Skip to Main Content
Library and Tutoring homepage

Student Success Skills: Note Taking

Cornell Note Taking Method

TAKING LECTURE NOTES

The Goal: Capture the lecturer's ideas as accurately and fully as possible in the order the ideas are delivered, to allow for analyzing, reflecting and making them your own.

The Reason: To make a record of the lecture to fill the gaps created by the massive forgetting that will take place during and after the lecture.

5 Essential Steps for Mastering Your Notes:

  1. Record the information
  2. Reduce the ideas to a key word or phrase in the left-hand margin
  3. Recite it without looking at it, and if you can't, you don't know it
  4. Review to get a complete picture of the ideas that were recited
  5. Reflect by speculating on the implications of the facts and concepts

Source: https://students.dartmouth.edu/academic-skills/learning-resources/learning-strategies/notetaking

Note Taking Templates

Want to print this template?

Come to a campus library to print. Students get 200 free prints each semester! 

Library Search Terms

Suggested Search Terms

We have some books listed below on Note Taking, but if you would like to see what other materials the Library owns on the topic, try these search terms:

Note-Taking

Mnemonics

Study Skills

Critical Thinking

Motivation in Education

Note Taking Resources at SJR State Library

Mastering Study Skills and Notetaking

How to Take Notes

Taking Cornell Style Notes