The 6 Biggest AI Note-Taking Mistakes for Students (And How to Easily Fix Them)

Do you know that 99% of students take notes during lectures? However, keeping the pace and recording everything remains a challenge.

That is why many students rely on AI note-taker apps for the promise of effortless efficiency.

But what if those very tools were actually sabotaging your learning? As you know, just like any tool, AI note-taking has challenges.

Today, I’ll explore the top AI note-taking mistakes for students and show you how to fix them effortlessly.

Key Takeaways

1. Blind Trust in AI: Relying too much on AI note-taking tools can lead to inaccuracies and incomplete notes, as these tools may struggle with technical terms and context.
2. Lack of Organization: Poorly organized AI-captured notes make it difficult to locate specific information, resulting in frustration and missed deadlines.
3. Lack of Personal Engagement: Merely capturing information without personal engagement can result in a shallow understanding. Adding personal insights and questions enhances comprehension and retention.
4. Neglecting Review and Editing: Dependence solely on AI note-taker apps can lead to errors and misinformation. Regular review, proofreading, and editing are essential for accuracy and professionalism.
5. Misusing Features: Misuse of features like Speaker ID and Keywords can hinder the effectiveness of AI note-taking. Proper training, organization, and customization are crucial for optimal usage.
6. Focusing on Quantity over Quality: Attempting to capture every word without prioritizing key concepts leads to information overload. Active listening, critical thinking, and prioritizing information are key to quality note-taking.

What Are the Top AI Note-Taking Mistakes for Students?

Note-taking has been a common practice among students for years and continues to evolve with technology.

Although integrating AI into learning seemed like an easy way to eliminate the headaches of traditional note-taking, sometimes, these tools do not work as we expect them to.

Here, I reveal the biggest yet rarely discussed mess-ups with AI note-takers experienced by students.

A few easy fixes are all it takes to stop these apps from working against you and have them working FOR you instead.

Let’s go!

1. Over-reliance on Automation

One of the major AI note-taking mistakes for students, especially in STEM fields, is relying too heavily on automatic transcriptions, which can lead to inaccuracies and incomplete notes.

Although these tools promise a 95% accuracy rate, sometimes they can misinterpret context or fail to capture key details, making you lose valuable information.

Imagine this: You are in a biology class where the lecturer explains how plants “breathe” using a process called cellular respiration.

Your AI app is busy taking notes but is confused by some technical words and writes something like “plants breathe… like aliens”, which is inappropriate. 

While the app might diligently record every word, it lacks the context and understanding to translate complex information accurately.

Here’s why blindly trusting the AI system can lead to confusion:

• Technical Issues: It is important to note that AI algorithms aren’t perfect yet. Complicated scientific terms, accents, and fast speech can mix AI up, turning clear explanations into confusing words.
• Being Too Passive: When you let the app do all the work, your brain disengages. You miss the professor’s cues, the clarifying examples, and the crucial connections that transform facts into meaningful knowledge.
• Lost Context: Even if the app writes down every word, it might not grasp the overall context that makes information memorable.

Solution:

• Provide Keywords: Instead of passively relying on automatic transcriptions, you should feed the app with keywords related to the lecture topic. Like in our case, “photosynthesis,” “cellular respiration,” and “mitochondria. This helps the tool understand the context and prioritize essential information.
• Interactive Note-Taking: You should treat the AI tool as a collaborative partner rather than a passive recorder. Ensure you add your insights, questions, or personal summaries alongside the transcriptions to enhance comprehension and retention.
• Become an Active Listener: Always pay close attention to the professor’s tone, body language, and visual aids.  This will enhance your ability to capture nuanced information and improve overall note-taking accuracy.

2. Ignoring Structure and Organization

Artificial intelligence tools can capture tons of information, and if not well organized, it can get messy.

Imagine this: you have been recording lectures, meetings, and brainstorming sessions for a month. Later, when it comes to finding that crucial fact for your exam from your overall notes, it becomes challenging to trace it. 

