Comment by annzabelle
4 days ago
It's hard to describe. In upper level math (real analysis and the like) in college I would write every single thing the professor wrote on the chalkboard down in my notebook. I didn't really study or do much homework, but copying down those proofs made the concepts stay in my brain.
Do you write when you do math? Math and handwriting are so intertwined in my experience, I can't imagine doing math past high school without at least jotting some parts of the process down.
Math is different, because most people aren't quick/accurate enough with LaTeX to take notes with a keyboard.
And taking notes in math is different from other subjects anyways, because you are literally just copying verbatim. You're not doing any of the summarization and selection that people talk about being so important to do, because handwriting is slower.
So I think that copying down math notes verbatim is not really what people are talking about at all when they talk about the benefits of taking notes by hand.