research note taking strategies

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9 Organizing Research: Taking and Keeping Effective Notes

Once you’ve located the right primary and secondary sources, it’s time to glean all the information you can from them. In this chapter, you’ll first get some tips on taking and organizing notes. The second part addresses how to approach the sort of intermediary assignments (such as book reviews) that are often part of a history course.

Honing your own strategy for organizing your primary and secondary research is a pathway to less stress and better paper success. Moreover, if you can find the method that helps you best organize your notes, these methods can be applied to research you do for any of your classes.

Before the personal computing revolution, most historians labored through archives and primary documents and wrote down their notes on index cards, and then found innovative ways to organize them for their purposes. When doing secondary research, historians often utilized (and many still do) pen and paper for taking notes on secondary sources. With the advent of digital photography and useful note-taking tools like OneNote, some of these older methods have been phased out – though some persist. And, most importantly, once you start using some of the newer techniques below, you may find that you are a little “old school,” and might opt to integrate some of the older techniques with newer technology.

Whether you choose to use a low-tech method of taking and organizing your notes or an app that will help you organize your research, here are a few pointers for good note-taking.

Principles of note-taking

If you are going low-tech, choose a method that prevents a loss of any notes. Perhaps use one spiral notebook, or an accordion folder, that will keep everything for your project in one space. If you end up taking notes away from your notebook or folder, replace them—or tape them onto blank pages if you are using a notebook—as soon as possible.
If you are going high-tech, pick one application and stick with it. Using a cloud-based app, including one that you can download to your smart phone, will allow you to keep adding to your notes even if you find yourself with time to take notes unexpectedly.
When taking notes, whether you’re using 3X5 note cards or using an app described below, write down the author and a shortened title for the publication, along with the page number on EVERY card. We can’t emphasize this point enough; writing down the bibliographic information the first time and repeatedly will save you loads of time later when you are writing your paper and must cite all key information.
Include keywords or “tags” that capture why you thought to take down this information in a consistent place on each note card (and when using the apps described below). If you are writing a paper about why Martin Luther King, Jr., became a successful Civil Rights movement leader, for example, you may have a few theories as you read his speeches or how those around him described his leadership. Those theories—religious beliefs, choice of lieutenants, understanding of Gandhi—might become the tags you put on each note card.
Note-taking applications can help organize tags for you, but if you are going low tech, a good idea is to put tags on the left side of a note card, and bibliographic info on the right side.

Organizing research- applications that can help

Using images in research.

If you are in an archive: make your first picture one that includes the formal collection name, the box number, the folder name and call numbe r and anything else that would help you relocate this information if you or someone else needed to. Do this BEFORE you start taking photos of what is in the folder.
If you are photographing a book or something you may need to return to the library: take a picture of all the front matter (the title page, the page behind the title with all the publication information, maybe even the table of contents).

Once you have recorded where you find it, resist the urge to rename these photographs. By renaming them, they may be re-ordered and you might forget where you found them. Instead, use tags for your own purposes, and carefully name and date the folder into which the photographs were automatically sorted. There is one free, open-source program, Tropy , which is designed to help organize photos taken in archives, as well as tag, annotate, and organize them. It was developed and is supported by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. It is free to download, and you can find it here: https://tropy.org/ ; it is not, however, cloud-based, so you should back up your photos. In other cases, if an archive doesn’t allow photography (this is highly unlikely if you’ve made the trip to the archive), you might have a laptop on hand so that you can transcribe crucial documents.

Using note or project-organizing apps

When you have the time to sit down and begin taking notes on your primary sources, you can annotate your photos in Tropy. Alternatively, OneNote, which is cloud-based, can serve as a way to organize your research. OneNote allows you to create separate “Notebooks” for various projects, but this doesn’t preclude you from searching for terms or tags across projects if the need ever arises. Within each project you can start new tabs, say, for each different collection that you have documents from, or you can start new tabs for different themes that you are investigating. Just as in Tropy, as you go through taking notes on your documents you can create your own “tags” and place them wherever you want in the notes.

Another powerful, free tool to help organize research, especially secondary research though not exclusively, is Zotero found @ https://www.zotero.org/ . Once downloaded, you can begin to save sources (and their URL) that you find on the internet to Zotero. You can create main folders for each major project that you have and then subfolders for various themes if you would like. Just like the other software mentioned, you can create notes and tags about each source, and Zotero can also be used to create bibliographies in the precise format that you will be using. Obviously, this function is super useful when doing a long-term, expansive project like a thesis or dissertation.

How History is Made: A Student’s Guide to Reading, Writing, and Thinking in the Discipline Copyright © 2022 by Stephanie Cole; Kimberly Breuer; Scott W. Palmer; and Brandon Blakeslee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to take Research Notes

How to take research notes.

Your research notebook is an important piece of information useful for future projects and presentations. Maintaining organized and legible notes allows your research notebook to be a valuable resource to you and your research group. It allows others and yourself to replicate experiments, and it also serves as a useful troubleshooting tool. Besides it being an important part of the research process, taking detailed notes of your research will help you stay organized and allow you to easily review your work.

Here are some common reasons to maintain organized notes:

Keeps a record of your goals and thoughts during your research experiments.
Keeps a record of what worked and what didn't in your research experiments.
Enables others to use your notes as a guide for similar procedures and techniques.
A helpful tool to reference when writing a paper, submitting a proposal, or giving a presentation.
Assists you in answering experimental questions.
Useful to efficiently share experimental approaches, data, and results with others.

Before taking notes:

Ask your research professor what note-taking method they recommend or prefer.
Consider what type of media you'll be using to take notes.
Once you have decided on how you'll be taking notes, be sure to keep all of your notes in one place to remain organized.
Plan on taking notes regularly (meetings, important dates, procedures, journal/manuscript revisions, etc.).
This is useful when applying to programs or internships that ask about your research experience.

Note Taking Tips:

Taking notes by hand:.

Research notebooks don’t belong to you so make sure your notes are legible for others.
Use post-it notes or tabs to flag important sections.
Start sorting your notes early so that you don't become backed up and disorganized.
Only write with a pen as pencils aren’t permanent & sharpies can bleed through.
Make it a habit to write in your notebook and not directly on sticky notes or paper towels. Rewriting notes can waste time and sometimes lead to inaccurate data or results.

Taking Notes Electronically

Make sure your device is charged and backed up to store data.
Invest in note-taking apps or E-Ink tablets
Create shortcuts to your folders so you have easier access
Create outlines.
Keep your notes short and legible.

Note Taking Tips Continued:

Things to avoid.

Avoid using pencils or markers that may bleed through.
Avoid erasing entries. Instead, draw a straight line through any mistakes and write the date next to the crossed-out information.
Avoid writing in cursive.
Avoid delaying your entries so you don’t fall behind and forget information.

Formatting Tips

Use bullet points to condense your notes to make them simpler to access or color-code them.
Tracking your failures and mistakes can improve your work in the future.
If possible, take notes as you’re experimenting or make time at the end of each workday to get it done.
Record the date at the start of every day, including all dates spent on research.

Types of media to use when taking notes:

Traditional paper notebook.