Here’s why ignoring organization is a big problem:

• Information Overload: Locating specific information or recalling key concepts in disorganized notes is difficult. You spend a lot of time looking through things that don’t matter, making you feel frustrated or miss deadlines.
• Lost Connections: Disorganized notes often lack context and logical flow. Key points might be scattered across multiple transcripts, making it hard for you to remember key takeaways.
• Mental Mess: Messy notes clutter your workspace, both physically and mentally. This can stress you out, making it hard to think clearly.

Solution:

• Tags: Use tags like keywords and topics to categorize your notes. This lets you quickly filter and find relevant information based on specific themes or projects.
• Folders: Create folders to group related notes together to keep them tidy and easy to grab.
• Outlining & Headings: Structure your notes like a map, with clear headings and subheadings. This creates a visual hierarchy, guiding your eye and brain to navigate the key points easily.
• Leverage AI features: Some tools have AI-powered organization features like automatic tagging, summarization, and note clustering. You should explore these capabilities to discover how they can enhance your manual organizing efforts.

3. Not Personalizing Your Notes:

Merely capturing information without a personal touch can create gaps. Your notes might be a sea of facts, but they lack the depth that personal engagement brings, leaving you with a shallow understanding.

Imagine attending a captivating lecture, but later you only remember the speaker’s exact words. You’d have the facts but not the insights, the connections, and the “aha!” moments that truly solidify learning.

But why personalization is so important?

Personalizing your notes with summaries, mind maps, or doodles helps you identify key takeaways, draw connections, and build a cohesive knowledge framework.

Solution:

• Add personal notes, create summaries that make sense to you, or even craft mind maps to connect ideas. This personal touch transforms your notes from a robotic recording to a powerful tool for understanding and remembering.
• I would encourage you to experiment with different personalization techniques. You can draw diagrams, add jokes, or even use emojis to make your notes engaging and memorable.

Most note-taking apps, such as Evernote, Notability, OneNote, and Obsidian offer built-in annotation features which can help you highlight key points, add comments, and ask questions directly within your notes.

4. Neglecting Review and Editing:

It is essential to avoid solely relying on AI note-taker apps, as, like any other tool, they also have errors, inaccuracies, and misinterpretations.

This can cause confusion or misinformation – imagine citing a wrong statistic or relying on a biased source!

Why proofreading matters

• Clear Communication: Did the transcription mess up your sentence structure? Are there missing words or awkward phrasings? Remember that a single mistake can make an entire piece of information go out of context.
• Professionalism: Sharing unproofread notes with colleagues or clients reflects poorly on your attention to detail and can undermine your credibility.

Tips for paraphrasing:

• Use built-in spellcheck and grammar tools, as most apps have this functionality.
• Use auto-suggestions by allowing AI to propose corrections, and then you decide whether they align with your intent.
• Always be reading your notes aloud using text-to-speech features, as sometimes, hearing the text exposes errors hidden to the eye.

You can also leverage tools like Grammarly, ProWritingAid, and Hemingway Editor.

These tools catch missing punctuations, misspelt names and stylistic inconsistencies, highlight complex sentences and suggest simpler alternatives or improvements.

Remember, reviewing and editing your AI notes isn’t just about correcting errors; it’s about taking ownership of your knowledge. By actively engaging with your notes, you solidify your understanding, ensure accuracy, and create a valuable resource you can rely on for years. 

5. Misusing Features and Settings

A. Speaker ID

AI-powered note-taking tools offer incredible capabilities to capture information but also come with various features you need to understand.

For example, most tools allow you to identify speakers in meetings or lectures for more structured notes.

If you don’t properly name each speaker, your transcript could show “Speaker 1”, or “Speaker 2”, making it useless for later review.

Also, note that background noise, people talking over each other, and even the loud laughter of the professor can create confusion for the AI, making it challenging for it to identify individual speakers correctly.

