recommend anyone to type math lectures/exercises in LaTex,
if this is not required. Just use pen and paper and profit:

[https://www.quora.com/It-is-true-writing-things-down-
using-p...](https://www.quora.com/It-is-true-writing-things-down-using-pen-
and-paper-improve-learning)

~~~
jordigh
I actually find all note-taking to be hugely distracting. If I really want to
understand a lecture, I'd rather not be taking nay notes at all. Otherwise,
when I'm taking notes, I'm just scrambling to get into paper what's being said
or written and I can't spend any time trying to understand it. My goal is then
to just write it down so I can re-read it at home and understand it.

That being said, I'm quite proficient in LaTeX and have taken notes in Emacs.
I don't have that many more errors in LaTeX than I do in handwriting. Both are
about equally distracting to me.

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blastbeat
Do you talk about math lectures? Because during my university time I seldom
met people, who understood a math lecture during that math lecture. Especially
in advanced topics like category theory, algebraic theory, fractal geometry
etc. Usually people understood topics and concepts for the first time long
after the lectures, often not until after a second exposure in the next
course. Also, in many courses you had to take notes, because the lecturer
would use custom symbols and definitions. So I agree, taking notes can be
distracting, but in most cases it should help your understanding, especially
if you lack preliminaries.

~~~
jordigh
Yes, of course I mean mathematics. If the prof was following a text (which as
you say, is seldom the case in graduate courses), I find it a lot easier to
not take notes at all so I can get a rough understanding of what's going on,
and to go by memory to read a text later to get the details.

But it's true that oftentimes the only place to get the material from is the
lecture and I have to be chasing after the lecturer to get the notes down and
later try to decipher them myself.