Pros: Able to take quick notes, convenient access to notes, cheaper option
Cons: Requires a table of contents or tabs as it is not easily searchable, can get damaged easily, needs to be scanned if making a digital copy

Electronic notebook

Apple Notes
Pros: Easily searchable, note-taking apps available, easy to edit & customize
Cons: Can be difficult to find notes if they are unorganized, not as easy to take quick notes, can be a more expensive option

Combination of both

Contact info.

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Research Guides

Gould library, reading well and taking research notes.

How to read for college
How to take research notes
How to use sources in your writing
Tools for note taking and annotations
Mobile apps for notes and annotations
Assistive technology
How to cite your sources

Be Prepared: Keep track of which notes are direct quotes, which are summary, and which are your own thoughts. For example, enclose direct quotes in quotation marks, and enclose your own thoughts in brackets. That way you'll never be confused when you're writing.

Be Clear: Make sure you have noted the source and page number!

Be Organized: Keep your notes organized but in a single place so that you can refer back to notes about other readings at the same time.

Be Consistent: You'll want to find specific notes later, and one way to do that is to be consistent in the way you describe things. If you use consistent terms or tags or keywords, you'll be able to find your way back more easily.

Recording what you find

Take full notes

Whether you take notes on cards, in a notebook, or on the computer, it's vital to record information accurately and completely. Otherwise, you won't be able to trust your own notes. Most importantly, distinguish between (1) direct quotation; (2) paraphrases and summaries of the text; and (3) your own thoughts. On a computer, you have many options for making these distinctions, such as parentheses, brackets, italic or bold text, etc.

Know when to quote, paraphrase, and summarize

Summarize when you only need to remember the main point of the passage, chapter, etc.
Paraphrase when you are able to able to clearly state a source's point or meaning in your own words.
Quote exactly when you need the author's exact words or authority as evidience to back up your claim. You may also want to be sure and use the author's exact wording, either because they stated their point so well, or because you want to refute that point and need to demonstrate you aren't misrepresenting the author's words.

Get the context right

Don't just record the author's words or ideas; be sure and capture the context and meaning that surrounds those ideas as well. It can be easy to take a short quote from an author that completely misrepresents his or her actual intentions if you fail to take the context into account. You should also be sure to note when the author is paraphrasing or summarizing another author's point of view--don't accidentally represent those ideas as the ideas of the author.

Example of reading notes

Here is an example of reading notes taken in Evernote, with citation and page numbers noted as well as quotation marks for direct quotes and brackets around the reader's own thoughts.

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42 Timeless Tips On How To Effectively Take Research Notes

Improve your note-taking skills with timeless tips on effectively taking research notes. Enhance your study sessions and research projects today.

Mar 11, 2024

laptop and notebook for creation of Research Notes

Discover the significance of meticulous note-taking in the realm of academia and research with a deep dive into the world of research notes. Understanding the distinction between primary vs secondary sources is crucial for scholarly pursuits. Uncover how researchers leverage these notes to capture critical insights, citations, and observations, providing a roadmap for future investigations. Gain valuable insights into the meticulous process of documenting, organizing, and analyzing research data for enhanced academic endeavors.

What are research notes, complete guide on how to effectively take research notes, supercharge your researching ability with otio — try otio for free today.

Research notes are essential tools used by knowledge workers, researchers, and students to document and organize their findings, thoughts, and insights during the research process . These notes serve as a repository of information gathered from various sources such as articles, books, websites, and interviews. They help individuals track their progress, remember important details, and structure their ideas effectively.

How Can Otio Transform Your Research Workflow?

Knowledge workers, researchers, and students today struggle with content overload and the complexities of using multiple tools for their research tasks. Otio offers a solution by providing an AI-native workspace tailored for researchers. It simplifies the research process by enabling users to collect data from diverse sources, extract key takeaways using AI-generated notes, and create draft outputs seamlessly. With features like AI-generated notes on various content types and AI-assisted writing, Otio streamlines the research process and helps individuals create high-quality research papers and essays efficiently.

Why Otio Stands Out as Your AI Research and Writing Partner

Otio stands out as an invaluable AI research and writing partner due to its ability to streamline the research process from data collection to content creation. By offering features such as AI-generated notes on all content types, interactive chat capabilities similar to ChatGPT, and AI-assisted writing, Otio empowers researchers to enhance their productivity and produce quality outputs faster. Embrace Otio as your AI research and writing partner today and experience a seamless and efficient research journey.

Otio - Your AI Research and Writing Partner

Knowledge workers, researchers, and students today suffer from content overload and are left to deal with it using fragmented, complex, and manual tooling. Too many of them settle for stitching together complicated bookmarking, read-it-later, and note-taking apps to get through their workflows. Now that anyone can create content with the click of a button - this problem is only going to get worse. Otio solves this problem by providing one AI-native workspace for researchers. It helps them:

A wide range of data sources, from bookmarks, tweets, and extensive books to YouTube videos.

2. Extract key takeaways

With detailed AI-generated notes and source-grounded Q&A chat.

Draft outputs using the sources you’ve collected. Otio helps you to go from reading list to first draft faster. Along with this, Otio also helps you write research papers/essays faster. Here are our top features that are loved by researchers: AI-generated notes on all bookmarks (Youtube videos, PDFs, articles, etc.), Otio enables you to chat with individual links or entire knowledge bases, just like you chat with ChatGPT, as well as AI assisted writing. Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner — try Otio for free today!

1. Use a Consistent Format

Create a clear structure for your notes to easily find and review information later.

2. Summarize Key Points

Condense information into concise summaries to grasp the main ideas quickly.

3. Organize by Topic

Categorize your notes by subject to maintain a logical flow of information.

4. Use Keywords

Highlight essential terms to quickly identify important concepts when revisiting your notes.

5. Include Citations

Record sources alongside your notes to ensure proper referencing in your research.

6. Use Abbreviations

Develop a list of abbreviations for common terms to streamline note-taking.

7. Visual Aids

Incorporate diagrams, charts, or tables to enhance understanding and retention.

8. Incorporate Quotations

Capture direct quotes accurately to support your arguments and findings.

9. Review Regularly

Schedule time to review and update your notes to reinforce retention.

10. Utilize Color Coding

Assign colors to different categories for a visual organization method.

11. Mind Mapping

Create visual representations of ideas to establish relationships between different concepts.

12. Include Page Numbers

Note the page numbers of your sources to locate information easily when needed.

13. Group Information

Group related details together for a comprehensive overview of specific topics.

14. Limit Bullet Points

Use bullet points sparingly to avoid overwhelming your notes with fragmented information.

15. Record Questions

Pose questions based on your notes to guide further research or critical thinking.

16. Define Acronyms

Define acronyms or abbreviations to ensure clarity in your notes.

17. Active Listening

Engage actively during lectures or interviews to capture essential points accurately.

18. Paraphrase

Rewrite information in your own words to deepen understanding and promote retention.

19. Avoid Plagiarism

Attribute ideas correctly and refrain from copying verbatim text without citation.

20. Separate Personal Insights

Distinguish your thoughts from the original content to maintain clarity.

21. Utilize Software Tools

Explore note-taking apps or software for digital organization and accessibility.

22. Create Templates

Establish templates for different types of research to streamline the note-taking process .

23. Prioritize Information

Focus on recording critical details over minor or tangential points.

24. Use Symbols

Employ symbols or icons to denote importance levels or key concepts in your notes.

