The Secret Language of Comics: Visual Thinking and Writing

Tag: sk3

Calculus Visual Notes

Student Posts

When deciding which notes I was going to choose for this assignment I really only had the choice between calculus and chemistry. I ended up choosing calculus because I knew I could have more fun with the designs. The page of notes I chose was based on continuous functions and I drew pictures of the types of continuous functions in styles that would help me to remember which kinds of functions have continuity. I decided to make the sketch with watercolors as well because I needed an excuse to use them. For trig functions I drew a sketch of a devil with a name tag that reads: sin. It’s cheesy but I like it. For polynomial functions, I have a sketch of a polygamous relationship. The root function sketch is self explanatory, so I won’t even get into it. For inverse functions I thought that having the Spider-Man symbol next to the Venom symbol would be a good example since they are foils of each other. Finally, for rational functions I thought that a quick sketch of President Carter himself would be appropriate considering that one particular line in his speech.

Sunday Sketch #3

Student Posts

I thought that drawing out my notes using the method of visual note taking was very interesting and unfamiliar. Normally when I take notes I just scribble down information and review it later. Doing this exercise, however, forced me to go over all the information I recorded in class and choose the most important parts to rewrite. I feel like this actually helped me retain the information more because: 1. I had to review the information to do this Sunday sketch and 2. I rewrote it which made me remember the information even more than I had before. https://eng181f19.davidmorgen.org/assignments/sketches/sketch-3-visual-note-taking/

Sketch 3: Visual Note Taking
Sketch 3: Visual Note Taking

Envision in Vision

Student Posts

Reworking my film-class notes into a streamlined display of information seemed like an excellent opportunity to prepare a work of academic art for all the world to enjoy, but alas, what I envisioned — a masterpiece filled with factoids and worthy of my professor’s admiration — was no where to be found when I drew the final line.

It’s spot on my page was snagged by a most ugly-looking mash-up of film facts, yet though I fell short of my unrealistic imagination, I have found a few points to be rather proud of: the color examples for post-filming changes and special effects, my use of “range” bars, and one dapper-looking gentlemen holding a camera. The charm of the lastly mentioned stick-figure is obvious, but I will go into more detail concerning the prior items.

First off, the differences between two pairs of processes — tinting vs. toning and rear projection vs. matte work — were a bit difficult to remember, but the color examples I created juxtaposed them against one another and helped me understand which one was which. Furthermore, several other processes contained variations based on the “range” they existed on, and making vertical or horizontal progressions to show where the values laid on each range produced some somewhat useful visualizations.

Even though my notes are no where near the aesthetic excellence of others, they did help me understand what I was reading a bit better. In the future, I plan to draw out examples alongside my future notes instead of creating them on a whole new sheet of paper to make my visualizations more timely than time-consuming, for every minute counts for a college student.

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” Having meditated on those powerful words by Confucius and completed my visual-notes assignment, I finally know how to understand the confusing contents of a class curriculum: through doodles and stick-figures. Talk about a win-win situation!

The Golden Age of Pianist- Females Time to Shine

Student Posts

By Ja’Mya Yancey

Visual Notes by Ja’Mya Yancey

Going into this assignment I honestly had no idea how to approach this. I like to write down step for step in words my notes for my classes, I thought immediately that drawing would just distract me from the ultimate goal of the class topic but it actually did not. I am not the biggest fan of my first year seminar because the topic does not really spark my interest. But I do love learning and talking about women. So these pair of notes was what I thought about just to still be interested in something I illustrated for this weeks Sunday sketch. This assignment actually made me become even more interested in this topic of class because it made it look more fun than it sounds on paper. I also like to see a lot of colors in my notes and for this class I do not have to take that many notes so they’re never really in color, this allowed me to add that element to my notes. Lastly, the assignment made the information simpler then how it sounds in the book. I feel like this way, in certain circumstances, is a more approachable way to engage yourself in your classes and make it fun and cute.

Sk3: Visual Note Taking

Student Posts

When first thinking about this assignment, I struggled with the idea of how to turn simple notes into a visual piece of work. I couldn’t see how I could turn my boring, straightforward notes into art. However, I tried my best to do that, and I think it turned out pretty well. I was looking over my math notes from calculus 110 and tried to visualize them in a different way. I decided that the best way to do this would be to try and highlight the most important concepts and notes from that day of class. I also thought that the best way to make visual notes would be to add a lot of color and make it really “pop”. For example, the graphs of sin and cosine are crucial in calculus and that’s why they are highlighted in different colors and in the center of my work. Towards the end of my drawing, once it all came together, I was really able to see the point of this exercise. As a visual learner, I was able to better remember important formulas, rules, and concepts through this. Its definitly something I would do again in the future to help myself prepare for a test or quiz.

