Best Note-Taking Methods Compared

A note-taking method is a repeatable way of recording a lecture, meeting or reading so you understand it and can use it later. The common ones are the Cornell method, outlining, mind mapping, the charting method and the Zettelkasten. Each suits a different situation. This page compares them, explains the Cornell method in full, and helps you choose.

Why the method matters

Notes do 2 jobs. Taking them helps you process what you hear or read, and keeping them gives you a record to come back to. Different methods weigh these jobs differently.

The way you take notes affects the first job. In a 2014 study, Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer found that students who typed lecture notes on laptops tended to copy the lecture word for word, and did worse on conceptual questions than students who wrote by hand. Later replication studies did not find a reliable advantage for handwriting. The lesson that holds up concerns paraphrasing: putting material in your own words makes you think about it, whatever you write with.

The methods at a glance

Cornell method

The Cornell method was devised in the 1950s by Walter Pauk, an education professor at Cornell University, and described in his book How to Study in College. It is designed so that reviewing your notes is part of taking them.

Page layout

Divide each page into 3 parts. On a standard letter-size sheet, Pauk’s layout is:

• Cue column: a strip about 2.5 inches wide down the left side, left empty during class.
• Note-taking column: the rest of the width, about 6 inches, on the right.
• Summary area: a band about 2 inches deep across the bottom of the page.

Write the course, date and topic at the top.

During class

1. Write in the note-taking column only.
2. Record main ideas and supporting facts in short phrases, in your own words.
3. Skip a line between ideas, and leave space where you missed something so you can fill it in later.
4. Use abbreviations and symbols you will recognize later.
5. Mark anything the lecturer repeats or emphasizes.

After class

Pauk described the full cycle as the 5 Rs: record, reduce, recite, reflect and review. Recording happens in class. The rest comes after.

1. Reduce. As soon as you can, ideally the same day, read your notes and write a question or keyword in the cue column beside each idea.
2. Recite. Cover the note-taking column. Read each cue, answer it aloud or in your head, then uncover the notes to check.
3. Reflect. Ask how the ideas connect to each other and to what you already know.
4. Summarize. Write 2 to 4 sentences in the summary area that capture the whole page.
5. Review. Before the next class or an exam, recite from the cues again instead of rereading.

A filled example

Jordan is a first-year psychology student. Here is 1 page from a lecture on forgetting, after the after-class steps.

Course: Introduction to psychology · Date: Oct 14 · Topic: Forgetting

Summary: Ebbinghaus showed in 1885 that forgetting is fastest right after learning, that relearning is quicker than first learning, and that spaced review slows forgetting. This is why reviewing notes on the same day helps.

Before the exam, Jordan covers the right column and works down the cues. Any cue he cannot answer shows him what to study next.

When it works badly

• Fast technical lectures. Derivations, code and diagrams do not fit a column of short phrases. A blank page with worked examples, or an outline, may serve better.
• Visual or nonlinear sessions. Brainstorms and design critiques jump between ideas. A mind map follows them more easily.
• When you skip the after-class steps. Without cues and a summary, a Cornell page is an ordinary page with a wide margin.
• Meetings where decisions matter most. A list of decisions and action items, each with an owner, is more useful than cues.
• Apps without columns. In a plain notes app the layout is awkward to keep. A 2-column table, or a cue line above each section, is a workable substitute.

Outlining

Outlining arranges notes as headings and indented points: main topics at the left margin, supporting points beneath. It is fast and produces tidy notes when the material is structured, as many lectures and textbook chapters are. It struggles with ideas that connect across branches, and with speakers who jump around.

Mind mapping

A mind map puts the central topic in the middle of the page and branches out to related ideas, with a keyword on each branch. Tony Buzan popularized the technique in the 1970s. Mind maps suit brainstorming, planning and seeing how ideas relate. They are hard to build during a fast lecture and grow unwieldy for long, linear content.

Charting

The charting method uses a table: a row for each item and a column for each point of comparison. A history student might use rows for periods and columns for causes, key figures and outcomes. Charts make comparisons easy to review, but they only work when you know the structure in advance.

Zettelkasten

The Zettelkasten is less a way to take notes in a session and more a way to build knowledge over years. You turn what you read into short notes, a single idea each, and link them to one another. It suits researchers and writers, and it is slow for live capture.

Digital notes and recordings

Typing, recording and saving sources directly all make capture easier and notes searchable. The risk is that easy capture replaces thinking. A full transcript records the lecture but does none of the processing for you. Pair digital capture with a processing step, such as writing cues, a summary or progressive summarization.

It also helps to keep notes next to their sources. Qind, for example, keeps your typed notes, PDFs and audio in one library, transcribes the audio, and answers questions with links to the saved items it used.

How to choose a method

1. Name the situation. Is it a lecture, a meeting, a reading or a brainstorm?
2. Ask what you need afterward. Facts for an exam point to Cornell. Decisions point to an action list. Ideas for writing point to a Zettelkasten.
3. Check the shape of the material. Hierarchical material suits an outline, comparisons suit a chart, and loose ideas suit a mind map.
4. Plan the review. Pick a method whose review step you will actually do.
5. Try it for 2 weeks. Then keep it, adjust it or switch.

For organizing your notes once you have them, see how to organize your notes. If you are choosing an app, Evernote vs OneNote compares two common ones, and AI knowledge management tools compared covers more.

Common mistakes

• Writing everything down. Transcribing leaves no attention for understanding and produces notes too dense to review.
• Never reviewing. Notes you never look at again help only while you write them.
• Using 1 method everywhere. A mind map in a fast technical lecture, or an outline for a brainstorm, makes note-taking harder than it needs to be.
• Copying the slides. If the slides are shared, note what the speaker adds to them.

Limitations

No method makes up for not paying attention, and none replaces practice. To remember facts long term, add spaced repetition. To understand a hard concept, try explaining it in plain words, as in the Feynman technique.

Structured methods also take setup and discipline. If you take notes rarely, or only need a reminder of what was said, a plain list may be enough.