25. Establish Timelines

Note dates or timelines within your research to track the progression of ideas or events.

26. Develop an Index

Create an index or table of contents for quick reference to specific topics within your notes.

27. Collaborate with Peers

Share notes with colleagues to gain diverse perspectives and enrich your research.

28. Track Sources

Keep a detailed record of all sources consulted to facilitate accurate referencing.

29. Embrace Digitalization

Digitize handwritten notes for easy access and searchability across platforms.

30. Prioritize Clarity

Ensure your notes are clear and concise to facilitate comprehension during review sessions.

31. Use Cross-References

Link related notes or concepts to establish connections within your research.

32. Emphasize Key Terms

Highlight crucial terms or concepts to draw attention to pivotal ideas.

33. Review and Edit

Regularly review and edit your notes for accuracy, relevance, and coherence.

34. Remove Redundancy

Eliminate redundant information to streamline your notes and enhance clarity.

35. Stay Updated

Continuously update your notes with new insights or discoveries to maintain relevance.

36. Engage with Multimedia

Incorporate multimedia elements like images or videos to enrich your notes.

37. Leverage Text Formatting

Utilize bold, italics, or underline for emphasis and hierarchy in your notes.

38. Seek Feedback

Share your notes with mentors or peers for constructive feedback and improvement.

39. Practice Active Reading

Engage critically with sources to extract essential information effectively.

40. Utilize Templates

Utilize note-taking templates for structured and efficient information organization.

41. Be Selective

Focus on capturing information that directly contributes to your research objectives.

42. Stay Consistent

Maintain a regular note-taking routine to cultivate a habit and enhance productivity.

AI research and writing partner

Draft outputs using the sources you’ve collected. Otio helps you go from reading list to first draft faster. Along with this, Otio also helps you write research papers/essays faster. Here are our top features that are loved by researchers: AI-generated notes on all bookmarks (Youtube videos, PDFs, articles, etc.), Otio enables you to chat with individual links or entire knowledge bases, just like you chat with ChatGPT, as well as AI-assisted writing. Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner — try Otio for free today!

• How To Tell If An Article Is Peer Reviewed • Reliable Sources For Research • Literature Search • How To Summarize A Research Article • Best Databases For Research • Using Ai For Research • Summarize Research Paper Ai • How To Use Chat Gpt For Research • How To Search For Research Articles

group study plan for making good Research Notes

Research notes are a crucial aspect of any researcher's workflow, serving as the foundation for organizing, synthesizing, and retaining information gathered during the research process. These notes provide a roadmap for the researcher, aiding in the development of ideas, analysis, and ultimately, the creation of insightful and well-supported research papers or projects.

Setting Up Your Note-Taking System

1. choose the right tools.

Select a note-taking tool that aligns with your preferences and needs. Whether it's digital tools like Otio or traditional pen and paper, ensure it complements your research style.

2. Create a Structure

Establish a consistent and intuitive organizational system for your notes. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, or numbering to categorize information effectively.

3. Utilize Templates

Develop templates for different types of research notes, such as literature reviews, interview summaries, or data analysis. Templates can streamline your note-taking process and maintain consistency.

Effective Note-Taking Strategies

1. active reading.

Engage with the material actively by highlighting key points, jotting down questions, and summarizing main ideas. This helps in digesting and internalizing the content.

2. Summarize and Paraphrase

Rather than copying verbatim, condense information into your own words. This aids in comprehension and prevents plagiarism when incorporating sources into your work.

3. Cite Sources Properly

Always record the sources of your information alongside your notes. Include bibliographic details or hyperlinks to ensure proper referencing and easy retrieval when needed.

Organizing and Reviewing Your Notes

1. create a tagging system.

Employ tags or labels to categorize and link related notes. This enables quick retrieval of information based on topics, themes, or keywords.

2. Regular Review

Schedule periodic reviews of your notes to reinforce learning, identify connections between ideas, and clarify any ambiguities. This practice enhances retention and aids in synthesizing information.

3. Revision and Refinement

Continuously refine and update your notes as your research progresses. Add new insights, revisit older notes for relevance, and connect disparate pieces of information to enhance the coherence of your work.

Transforming Research Efficiency with Otio's AI-Powered Workspace

Knowledge workers, researchers, and students can revolutionize their research processes with Otio , an AI-native workspace designed to streamline data collection, extraction of key insights, and creation of draft outputs. By integrating AI-generated notes, source-grounded Q&A chat features, and AI-assisted writing capabilities, Otio empowers users to navigate the complexities of research effectively. Embrace a seamless research experience with Otio - your ultimate AI research and writing partner .

Otio addresses the content overload challenge faced by knowledge workers, researchers, and students by offering an all-in-one AI-native workspace. By allowing users to seamlessly collect data from various sources such as bookmarks, tweets, articles, and videos, Otio simplifies the initial stage of the research process. This aggregation feature not only saves time but also ensures that users have a comprehensive set of resources at their disposal.

AI-Generated Notes and Source-Grounded Q&A Chat

One of Otio 's standout features is its ability to extract key takeaways from collected sources by providing detailed AI-generated notes. These notes offer a condensed version of the content, making it easier for researchers to grasp essential information quickly. The source-grounded Q&A chat function enables users to engage with their collected material in a conversational manner, facilitating a deeper understanding of the content.

Efficient Drafting with Otio

Transitioning from reading materials to drafting outputs is often a time-consuming process for researchers. Otio streamlines this transition by assisting users in creating draft outputs directly from the sources they have collected. This feature not only accelerates the writing process but also ensures that the drafted content remains closely tied to the original sources, enhancing the overall quality of the output.

AI-Assisted Writing for Research Papers/Essays

In addition to its data collection and note-taking capabilities, Otio offers AI-assisted writing functionality to help users compose research papers and essays more efficiently. By leveraging AI technology, Otio provides users with writing suggestions, grammar corrections , and structural guidance, empowering them to produce high-quality written work in less time.

Embracing Otio as Your AI Research and Writing Partner

Otio's comprehensive suite of features, including AI-generated notes, source-grounded Q&A chat, efficient drafting tools, and AI-assisted writing, make it a valuable asset for knowledge workers, researchers, and students looking to streamline their research workflows. By integrating Otio into their processes, users can enhance their productivity, improve the quality of their work, and ultimately, achieve greater success in their research endeavors.

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Note Taking: Techniques

Considerations for Note-Taking Software
Citation (and Note Taking) Software
How-To Videos
Contact & Yale Support

This guide includes the following pages: Techniques (this page), Considerations for Note-Taking Software , Citation Software , How-to Videos , and Contact & Yale Support .

On this first page, you will find information about how to take notes, read effectively, and manage your time, including:

General techniques
BEAM Method - reading strategy
Cornell Notes - note taking
Pomodoro Technique - time management
File organization

This guide also has a corresponding zine to help you find your specific note-taking needs. Download the zine here:

Notes on Notes Zine A mini zine to help you find your note-taking needs. 2 pages, including folding instructions.

Library Workshops

General techniques.

Define your purpose

Notes are meant to be used. Are you taking notes for comprehension, an exam, to generate ideas...?

The practice of (physical) note taking promotes metacognition, while spending 5 minutes with your notes on the same day provides immediate review to enhance learning.