Visual Note Taking

Student Posts

For this assignment I decided to convert a page of my ECON 101 notes to a more visual format. Similar to my regular method of note taking I utilized arrows and indicated subsections by using a smaller font. The difference however was the amount of time it took. The addition of a visual element slightly distracted me from the actual concepts, and upon completing it I realized I had mislabeled a section. Though this did help me identify the concept names I hadn’t internalized I think rewording and reviewing notes is a more effective study technique.

Tag: sk3

Chemistry in 2-D

Student Posts

When I read this assignment the first class that came to mind to practice this style of note-taking was my chemistry class. Chemistry is the basis for any science subject and so I felt inclined to start my first year with a Chemistry class. Even though I struggle to understand the concepts we learn in class this visual approach to my notes helped me to organize and visualize how concepts work together to solve a chemistry problem. I learned through drawing all of my notes that it helped me gain a better grasp of what it is my professor was trying to explain to us in words. Even though the drawing process was time consuming, I believe that if I can just take a moment after class to visualize and analyze how everything I learned in lecture is intertwined, I will have an easier time with recalling information.

Link back to original prompt https://eng181f19.davidmorgen.org/assignments/sketches/sketch-3-visual-note-taking/

Sk3: Visual Note Taking; Latin 370

Student Posts

When choosing the topic for my visual note taking assignment I considered what classes have the most complicated material for me to understand. I chose my Latin 370 class because we are reading Cicero’s Catilinarian Orations and sometimes I struggle to grasp all the arguments he is making and all the rhetorical techniques he is utilizing. By including all the historical, political and social context on one page, I was better able to understand the tactics Cicero was using in his speech to the Roman Senate. Since I have an exam coming up this week on this topic, I found this exercise to be a great way to review and remember the greater context of the speech to help me better analyze and translate the individual portions later. Before today I had never studied for latin in a visual medium and I was surprised by how relieving if felt to get everything down on one page that had been floating around in my head. It felt as though I no longer had to worry about remember every thought I had had because now I had them written down and depicted so I would always have a reference to look to.

You can find the description of this assignment here.

Note Doodles

Student Posts

I am enrolled in a Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, and these visual notes are not from that class. These notes are actually from the discussion section of my ANT 202 class, also known as Concepts and Methods in Cultural Anthropology. Last Wednesday, all I talked about during my first and last period of the day was race, gender, sex, and everything inbetween. My notes from the discussion period were clear and concise, making them the perfect pick for my visual note taking sketch assignment. I am a natural doodler. Look through my notebooks and you’ll see doodles covering all the margins. When I doodle I listen – the constant movement of my pencil keeps me focused. That being said, I have never drawn anything productive towards the class, it is normally clothing or miscellaneous objects. I am enrolled in a Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, and these visual notes are not from that class. These notes are actually from the discussion section of my ANT 202 class, also known as Concepts and Methods in Cultural Anthropology. Last Wednesday, all I talked about during my first and last period of the day was race, gender, sex, and everything in-between. My notes from the discussion period were clear and concise, making them the perfect pick for my visual note-taking sketch assignment. I am a natural doodler. Look through my notebooks and you’ll see doodles covering all the margins. When I doodle I listen – the constant movement of my pencil keeps me focused. That being said, I have never drawn anything productive towards the class, it is normally clothing or miscellaneous objects.

I was nervous to properly portray my notes visually, but once I let go of my Giulia Forsyth-style expectations, the ideas started to flow. Race, gender, and sex were all presented as different categories, race intersects with both gender and sex, and the difference between gender and sex was argued to be negligible (Judith Butler). I wanted to show those intersections and lack of boundaries by creating walls and breaking them. Within each region, I attempted to use as little words as possible and enjoyed playing with color to portray deeper ideas. While I am pleased with the outcome, I know for the future that I would prefer it if my visual notes were connected by a greater theme like a color scheme or a font.

COMPUTER SCIENCE VISUAL NOTE TAKING

Student Posts

CS 170 – Intro to Computer Science. Expressing a dry subject in images was unconventional to me. I believe Computer Science and advanced coding concepts is substantially more complex to be able to be expressed in images. In my Sunday sketch, I decided to show the basic concept of the Java Virtual Machine.

I drew a computer with a large monitor begging to be fed with codes adding a comedic side to my sketch, but I did find it taxing, explaining visually further concepts of coding due to the level of complexity involved, though, learning visually did help me in understanding the basic concept of converting high-level languages to binary code. I found out that thinking visually helps in certain parts or subjects but not in problem solving or mathematical concepts. I found the process of constructing my own Sunday sketch difficult as, in my opinion, Comp Sci doesn’t mesh well with visual thinking even in graphics. 

The link to the assignment is here.

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