Cornell System: Improve Your Note-Taking
Have you ever opened your notes to study for an exam and realized that you don’t understand anything from what you’ve written?
A lot of people have this problem. So no matter how easy note-taking may seem to you, you should adopt some note-taking techniques to make your study strategy much more efficient.
The Cornell System, which is a very simple but helpful note-taking system, was created by Walter Pauk, who used to be a professor of education at Cornell University.
This system requires a loose-leaf paper for your notes. Divide it into three parts. The first one (left side), the Cue Column, should be two and a half inches in width. The other one (the right side), the Note Taking area, should be eight inches in width and the third one (the bottom part), the Summary, should be two inches in height.
The note taking area is your main working space during the lecture. Write all the essential information on it. You can use abbreviations and symbols where appropriate. If some information is written on the blackboard, you should write it down as it most likely is very important. Paraphrase the long and complicated sentences if you don’t need to know them by heart word for word.
After the lecture take some time to look through your notes and complete the Cue Column. Divide your notes into parts and find questions that each part answers. Write those questions in the Cue Column. When reviewing your notes, it’ll be much easier to find the information you need.
And finally, when you are very familiar with the notes, write a very simple but informative summary. This part provides a short review of the whole material. It should be written in your own words and must include the key information.
Don’t forget to write the date and the name of the subject and the topic to keep your notes organized and ready for later use.
Photo: © xJasonRogersx
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