Where to take notes

There are some fantastic apps which make notetaking and collaboration much easier. Microsoft OneNote provides a digital notebook that integrates with other Office apps and allows for notes to be collated in an organised way.

If you use OneNote or Word (stored in OneDrive or Teams), your notes will be stored in your Microsoft 365 account by default. This will make them available on any device so long as you log into the apps using your University account details. Keeping your notes in the cloud means they're available for you to read or add to, from wherever you are on any device, and there is less chance of losing them.

Organise your notes

In OneNote you can use sections to organise notes, add pages and subpages to each section as required. This helps to structure content meaningfully so it doesn't become a dumping ground that feels overwhelming with time.

Consider the structure that will work best for you - for example, do you need sections by project or certain meetings? Or perhaps you need a section just for brainstorming or strategy thinking?

Search your notes

Keeping your notes in digital notebooks using OneNote means you can instantly search all of your notes from a single search box. This is a useful feature if you've forgotten where you saved last week's meeting notes or want to search for references to a specific topic.

Working together on notes

If you're working with a group of colleagues, consider creating a shared online notebook so you can collectively collate notes and resources and add comments.

If you have a Teams space for your group, you can create a OneNote notebook within a channel for all the team members to work on. Don't forget to use the accessibility checker in the View tab if you're sharing content. You can also find other accessibility tools such as immersive reader and live captions within the View tab.

Other tools for the job

Additional tools and features to help with notetaking:

• Microsoft Word as well as OneNote, has a useful speech-to-text dictation feature.
• Read and Write provides tools to support reading, writing, studying and research that can be used with a range of applications. For example, it offers highlight tools to grab content from web pages, spelling and grammar check, coloured screen overlays, and a function to read your notes back to you. It is useful for everyone, particularly those with dyslexia and those whose first language is not English.
• Mindjet MindManager allows you to link your notes together using a mind map.