How can you solve this issue?

• Train the AI: Before class, record your professor’s voice saying their name clearly. This helps the AI recognize them later.
• Visual Cues: If you’re watching a lecture recording, use speaker labels and visual cues (like who’s talking on screen) to double-check who’s speaking.
• Organize notes by speaker: Use speaker labels to categorize your notes by professor, guest speakers, or even classmate questions. This makes it easier to review different sections of the material.

B. Keywords

Imagine throwing “science” as your only keyword for a biology lecture. You’ll get flooded with irrelevant notes on physics and chemistry! Keywords need to be specific and targeted, like “photosynthesis” or “mitochondria.”

Let us see how you can solve this issue.

• Start broad, then refine: Begin with general keywords related to the topic (e.g., “French Revolution”). As you delve deeper, add more specific keywords (e.g., “causes,” “key figures,” “outcomes”).
• Keyword clusters: Group related keywords together to create subcategories within your notes. This makes them easier to navigate and helps you identify connections between concepts.
• Use AI suggestions, but personalize: Don’t blindly accept the AI’s suggestions. You should choose keywords that make sense for you and your study needs.

Take time to properly explore your AI note-taker’s features and experiment with the settings instead of just using the defaults. Even helpful settings like autocorrect can do more harm than good if customized poorly.

6. Focusing on Quantity over Quality

It’s tempting when using an AI note-taking tool to try and capture every single word spoken, making you up with a huge volume of notes.

However, an overflowing transcript filled with irrelevant details and redundancies makes it nearly impossible to study effectively.

This can lead to:

• Information overload: A mountain of raw data becomes overwhelming, making identifying key concepts difficult.
• Superficial understanding: Focusing on capturing every word may distract you from active listening and critical thinking, hindering deeper comprehension.
• Time wasted: Scrolling through endless notes takes time that could be better spent on analysis and synthesis.

Solution:

Always ask yourself:

• What’s the main point being made?
• What are the key arguments or supporting evidence?
• How does this fit into the bigger picture?

You can shift your mindset from quantity to quality by:

• Active listening: Don’t just transcribe, engage with the content. You should ask questions, summarize key points in your mind, and identify the speaker’s main arguments.
• Critical thinking: Don’t just record everything; analyze what you hear. I encourage you to separate facts from opinions, identify biases and connect ideas to existing knowledge.
• Prioritizing information: Always note that not everything is equally important. You should learn to distinguish between essential details and supporting information and focus on capturing the core concepts and arguments.
• Summarizing and annotating: It is important to process the information as you take notes actively. Briefly summarize key points, add your own insights and questions, and use tags or folders to organize your notes effectively.

Final Thoughts: AI Note-Taking Mistakes for Students

Using AI to take notes can greatly improve learning, but you need to avoid some pitfalls. The main AI note-taking mistakes for students are relying too heavily on the AI, failing to organize and personalize notes, and not reviewing them properly.

To get the most out of AI note-taking, actively participate in the process, structure the notes in a way that makes sense to you, personalize examples to match your interests, thoroughly review the notes, and use the AI thoughtfully.

If you understand the mistakes to avoid, you can turn AI from an obstacle into a powerful study tool. Taking the right approach will lead to better, more effective notes and deeper learning. Start applying these tips today to transform your note-taking for the better.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

A. What are the benefits of using AI note-taking tools for students?

1. Increased productivity and efficiency – AI tools allow students to transcribe lectures and meetings faster, leaving more time for learning instead of manual note-taking. This also reduces stress.
2. Accurate capture of information – The latest speech recognition technology can record information with over 95% accuracy, ensuring students don’t miss out on essential details.
3. Enhanced focus and engagement – Instead of scrambling to take notes, students can fully pay attention to instructors, ask questions, and think critically about the material.
4. Better retention and application – Features like searchability, tagging, and summaries make it easier for students to review, learn, and apply concepts after lectures.
5. Valuable study aid – Accurate, shareable notes help students collaborate with classmates to fill in gaps and improve their understanding of complex topics.
6. Accessibility – Note-taking barriers faced by some students, like learning disabilities or injuries, are eliminated as AI handles rapid dictation.