General reading and note-taking strategy: Don't read every word without a purpose. Instead, make informed decisions about what to read:

1) skim the abstract, and if it still looks good...

2) skim the introduction and conclusion ONLY, and if it still looks good...

3) take a high level view of the article - find relevant sections (method, analysis, etc.) and skim those, and if it still looks good...

4) THEN read the whole article

BEAM Method - reading strategy

Mark up the text

An image with the words "Background, Exhibit, Argument, Method"

For instance, using the BEAM method, classify phrases / paragraphs according to B (background), E (evidence), A (argument), or M (method)

Some apps for marking up PDFs include:

Zotero Unlimited storage with your @yale.edu email; organize citations, take notes, attach and annotate PDFs
Mendeley Organize citations, take notes, attach and annotate PDFs

Cornell Notes - note taking

The general page layout of the Cornell Notes method, split into 3 sections

Record your notes into columns
Reduce ideas to a keyword or phrase in the left-hand margin
Review your notes immediately to get a complete picture of the ideas that were recited
Recite it without looking at it, and if you can't, you don't know it
Reflect by speculating on the implications of the facts and concepts

More about the Cornell Note-taking system : Learn the format of the Cornell Notes system, including videos about the benefits of note-taking. Public access through Canvas.

GoodNotes Cornell Notes probably works best on paper. If you want digital, this app could enable the technique.

Pomodoro Method - time management

Within the Pomodoro Technique , the idea is to break down a project into specific units of time, spaced by short breaks.

Decide the task

Set your timer

Work on the task

Put a checkmark on a piece of paper

Take a small break and set the timer again

After you do four cycles, you can take a longer break.

Tomato Timers A browser-based timer, including a to-do list function
Marinara Timer Use a custom timer to follow something similar to the Pomodoro Method, but less strict

File Organization

With a notes system in place that works for you, whether on its on paper or online, you will eventually start creating digital files. C reate a meaningful digital file system that can hold up to years of research.

For instance, organize your files into User: Documents > Semester_YEAR > Course Name or Project.

Write down your system and periodically review it over time.
Marking any active documents with a flag or a color category can help, too.
If you have access to cloud storage, like OneDrive, consider saving files there instead of locally.

Consider organizing article PDFs with Zotero (see tab Citation (and Note Taking) Software using collections, folders, and file attachments.

Things that likely won't work over time:

Saving everything to a downloads folder
Making meaningful file names... but without consistency or folder structure
Using file names like "final_FINAL"

Create a Custom Knowledge Base (advanced)

If you're interested in a fluid file structure, you might be interested in the Zettelkasten Method and/or the application Obsidian. Note that these both have a steep learning curve. If you have defined your purpose as needing a complex, custom knowledge base over time - they might be worth exploring.

See the How-To Videos tab for more information and sample applications.

Obsidian Freemium for iOS, Windows and others, includes syncing between computer and mobile; connects local notes for themes (non-linear), which can be visualized with graphs to structure and identify notes over time
Zettelkasten Method A method of note-taking that creates a personal, interconnected knowledge base.
Next: Considerations for Note-Taking Software >>
Last Updated: Jan 25, 2023 11:34 AM
URL: https://guides.library.yale.edu/note-taking-techniques

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How to Do Research: A Step-By-Step Guide: 4a. Take Notes

Get Started
1a. Select a Topic
1b. Develop Research Questions
1c. Identify Keywords
1d. Find Background Information
1e. Refine a Topic
2a. Search Strategies
2d. Articles
2e. Videos & Images
2f. Databases
2g. Websites
2h. Grey Literature
2i. Open Access Materials
3a. Evaluate Sources
3b. Primary vs. Secondary
3c. Types of Periodicals
4a. Take Notes
4b. Outline the Paper
4c. Incorporate Source Material
5a. Avoid Plagiarism
5b. Zotero & MyBib
5c. MLA Formatting
5d. MLA Citation Examples
5e. APA Formatting
5f. APA Citation Examples
5g. Annotated Bibliographies

Note Taking in Bibliographic Management Tools

We encourage students to use bibliographic citation management tools (such as Zotero, EasyBib and RefWorks) to keep track of their research citations. Each service includes a note-taking function. Find more information about citation management tools here . Whether or not you're using one of these, the tips below will help you.

Tips for Taking Notes Electronically

Try using a bibliographic citation management tool to keep track of your sources and to take notes.
As you add sources, put them in the format you're using (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.).
Group sources by publication type (i.e., book, article, website).
Number each source within the publication type group.
For websites, include the URL information and the date you accessed each site.
Next to each idea, include the source number from the Works Cited file and the page number from the source. See the examples below. Note that #A5 and #B2 refer to article source 5 and book source 2 from the Works Cited file.

#A5 p.35: 76.69% of the hyperlinks selected from homepage are for articles and the catalog #B2 p.76: online library guides evolved from the paper pathfinders of the 1960s

When done taking notes, assign keywords or sub-topic headings to each idea, quote or summary.
Use the copy and paste feature to group keywords or sub-topic ideas together.
Back up your master list and note files frequently!

Tips for Taking Notes by Hand

Use index cards to keep notes and track sources used in your paper.
Include the citation (i.e., author, title, publisher, date, page numbers, etc.) in the format you're using. It will be easier to organize the sources alphabetically when creating the Works Cited page.
Number the source cards.
Use only one side to record a single idea, fact or quote from one source. It will be easier to rearrange them later when it comes time to organize your paper.
Include a heading or key words at the top of the card.
Include the Work Cited source card number.
Include the page number where you found the information.
Use abbreviations, acronyms, or incomplete sentences to record information to speed up the notetaking process.
Write down only the information that answers your research questions.
Use symbols, diagrams, charts or drawings to simplify and visualize ideas.

Forms of Notetaking

Use one of these notetaking forms to capture information:

Summarize : Capture the main ideas of the source succinctly by restating them in your own words.
Paraphrase : Restate the author's ideas in your own words.
Quote : Copy the quotation exactly as it appears in the original source. Put quotation marks around the text and note the name of the person you are quoting.

Example of a Work Cited Card

Example notecard.

<< Previous: Step 4: Write
Next: 4b. Outline the Paper >>
Last Updated: Aug 13, 2024 3:10 PM
URL: https://libguides.elmira.edu/research

4.4 Helpful Note-Taking Strategies

Estimated completion time: 21 minutes.

Questions to Consider:

How can you prepare to take notes to maximize the effectiveness of the experience?
What are some specific strategies you can employ for better note-taking?
Why is annotating your notes after the note-taking session a critical step to follow?

Beyond providing a record of the information you are reading or hearing, notes help you organize the ideas and help you make meaning out of something about which you may not be familiar, so note-taking and reading are two compatible skill sets. Taking notes also helps you stay focused on the question at hand. Taking notes during presentations or class lectures may allow you to follow the speaker’s main points and condense the material into a more readily usable format. Strong notes build on your prior knowledge of a subject, help you discuss trends or patterns present in the information, and direct you toward areas needing further research or reading.

It is not a good habit to transcribe every single word a speaker utters—even if you have an amazing ability to do that. Most of us don’t have that court-reporter-esque skill level anyway, and if we try, we would end up missing valuable information. Learn to listen for main ideas and distinguish between these main ideas and details that typically support the ideas. Include examples that explain the main ideas, but do so using understandable abbreviations.

