How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

https://castel.dev/post/lecture-notes-1/

by rcap • 7 years ago

9 6 7 years ago

blastbeat3• 7 years ago

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...

melling• 7 years ago

It’s probably more efficient to use pen and paper during the lecture, but how about creating the LaTex notes after class as a method to help retain the information?

I watched an online statistics class and took notes, then I transcribed some of them on the iPad. Here are the pdf’s:

https://github.com/melling/MathAndScienceNotes/tree/master/s...

blastbeat3• 7 years ago

But how about creating the LaTex notes after class as a method to help retain the information?

I recommend solving exercises instead (with pen and paper), and creating flash cards for memorizing.

Golden rule: Use LaTeX only, if you really need to publish something for a wider audience. It's relevant for your thesis, research papers and math books. For everything else, LaTeX is nothing but a huge time sink. Even if you communicate math via email, try to avoid sending PDFs. Use common LaTeX syntax in your email plain text instead.

Don't abuse LaTeX for procrastination.

jordigh2• 7 years ago

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.

blastbeat3• 7 years ago

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.

How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim

Related Stories