B. Are AI note-taking tools better than traditional methods?

In some ways, yes – AI tools have clear advantages when it comes to:

• Speed and automation – AI can transcribe faster than manual writing.
• Accuracy – Speech recognition can capture more details precisely.
• Engagement – It allows better focus on instructors/content rather than note-taking.
• Reviewability – Tools have great search and export capabilities

However, traditional methods still hold some key benefits:

• Personal touch – Handwritten notes allow drawing and highlighting key physical cues.
• Deeper processing – The cognitive effort of manual note-taking aids memory.
• Simplicity – No app needed, just paper and pen that everyone understands

I would encourage you to use AI for comprehensive captures and complement them with traditional techniques like handwritten summaries.

C. What are some examples of active engagement with AI notes?

1. Asking questions and prompting exploration:

• Query your notes: Use the AI’s search and summarization features to find specific information or identify recurring themes quickly.
• Ask follow-up questions: Don’t settle for surface-level understanding. Use your notes as a springboard to ask further questions, challenge assumptions, and explore different perspectives.
• Connect to external resources: Leverage the AI’s ability to suggest relevant articles, videos, or research papers based on your notes to broaden your knowledge and enrich your understanding.

2. Expanding and refining your notes:

• Annotate and tag: Use the AI’s tagging capabilities to categorize your notes, making them easier to organize and revisit later. Also, add your own annotations and insights to personalize your notes and deepen your understanding.
• Reframe and restructure: It is essential to rewrite or reorganize your notes based on the AI’s suggestions. This can help you clarify your thoughts, identify gaps in your understanding, and improve the overall flow of your information.
• Create multimedia summaries: Use the AI’s transcription and summarization features to generate audio or video summaries of your notes, allowing you to learn through different styles and reinforce your understanding.

3. Taking action and applying knowledge:

• Turn notes into action items: You should extract actionable steps from your notes and use the AI to set reminders or integrate them into your task management system. This ensures you don’t just gather information but actively apply it to your work or personal life.
• Share and collaborate: Use the AI’s sharing features to collaborate on notes with others, brainstorm ideas, and gain different perspectives. This can lead to better understanding and more creative solutions.
• Reflect and iterate: Regularly revisit your notes and use AI to track your progress, identify areas for improvement, and adjust your approach. This helps you learn and grow over time.

D. What are the best AI note-taking apps for students?

Meeting and Lecture Capture:

• Otter.ai: This tool transcribes meetings and lectures in real-time, highlighting key points and speaker changes. You can edit, search, and share recordings.
• Fireflies.ai: It integrates with various platforms like Zoom and automatically captures notes with speaker identification. It also helps organize and share notes efficiently.
• Notion: It offers AI features like automatic transcription and summarizing for recorded audio/video, making it perfect for capturing key takeaways from meetings or lectures.

Personal Note-Taking and Organization:

• Reflect: This AI-powered app focuses on personal note-taking with features like backlinking, calendar integration, and automatic reminders. It helps connect related ideas and keep your notes organized.
• Taskade: Taskade combines to-do lists with note-taking, allowing you to break down projects into tasks and capture ideas simultaneously.
• Evernote: This note-taking platform has recently introduced AI features like “Note Cleanup” to tidy up messy notes, improve clarity, and even suggest summaries.

Additional Options:

• Notta: Notta integrates with various platforms like Evernote and Notion, offering AI summaries, action-item extraction, and automatic topic identification to enhance existing note-taking tools.
• Supernormal: This AI writing assistant can help you take better notes by suggesting relevant questions, summarizing key points, and even outlining your notes for easier digestion.