Think of all notes as potential study guides. In fact, if you only take notes without actively working on them after the initial note-taking session, the likelihood of the notes helping you is slim. Research on this topic concludes that without active engagement after taking notes, most students forget 60–75 percent of material over which they took the notes—within two days! That sort of defeats the purpose, don’t you think? This information about memory loss was first brought to light by 19th-century German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus. Fortunately, you do have the power to thwart what is sometimes called the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve by reinforcing what you learned through review at intervals shortly after you take in the material and frequently thereafter.

If you are a musician, you’ll understand this phenomenon well. When you first attempt a difficult piece of music, you may not remember the chords and notes well at all, but after frequent practice and review, you generate a certain muscle memory and cognitive recall that allows you to play the music more easily.

Note-taking may not be the most glamorous aspect of your higher-education journey, but it is a study practice you will carry throughout college and into your professional life. Setting yourself up for successful note-taking is almost as important as the actual taking of notes, and what you do after your note-taking session is equally significant. Well-written notes help you organize your thoughts, enhance your memory, and participate in class discussion, and they prepare you to respond successfully on exams. With all that riding on your notes, it would behoove you to learn how to take notes properly and continue to improve your note-taking skills.

Analysis Question

Do you currently have a preferred way to take notes? When did you start using it? Has it been effective? What other strategy might work for you?

Preparing to Take Notes

Preparing to take notes means more than just getting out your laptop or making sure you bring pen and paper to class. You’ll do a much better job with your notes if you understand why we take notes, have a strong grasp on your preferred note-taking system, determine your specific priorities depending on your situation, and engage in some version of efficient shorthand.

Like handwriting and fingerprints, we all have unique and fiercely independent note-taking habits. These understandably and reasonably vary from one situation to the next, but you can only improve your skills by learning more about ways to take effective notes and trying different methods to find a good fit.

The very best notes are the ones you take in an organized manner that encourages frequent review and use as you progress through a topic or course of study. For this reason, you need to develop a way to organize all your notes for each class so they remain together and organized. As old-fashioned as it sounds, a clunky three-ring binder is an excellent organizational container for class notes. You can easily add to previous notes, insert handouts you may receive in class, and maintain a running collection of materials for each separate course. If the idea of carrying around a heavy binder has you rolling your eyes, then transfer that same structure into your computer files. If you don’t organize your many documents into some semblance of order on your computer, you will waste significant time searching for improperly named or saved files.

You may be interested in relatively new research on what is the more effective note-taking strategy: handwriting versus typing directly into a computer. While individuals have strong personal opinions on this subject, most researchers agree that the format of student notes is less important than what students do with the notes they take afterwards. Both handwriting notes and using a computer for note-taking have pros and cons.

Managing Note-Taking Systems

Whichever of the many note-taking systems you choose (and new ones seem to come out almost daily), the very best one is the one that you will use consistently. The skill and art of note-taking is not automatic for anyone; it takes a great deal of practice, patience, and continuous attention to detail. Add to that the fact that you may need to master multiple note-taking techniques for different classes, and you have some work to do. Unless you are specifically directed by your instructor, you are free to combine the best parts of different systems if you are most comfortable with that hybrid system.

Just to keep yourself organized, all your notes should start off with an identifier, including at the very least the date, the course name, the topic of the lecture/presentation, and any other information you think will help you when you return to use the notes for further study, test preparation, or assignment completion. Additional, optional information may be the number of note-taking sessions about this topic or reminders to cross-reference class handouts, textbook pages, or other course materials. It’s also always a good idea to leave some blank space in your notes so you can insert additions and questions you may have as you review the material later.

Get Connected

Staying organized is a challenge when you are juggling multiple assigned readings and lecture notes, but keeping track of what you have read and heard in lecture improves your ability to study the material and retain it. These resources can provide you with opportunities to sharpen your reading and note-taking game.

Evernote provides students with the opportunity to keep track of tasks and assignment due dates. Users can also connect to Google Calendar, share notes with others, and annotate documents. The app allows for you to access your notes on multiple devices.

The Learning Center , University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill provides background information on an array of studying and learning techniques, beyond those listed above. For any that appeal to you or seem to apply to your fields of study, consult other material specifically focused on them.

Note-Taking Strategies

You may have a standard way you take all your notes for all your classes. When you were in high school, this one-size-fits-all approach may have worked. Now that you’re in college, reading and studying more advanced topics, your general method may still work some of the time, but you should have some different strategies in place if you find that your method isn’t working as well with college content. You probably will need to adopt different note-taking strategies for different subjects. The strategies in this section represent various ways to take notes in such a way that you are able to study after the initial note-taking session.

Cornell Method

One of the most recognizable note-taking systems is called the Cornell Method , a relatively simple way to take effective notes devised by Cornell University education professor Dr. Walter Pauk in the 1940s. In this system, you take a standard piece of note paper and divide it into three sections by drawing a horizontal line across your paper about one to two inches from the bottom of the page (the summary area) and then drawing a vertical line to separate the rest of the page above this bottom area, making the left side about two inches (the recall column) and leaving the biggest area to the right of your vertical line (the notes column). You may want to make one page and then copy as many pages as you think you’ll need for any particular class, but one advantage of this system is that you can generate the sections quickly. Because you have divided up your page, you may end up using more paper than you would if you were writing on the entire page, but the point is not to keep your notes to as few pages as possible. The Cornell Method provides you with a well-organized set of notes that will help you study and review your notes as you move through the course. If you are taking notes on your computer, you can still use the Cornell Method in Word or Excel on your own or by using a template someone else created.

Now that you have the note-taking format generated, the beauty of the Cornell Method is its organized simplicity. Just write on one side of the page (the right-hand notes column)—this will help later when you are reviewing and revising your notes. During your note-taking session, use the notes column to record information over the main points and concepts of the lecture; try to put the ideas into your own words, which will help you to not transcribe the speaker’s words verbatim. Skip lines between each idea in this column.

Practice the shortcut abbreviations covered in the next section and avoid writing in complete sentences. Don’t make your notes too cryptic, but you can use bullet points or phrases equally well to convey meaning—we do it all the time in conversation. If you know you will need to expand the notes you are taking in class but don’t have time, you can put reminders directly in the notes by adding and underlining the word expand by the ideas you need to develop more fully.

As soon as possible after your note-taking session, preferably within eight hours but no more than twenty-four hours, read over your notes column and fill in any details you missed in class, including the places where you indicated you wanted to expand your notes. Then in the recall column, write any key ideas from the corresponding notes column—you can’t stuff this smaller recall column as if you’re explaining or defining key ideas. Just add the one- or two-word main ideas; these words in the recall column serve as cues to help you remember the detailed information you recorded in the notes column.

Once you are satisfied with your notes and recall columns, summarize this page of notes in two or three sentences using the summary area at the bottom of the sheet. This is an excellent time to get with another classmate or a group of students who all heard the same lecture to make sure you all understood the key points. Now, before you move onto something else, cover the large notes column, and quiz yourself over the key ideas you recorded in the recall column. Repeat this step often as you go along, not just immediately before an exam, and you will help your memory make the connections between your notes, your textbook reading, your in-class work, and assignments that you need to succeed on any quizzes and exams.

