How to Take Notes from The Hindu or Indian Express – Practical Guide.

Reading a Newspaper is mandatory for any aspirant who preparing for UPSC civil service examination. It is not advisable to skip the newspaper reading, at any cost. It helps you to stay update even after you enter the service.

In this scenario, I don’t want to waste your time and mine. Let’s Begin.

I am a beginner I don’t know to take notes. What I can do?

Yes. A beginner usually faces this problem. Even I faced this problem. It’s just common. So what we can do is, when you starting the preparation don’t start to take notes from the newspaper, just see some daily current affairs website, and see how they are filtering out the news and taking notes out from it. Hence you will get an idea about – what is important and what is not important in particular news.

Is note-taking is mandatory?

I would say, yes. If you take notes by hand then the retention rate of your memory will be high. You won’t forget as much as easily. Because note-making need some google search and writing which will make you remember the topic for a long time. I can explain to you with an example.

For so many years I have seen the news about Pangolin, but I haven’t taken any notes about it, also not even seen its image. I just mugged up Pangolin Pangolin Pangolin…

Finally one day I attended a Test series. There was a question about Pangolin. I don’t even know the pangolin IUCN Status. I entirely confused and forget. It’s because I haven’t seen the pangolin and also I haven’t done any handmade notes so my memory retention rate reduced over time and entirely forget it.

So what you have to do is –

Take handmade notes,

See the images of that particular topic – If you see the images of that species/country/rivers/plants then it will stay long in your memory. Agree?

Is it okay to read Monthly Compilation?

Yes. But don’t depend too much on it. Nowadays the UPSC question pattern is too far from coaching materials. But, I use the monthly compilation to fill the gap in my current affairs preparation. I just check whether I have missed anything important in that month.

How we can classify the news from the Newspaper?

You have to take notes based on the Paper or Subject Wise. We have GS1, GS2, GS3, and GS4. Hence see the syllabus and categorize the news and make it as hand notes. News should be categorized as Polity, Economics, Geography, Art and culture, Environment, Science and tech, and International Relations. So that it will be easy to revise at the end.

Online or Offline?

You can take notes either in online or Offline. It entirely depends on your comfort level. Online has some comfort like easy editing and updating, can read anytime and anywhere. But the problem is, long time exposure to the screen of your laptop/ mobile phone affects your eyesight and makes irritation in your eyes which is not good.

If you are taking notes in Offline mode, then use the A4 sheet, don’t spiral, or Pin it. Just have as the loose sheet and make a hole in the left margin and tie with a thread. So that you can insert the paper or remove the paper anytime you want.

Can you give me an example of note-making?

Yes. I will show you. I will take news from the Hindu Dated on 08.10.2020 and make notes for the same.

In the above news, the Highlighted parts are important. The News speaks about some new innovations or discoveries in the field of science and tech. Hence we can take whatever we can take from this news and remaining from a simple google search.

So I am simply going to google and searched CRISPR. And I got some more added information from Wikipedia and other websites.

CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.
CRISPR is a genome-editing technology to diagnose diseases.
CRISPRs are specialized stretches of DNA. The protein Cas9 (or “CRISPR-associated”) is an enzyme that acts like a pair of molecular scissors, capable of cutting strands of DNA.
CRISPR technology was adapted from the natural defense mechanisms of bacteria and archaea (the domain of single-celled microorganisms).
These organisms use CRISPR-derived RNA and various Cas proteins, including Cas9, to foil attacks by viruses and other foreign bodies. They do so primarily by chopping up and destroying the DNA of a foreign invader.

So, Now how UPSC will frame a Question for prelims from this Article. I will show you. For sure, it will surprise you.

Q1. Consider the following statements regarding CRISPR:

CRISPR-Cas9 was adapted from a naturally occurring genome editing system in bacteria.
CRISPR-Cas9 technology behaves like a cut-and-paste mechanism on DNA strands that contain genetic information.
It is not the first time, the women-only team has been awarded the Nobel Science Prize.

Which of the given statement/s is/are correct?