Before you begin taking notes on textbook material, you will want to have a good idea of the concepts central to the chapter's focus. Your professor may outline the chapter during a lecture or provide a broad theme on the syllabus, but it is still important to go through the chapter yourself. Scan the pages, look over any pictures and graphs and make mental notes of the titles of each section to get a broad idea of the issues the material will cover. This will allow you to maintain focus when taking notes.
An important part of taking notes on textbook material is to highlight and underline important information you will want to remember later. You should try to underline only factual information. Instead of underlining opinion, highlight or circle the material and label it accordingly. This will help ensure, when you go back over your notes, you do not get confused and think opinion is fact. You should comment on everything you highlight or underline so material can be easily identified later.
Instead of simply taking notes and recording information the textbook has already stated, you should also include any questions you have as you are reading. Highlight or circle these confusing passages and place your questions in the margin. Then, the next time you attend a lecture or office hours, you can ask your professor about the things that confused you. Record his answers in the textbook as additional information.
It is important to organize your notes efficiently so you will be able to use them at a later date. For example, highlight definitions in yellow, interesting concepts in blue and statistics in green. That way, when you go back through your notes, you will have a good idea of what each piece of information is. If you record your notes on a notebook instead of directly in your textbook, make sure you stay organized by chapter. Otherwise, you may have to sort through hundreds of pages of notes looking for a specific concept.