How does making notes of what you read help you in research/teaching? I have always refrained from making notes from my childhood. But now, my adviser wants me to make notes of what I study saying that it would be very beneficial for me in future. So, following his advice, I started making notes. But it turns out that it is quite boring and time consuming. And I feel that even if I want to look into something later, I can look it directly from a book. So, my questions are:


How does making notes help you in your research or possibly teaching?
What other pros/cons are there?
It's an old adage that "You don't truly understand something unless you can explain it completely to someone else". Writing notes effectively forces you to explain the topic to yourself. Oftentimes, when writing over notes from a class or from what you've read, the simple process of re-explaining it to yourself will clarify points that may have been confusing earlier.

For this purpose, I try not to write notes as I'm reading, but rather I'll read a section and them summarize that in my notes. Having read the full picture, I can then ensure that my understanding of the topic is more complete, and my notes should reflect that.

On a different note entirely, repetition enhances retention, and writing notes is at the very least doubles the number of times you'll see it (once in the book, and once as you write it), which should help your remember it that much better.