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Re:Laptops Are Great, But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting by kurthr on Monday November 27, 2017 @09:46AM (#15787687)
As far as I understand meetings (and lectures) are to derive consensus. Slides are regularly available before meetings while reading is normally required before lectures. Lecture presentation is not the time for the details of complex unfamiliar derivations, but for familiar motivation of larger goals and big questions.

If you feel the need to take notes of every point rather than summarising the most salient/important concepts, or recording your questions/disagreements, someone is doing it wrong. At a lecture communication should be about conclusions, possibly single critical details, but not the entire texture and flow of every detail.

If the material is so unfamiliar and surprising that you don't understand and can't ask relevant questions, I would say it's a failure of the speaker or yourself. Certainly, after a convincing talk, question, and answer, you should feel like you understand both the material and the motivation/goal better even without notes.

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