Hey! I'm a loose leaf enthusiast and I would set out my notes for your subjects in this way. However, please take this post with a grain of salt. The art of notetaking varies with the individual depending on style, practicality and personal preference.
Personally, I think both are great. However, each has their pros and cons and what they are best used for:
- Loose Leafs - for subjects with overlapping topics, easier to organise and rearrange and add to your notes
Pros | Cons |
- IMO, a lot more cheaper
- Good brands have amazing quality paper (Kokuyo, Muji etc.)
- Some brands have an unconventional and 'aesthetic' colour (off-white)
- Easier to customise
- Notes can easily be organised, re-organised, added to, removed etc.
- Can be placed in a binder that can hold many subjects
- Best for STEM subjects where a lot of topics overlap
- Good for English since it's easy to hand written essays to a teacher for feedback without ripping your book
- Only need to bring a couple number of sheets to school for each day - reduces load
- Used in binder with multiple compartments - you can stick in loose folder sheets to keep all your worksheets together with your notes
- Best for revision notes - forces you to condense your notes so you can easily bring them around in a small folder wherever you go
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- If not taken care off, tends to rip easily
- Binders can be quite pricey, depending on which ones you buy
- Binders can be buly to carry around. Thin notebooks are more convenient and lighter. (You can atest to this by trying out folders)
- If not careful, can be easy to loose sheets
- Notes may be hard to find if you forget to organise them
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- Notebooks - keeps your notes in one place, best for subjects where chronological/ordered/systematic notes are not essential
Pros | Cons |
- Can be lighter and more convenient than carrying binders of loose leafs
- Pages/paper tends to stay in better shape throughout the year (less tears from binder holes etc.) - depends on the way you treat your workspace
- Best for subjects like maths where you can keep your working solutions all in one place
- Relatively inexpensive (but at the expense of poor paper quality)
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- Quite restrictive - limits creativity with your notes in terms of organisation
- Loose sheets/worksheets are just stuffed into the front of the notebook (if you don't have a separate folder)
- Impractical for revision notes
- Impractical to hold notes for multiple subjects
- Whenever your teacher wants to mark something but you don't want them to take your entire book since you have to revise your notes over the weekend... yeah it's gonna be a struggle
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Based on the reasons above, I would categorise your subjects this way:
Loose leafs | Notebooks |
- English Advanced - essays
- Chemistry
- Biology
- Physics
- Economics - can organise alongside printed case study articles, economic forecasts/reports, etc
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- English Advanced - Module notes, classwork
- Maths
- Legal
- Geography
- Legal
- Modern
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But personally, I'm a more loose-leaf person, so I would ultimately favour this option for any of my subjects.
Have fun organising your notes!