The main advantage of the Cornell Method is that you are setting yourself up to have organized, workable notes. The neat format helps you move into study-mode without needing to re-copy less organized notes or making sense of a large mass of information you aren’t sure how to process because you can’t remember key ideas or what you meant. If you write notes in your classes without any sort of system and later come across something like “Napoleon—short” in the middle of a glob of notes, what can you do at this point? Is that important? Did it connect with something relevant from the lecture? How would you possibly know? You are your best advocate for setting yourself up for success in college.

Other note organizing systems may help you in different disciplines. You can take notes in a formal outline if you prefer, using Roman numerals for each new topic, moving down a line to capital letters indented a few spaces to the right for concepts related to the previous topic, then adding details to support the concepts indented a few more spaces over and denoted by an Arabic numeral. You can continue to add to a formal outline by following these rules.

You don’t absolutely have to use the formal numerals and letter, but you have to then be careful to indent so you can tell when you move from a higher level topic to the related concepts and then to the supporting information. The main benefit of an outline is how organized it is. You have to be on your toes when you are taking notes in class to ensure you keep up the organizational format of the outline, which can be tricky if the lecture or presentation is moving quickly or covering many diverse topics.

The following formal outline example shows the basic pattern:

Protection (supporting info about the concept)
Family-friendly (supporting info about the concept)

You would just continue on with this sort of numbering and indenting format to show the connections between main ideas, concepts, and supporting details. Whatever details you do not capture in your note-taking session, you can add after the lecture as you review your outline.

Chart or Table

Similar to creating an outline, you can develop a chart to compare and contrast main ideas in a note-taking session. Divide your paper into four or five columns with headings that include either the main topics covered in the lecture or categories such as How?, What?, When used?, Advantages/Pros, Disadvantages/Cons, or other divisions of the information. You write your notes into the appropriate columns as that information comes to light in the presentation. The table below provides an example of a table that can help you organize topics in a science course.

	Structure	Types	Functions in Body	Additional Notes
Carbohydrates
Lipids
Proteins
Nucleic Acid

This format helps you pull out the salient ideas and establishes an organized set of notes to study later. (If you haven’t noticed that this reviewing later idea is a constant across all note-taking systems, you should take note of that.) Notes by themselves that you never reference again are little more than scribblings. That would be a bit like compiling an extensive grocery list so you stay on budget when you shop, work all week on it, and then just throw it away before you get to the store. You may be able to recall a few items, but likely won’t be as efficient as you could be if you had the notes to reference. Just as you cannot read all the many books, articles, and documents you need to peruse for your college classes, you cannot remember the most important ideas of all the notes you will take as part of your courses, so you must review.

Concept Mapping and Visual Note-Taking

One final note-taking method that appeals to learners who prefer a visual representation of notes is called mapping or sometimes mind mapping or concept mapping, although each of these names can have slightly different uses. Variations of this method abound, so you may want to look for more versions online, but the basic principles are that you are making connections between main ideas through a graphic depiction; some can get rather elaborate with colors and shapes, but a simple version may be more useful at least to begin. Main ideas can be circled or placed in a box with supporting concepts radiating off these ideas shown with a connecting line and possibly details of the support further radiating off the concepts. You can present your main ideas vertically or horizontally, but turning your paper long-ways, or in landscape mode, may prove helpful as you add more main ideas.

You may be interested in trying visual note-taking or adding pictures to your notes for clarity. Sometimes when you can’t come up with the exact wording to explain something or you’re trying to add information for complex ideas in your notes, sketching a rough image of the idea can help you remember. According to educator Sherrill Knezel in an article entitled “The Power of Visual Note-taking,” this strategy is effective because “When students use images and text in note-taking, it gives them two different ways to pull up the information, doubling their chances of recall.” Don’t shy away from this creative approach to note-taking just because you believe you aren’t an artist; the images don’t need to be perfect. You may want to watch Rachel Smith’s TEDx Talk called “Drawing in Class” to learn more about visual note-taking.

You can play with different types of note-taking suggestions and find the method(s) you like best, but once you find what works for you, stick with it. You will become more efficient with the method the more you use it, and your note-taking, review, and test prep will become, if not easier, certainly more organized, which can decrease your anxiety.

Practicing Decipherable Shorthand

Most college students don’t take a class in shorthand, once the domain of secretaries and executive assistants, but maybe they should. That almost-lost art in the age of computers could come in very handy during intense note-taking sessions. Elaborate shorthand systems do exist, but you would be better served in your college note-taking adventures to hone a more familiar, personalized form of shorthand to help you write more in a shorter amount of time. Seemingly insignificant shortcuts can add up to ease the stress note-taking can induce—especially if you ever encounter an “I’m not going to repeat this” kind of presenter! Become familiar with these useful abbreviations:

Shortcut symbol	Meaning
w/, w/o, w/in	with, without, within
&	and
#	number
b/c	because
X, √	incorrect, correct
Diff	different, difference
etc.	and so on
ASAP	as soon as possible
US, UK	United States, United Kingdom
info	information
Measurements: ft, in, k, m	foot, inch, thousand, million
¶	paragraph or new paragraph
Math symbols: =, +, >, <, ÷	equal, plus, greater, less, divided by
WWI, WWII	World Wars I and II
impt	important
?, !, **	denote something is very significant; don't over use

See the table above for examples of common shorthand symbols and abbreviations. Do you have any other shortcuts or symbols that you use in your notes? Ask your parents if they remember any that you may be able to learn.

Annotating Notes After the Initial Note-Taking Session

Annotating notes after the initial note-taking session may be one of the most valuable study skills you can master. Whether you are highlighting, underlining, or adding additional notes, you are reinforcing the material in your mind and memory.

Admit it—who can resist highlighting markers? Gone are the days when yellow was the star of the show, and you had to be very careful not to press too firmly for fear of obliterating the words you were attempting to emphasize. Students now have a veritable rainbow of highlighting options and can color-code notes and text passages to their hearts’ content.

The only reason to highlight anything is to draw attention to it, so you can easily pick out that ever-so-important information later for further study or reflection. One problem many students have is not knowing when to stop. If what you need to recall from the passage is a particularly apt and succinct definition of the term important to your discipline, highlighting the entire paragraph is less effective than highlighting just the actual term. And if you don’t rein in this tendency to color long passages (possibly in multiple colors) you can end up with a whole page of highlighted text. Ironically, that is no different from a page that is not highlighted at all, so you have wasted your time. Your mantra for highlighting text should be less is more . Always read your text selection first before you start highlighting anything. You need to know what the overall message is before you start placing emphasis in the text with highlighting.

Another way to annotate notes after initial note-taking is underlining significant words or passages. Albeit not quite as much fun as its colorful cousin highlighting, underlining provides precision to your emphasis.

Some people think of annotations as only using a colored highlighter to mark certain words or phrases for emphasis. Actually, annotations can refer to anything you do with a text to enhance it for your particular use (either a printed text, handwritten notes, or other sort of document you are using to learn concepts). The annotations may include highlighting passages or vocabulary, defining those unfamiliar terms once you look them up, writing questions in the margin of a book, underlining or circling key terms, or otherwise marking a text for future reference. You can also annotate some electronic texts.

