Learn Spanish (Spain): Necesito tus apuntes para el jueves.

In Spanish, para is used to express deadlines or a specific time limit in the future. Because you need the notes by Thursday, para is the exact word to use. If you used por, it would mean something closer to "around Thursday" or "during Thursday," which doesn't give the strict deadline intended here.

I thought the Spanish word for "notes" was notas. Why use apuntes?

Apuntes specifically refers to study notes or class notes (it comes from the verb apuntar, meaning "to jot down"). Notas can mean short messages (like a sticky note) or musical notes, but in an educational context in Spain, notas almost always refers to your "grades."

Why do we say el jueves and not just para jueves?

Unlike English, Spanish requires the definite article (el or los) before days of the week to talk about things happening "on" or "by" a certain day. You generally only drop the el when the day of the week comes directly after the verb ser (to be), like in Hoy es jueves (Today is Thursday).