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FEBRUARY 2021.pdf

World Wildlife Day, 2021

• World Wildlife Day is celebrated each year on March 3 to raise awareness of issues that impact wildlife.
• World Wildlife Day is observed to celebrate and raise awareness of the world's wild animals and plants and discussing the threats they are facing and the urgent need for governments, civil society, private sector actors, and individuals to add their voices and take actions to help conserve wildlife and ensure its continued use is sustainable.
• The day also highlights the issues such as urbanization, poaching, pollution, destruction of wildlife habitat, and the ways that humans can contribute to conservation efforts.
• World Wildlife Day 2021 theme is "Forests and Livelihoods: Sustaining People and Planet.”
• The day reminds us of the urgent need to step up the fight against wildlife crime, which has wide-ranging economic, environmental, and social impacts.

History
• The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on December 20, 2013, at its 68th session, decided to proclaim March 3, the day of the adoption of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), as World Wildlife Day.
• World Wildlife Day has become one of the most important global annual events dedicated to wildlife.

My thoughts on note making for CSE -
IAS Abhishek Saraf AIR 8

* WHY NOTES???*

To my mind the purpose of note making is quadruple-
1. To make a concise version of what you read for quick revision
2. To internalise/ remember the content better and as writing practice
3. To bring multiple sources to one place
4. To develop figures, tables, piecharts, bar charts, graphs etc. for use in answers (although this can be done independently as well)

Now each person has their own way of making notes.. but one should make notes for one or more of the above four purposes.. and make notes in such a way that helps you achieve one or more of the above four... then please note that you don't have to make notes out of everything.. for eg. i did make notes from part 2 of GC Leong and RS Sharma's Ancient India.. but did not make notes from Modern India spectrum (the book is already in notes form )

Also, never make notes in the first reading .. that way your notes will be almost as big as the book itself.. do not underline in the first reading either ... otherwise you will underline the entire book.. make notes or underline in the second reading... A good rule of thumb is that the size of your notes should be 10% of the book or source you are making notes from

*WHAT TO PUT IN NOTES*
1. For this one should go through PYQ and toppers' answer sheets... one realises from those as to how they pick their content from the sources, how they design figures and diagrams... one should put that sort of content from the sources in notes... being able to sort useful from garbage is an art and it develops over time and with practice..
2. One can make separate notes for fact, figures, policies, schemes, laws, committees

*COPY PASTE or PARAPHRASE*
Another challenge you will face while making notes (especially from newspapers)

Here again there are two ways and you must decide for yourself
*1. Retain the language from the editorials*- that way when you revise your notes it will enable you to use more impactful terminology and better phrases in your answers... you will be able to internalise more and more keywords and using keywords in answers helps....if you use the language of editorials the sentence formation will be better... but here your internalisation of the content as a whole will be slow... as you have copied and pasted ...
*2. Write the content you read in your own language*- this will be a good answer writing practice for you.. this will help you retain the content and subject matter better and faster as you will write after understanding.... but then you will write only what you understood and hence you will miss out on keywords that you did not understand... the keywords that come in editorials and you did not understand so when you write your notes you will skip them.. that will make your final answer less impactful.. as you have less keywords.. and sentence formation will not be as good as it will be with point 1 above..

So in conclusion you have to pick and chose among the above two ways.. whatever suits best for you..

*REVISION and ITERATIVE TRIMMING*
In general with notes ... one should make them in an iterative manner... first time you will make detailed and elaborate notes... then you revise and with revision you retain the content.. as you remember more and more content you need less content on paper so the size of notes shrink... so with multiple revisions your notes become more concise and to the point with less jargon

Finally, there is no one way to make notes... there is no single purpose... you have to know why you are making notes and make them accordingly... you will inevitably use your own style to make notes and that is perfectly alright...

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