Realistically, you may end up doing all of these types of annotations at different times. We know that repetition in studying and reviewing is critical to learning, so you may come back to the same passage and annotate it separately. These various markings can be invaluable to you as a study guide and as a way to see the evolution of your learning about a topic. If you regularly begin a reading session writing down any questions you may have about the topic of that chapter or section and also write out answers to those questions at the end of the reading selection, you will have a good start to what that chapter covered when you eventually need to study for an exam. At that point, you likely will not have time to reread the entire selection especially if it is a long reading selection, but with strong annotations in conjunction with your class notes, you won’t need to do that. With experience in reading discipline-specific texts and writing essays or taking exams in that field, you will know better what sort of questions to ask in your annotations.

What you have to keep in the front of your mind while you are annotating, especially if you are going to conduct multiple annotation sessions, is to not overdo whatever method you use. Be judicious about what you annotate and how you do it on the page, which means you must be neat about it. Otherwise, you end up with a mess of either color or symbols combined with some cryptic notes that probably took you quite a long time to create, but won’t be worth as much to you as a study aid as they could be. This is simply a waste of time and effort.

You cannot eat up every smidgen of white space on the page writing out questions or summaries and still have a way to read the original text. If you are lucky enough to have a blank page next to the beginning of the chapter or section you are annotating, use this, but keep in mind that when you start writing notes, you aren’t exactly sure how much space you’ll need. Use a decipherable shorthand and write only what you need to convey the meaning in very small print. If you are annotating your own notes, you can make a habit of using only one side of the paper in class, so that if you need to add more notes later, you could use the other side. You can also add a blank page to your notes before beginning the next class date in your notebook so you’ll end up with extra paper for annotations when you study.

Professional resources may come with annotations that can be helpful to you as you work through the various documentation requirements you’ll encounter in college as well. Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab ( OWL ) provides an annotated sample for how to format a college paper according to guidelines in the Modern Language Association (MLA) manual that you can see, along with other annotations.

Providing Needed Additional Explanations to Notes

Consider this scenario: Marlon was totally organized and ready to take notes in a designated course notebook at the beginning of every philosophy class session. He always dated his page and indicated what the topic of discussion was. He had various colored highlighters ready to denote the different note purposes he had defined: vocabulary in pink, confusing concepts in green, and note sections that would need additional explanations later in yellow. He also used his own shorthand and an impressive array of symbols to indicate questions (red question mark), highly probable test material (he used a tiny bomb exploding here), additional reading suggestions, and specific topics he would ask his instructor before the next class. Doing everything so precisely, Marlon’s methods seemed like a perfect example of how to take notes for success. Inevitably though, by the end of the hour-and-a-half class session, Marlon was frantically switching between writing tools, near to tears, and scouring his notes as waves of yellow teased him with uncertainty. What went wrong?

As with many of us who try diligently to do everything we know how to do for success or what we think we know because we read books and articles on success in between our course work, Marlon is suffering from trying to do too much simultaneously. It’s an honest mistake we can make when we are trying to save a little time or think we can multitask and kill two birds with one stone.

Unfortunately, this particular error in judgment can add to your stress level exponentially if you don’t step back and see it for what it is. Marlon attempted to take notes in class as well as annotate his notes to get them ready for his test preparation. It was too much to do at one time, but even if he could have done all those things during class, he’s missing one critical point about note-taking.

As much as we may want to hurry and get it over with, note-taking in class is just the beginning. Your instructor likely gave you a pre-class assignment to read or complete before coming to that session. The intention of that preparatory lesson is for you to come in with some level of familiarity for the topic under consideration and questions of your own. Once you’re in class, you may also need to participate in a group discussion, work with your classmates, or perform some other sort of lesson-directed activity that would necessarily take you away from taking notes. Does that mean you should ignore taking notes for that day? Most likely not. You may just need to indicate in your notes that you worked on a project or whatever other in-class event you experienced that date.

Very rarely in a college classroom will you engage in an activity that is not directly related to what you are studying in that course. Even if you enjoyed every minute of the class session and it was an unusual format for that course, you still need to take some notes. Maybe your first note could be to ask yourself why you think the instructor used that unique teaching strategy for the class that day. Was it effective? Was it worth using the whole class time? How will that experience enhance what you are learning in that course?

If you use an ereader or ebooks to read texts for class or read articles from the Internet on your laptop or tablet, you can still take effective notes. Depending on the features of your device, you have many choices. Almost all electronic reading platforms allow readers to highlight and underline text. Some devices allow you to add a written text in addition to marking a word or passage that you can collect at the end of your note-taking session. Look into the specific tools for your device and learn how to use the features that allow you to take notes electronically. You can also find apps on devices to help with taking notes, some of which you may automatically have installed when you buy the product. Microsoft’s OneNote, Google Keep, and the Notes feature on phones are relatively easy to use, and you may already have free access to those.

Taking Notes on Non-Text Items (i.e., Tables, Maps, Figures, etc.)

You may also encounter situations as you study and read textbooks, primary sources, and other resources for your classes that are not actually texts. You can still take notes on maps, charts, graphs, images, and tables, and your approach to these non-text features is similar to when you prepare to take notes over a passage of text. For example, if you are looking at the following map, you may immediately come up with several questions. Or it may initially appear overwhelming. Start by asking yourself these questions:

Who is the intended audience?
Where is it?
What time period does it depict?
What does the map’s legend (the explanation of symbols) include?
What other information do I need to make sense of this map?

You may want to make an extra copy of a graphic or table before you add annotations if you are dealing with a lot of information. Making sense of all the elements will take time, and you don’t want to add to the confusion.

Returning to Your Notes

Later, as soon as possible after the class, you can go back to your notes and add in missing parts. Just as you may generate questions as you’re reading new material, you may leave a class session or lecture or activities with many questions. Write those down in a place where they won’t get lost in all your other notes.

The exact timing of when you get back to the notes you take in class or while you are reading an assignment will vary depending on how many other classes you have or what other obligations you have in your daily schedule. A good starting place that is also easy to remember is to make every effort to review your notes within 24 hours of first taking them. Longer than that and you are likely to have forgotten some key features you need to include; must less time than that, and you may not think you need to review the information you so recently wrote down, and you may postpone the task too long.

Use your phone or computer to set reminders for all your note review sessions so that it becomes a habit and you keep on top of the schedule.

Your personal notes play a significant role in your test preparation. They should enhance how you understand the lessons, textbooks, lab sessions, and assignments. All the time and effort you put into first taking the notes and then annotating and organizing the notes will be for naught if you do not formulate an effective and efficient way to use them before sectional exams or comprehensive tests.

The whole cycle of reading, note-taking in class, reviewing and enhancing your notes, and preparing for exams is part of a continuum you ideally will carry into your professional life. Don’t try to take short cuts; recognize each step in the cycle as a building block. Learning doesn’t end, which shouldn’t fill you with dread; it should help you recognize that all this work you’re doing in the classroom and during your own study and review sessions is ongoing and cumulative. Practicing effective strategies now will help you be a stronger professional.

What resources can you find about reading and note-taking that will actually help you with these crucial skills? How do you go about deciding what resources are valuable for improving your reading and note-taking skills?

The selection and relative value of study guides and books about note-taking vary dramatically. Ask your instructors for recommendations and see what the library has available on this topic. The following list is not comprehensive, but will give you a starting point for books and articles on note-taking in college.

