Cornell Notes

Cornell Notes is a popular note-taking strategy that is rooted in segmented information -- Notes, Key Information, and Summarize.

Compotents

Notes

During lecture, take notes as you would normally. This section will be messy, it can include diagrams, examples, main ideas, connections, etc.. It's not important to keep things perfect or clean.

Key Information

After lecture, go through and pull out the key information from the day's lecture. This should include key words, main concepts, important themes, and questions (remaining to be answered or those asked in class). This section should give you a quick overview of what happened.

Summary

After writing out your key ideas, write a summary of your notes. This should be short but detailed. The goal is to a) rewrite information in your own words, b) process information again, and c) have an easy-to-review section of notes.

Layout

Key Information

Key information in the left column, less than a quarter of page's length.

Notes

Notes is in the right column, taking up the bulk of the page.

Summary

Summary is at the bottom of the page, across both columns. It should be no more than a few lines.

 

This tool is also available as a fillable pdf.