College Rules!: How to Study, Survive, and Succeed in College, by Sherri Nist-Olejnik and Jodi Patrick Holschuh. More than just note-taking, this book covers many aspects of transitioning into the rigors of college life and studying.
Effective Note-taking, by Fiona McPherson. This small volume has suggestions for using your limited time wisely before, during, and after note-taking sessions.
How to Study in College, by Walter Pauk. This is the book that introduced Pauk’s note-taking suggestions we now call the Cornell Method. It is a bit dated (from the 1940s), but still contains some valuable information.
Learn to Listen, Listen to Learn 2: Academic Listening and Note-taking, by Roni S. Lebauer. The main point of this book is to help students get the most from college lectures by watching for clues to lecture organization and adapting this information into strong notes.
Study Skills: Do I Really Need this Stuff? by Steve Piscitelli. Written in a consistently down-to-earth manner, this book will help you with the foundations of strong study skills, including time management, effective note-taking, and seeing the big picture.
"What Reading Does for the Mind" , by Anne Cunningham and Keith Stanovich, 1998, https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/cunningham.pdf
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading, by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, 1940.
Short- and Long-Term Effects of a Novel on Connectivity in the Brain, by Gregory S. Berns, Kristina Blaine, Michael J. Prietula, and Brandon E. Pye. https://doi.org/10.1089/brain.2013.0166

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Authors: Amy Baldwin
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Book title: Preparing for College Success
Publication date: Jul 12, 2023
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Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/preparing-for-college-success/pages/1-introduction
Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/preparing-for-college-success/pages/4-4-helpful-note-taking-strategies

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Note-taking tools and tips

This blog entry is part of a series of topical Practice-Oriented Literature Overviews written by the HILT Research Fellows.

by Michael C. Friedman

Good note-taking practices can potentially make the difference between efficient study behaviors, better course outcomes, and even retention of course content beyond a course’s conclusion. Unfortunately, many students are unaware of the benefits of effective note-taking on their learning and the importance of cultivating their note-taking skills over the course of their education.

Notes on note-taking: Review of research and insights for students and instructors reviews the existing research on note-taking and makes recommendations for both students and instructors:

For students:

Avoid transcribing notes (writing every word the instructor says) in favor of writing notes in your own words.
Review your notes the same day you created them and then on a regular basis, rather than cramming review into one long study session immediately prior to an exam.
Test yourself on the content of your notes either by using flashcards or using methodology from Cornell Notes . Testing yourself helps you identify what you do not yet know from your notes, and successful recall of tested information improves your ability to recall that information later (you will be less likely to forget it).
Carefully consider whether to take notes on pen and paper or with a laptop. There are costs and benefits to either option.
We are often misled to believe that we know lecture content better than we actually do, which can lead to poor study decisions. Avoid this misperception at all costs!

For instructors:

Explain your course policies regarding note-taking at the start of the semester (Do you allow laptops? Do you provide slides to students before or after class?). Point to the literature/research and your own experience to support your policies.
Prior to lecture, provide students with materials so that they become familiar with main ideas or topics. This will help students identify the important concepts during class and take selective notes (however, avoid giving students so much material that they elect poor study behaviors such as relying on materials instead of attending class and taking notes).
Encourage students to take notes in their own words rather than record every word you say in class. Doing so will lead to deeper understanding during lecture, more student engagement in class, and better retention of course content.
Make connections between current and previously discussed course concepts, and encourage students to make such connections on their own. Doing so will help students retrieve related ideas when they are needed (i.e., during an exam) and assist your students in identifying relationships they would have otherwise missed.

View the discussion thread.

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Note-taking: A Research Roundup

September 9, 2018

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Listen to this post as a podcast:

First, Let’s Talk About Lectures

When we think about note-taking, it’s natural to assume a context of lecture-based lessons. And yes, that is one common scenario when a student is likely to take notes. But other learning experiences also lend themselves to note-taking: Watching videos in a flipped or blended environment, reading assigned textbook chapters or handouts, doing research for a project, and going on field trips can all be opportunities for taking notes.

So instead of referring to lectures in this overview, I’ll just talk about learning experiences or intake sessions—times when students are absorbing content or skills through some sort of medium, as opposed to purely applying that content or synthesizing it into some kind of product. Even in student-centered, project-driven classrooms where students pursue their own authentic tasks like the Apollo School , or in more traditional classrooms that set aside time for Genius Hour projects, students need to gather, encode, and store information, so note-taking would still be a fit.

What the Research Says About Note-Taking

1. note-taking matters..

Whether it’s taking notes from lectures (Kiewra, 2002) or from reading (Rahmani & Sadeghi, 2011; Chang & Ku, 2014), note-taking has been shown to improve student learning. In other words, if we want our students to remember more of what they learn in our classes, it’s better to have them take notes than it is to not have them take notes.

The thinking behind this is that note-taking requires effort. Rather than passively taking information in, the act of encoding the information into words or pictures forms new pathways in the brain, which stores it more firmly in long-term memory. On top of that, having the information stored in a new place gives students the opportunity to revisit it later and reinforce the learning that happened the first time around.

So if you’re not currently having students take notes in your class, consider adding note-taking to your regular classroom routine. With that said, a number of other factors can influence the potency of a student’s note-taking, and that is what these other points will address.

2. More is better.

Although students are often encouraged to keep notes brief, it turns out that in general, the more notes students take, the more information they tend to remember later. The quantity of notes is directly related to how much information students retain (Nye, Crooks, Powley, & Tripp, 1984).

This would be useful to share with students. If they know that more complete notes will result in better learning, they may be more likely to record additional information in their notes, rather than striving for brevity.

Obviously, some students are going to be faster note-takers than others, and this will allow them to take more complete notes. But you can do quite a bit to help all students get more information into their notes, regardless of their natural speed, and that’s what we’ll talk about next.

3. Explicitly teaching note-taking strategies can make a difference.

Although some students seem to have an intuitive sense for what notes to record, for everyone else, getting trained in specific note-taking strategies can significantly improve the quality of notes and the amount of material they remember later. (Boyle, 2013; Rahmani & Sadeghi, 2011; Robin, Foxx, Martello, & Archable, 1977). This is especially true for students with learning disabilities.

One frequently used note-taking system is Cornell Notes . This approach has been around for decades, and the format provides a simple way to take “live” notes in class and condense and review them later.

4. Adding visuals boosts the power of notes.

Compared with writing alone, adding drawings to notes to represent concepts, terms, and relationships has a significant effect on memory and learning (Wammes, Meade, & Fernandes, 2016).

The growing popularity of sketchnoting in recent years suggests that teachers are well on their way to taking advantage of this research.

This video combines sketchnoting with Cornell Notes, and it’s an approach I think is definitely worth considering.

To explore sketchnoting more deeply, check out this list of sketchnoting resources compiled by celebrated education sketchnote artist Sylvia Duckworth .

5. Revision, collaboration, and pausing boosts the power of notes.

When students are given the opportunity to revise, add to, or rewrite their notes, they tend to retain more information. And when that revision happens during deliberate pauses in a lecture or other learning experience, students remember the information better and take better notes than if the revision happens after the learning experience is over. Finally, if students collaborate on this revision with partners, they record even more complete notes and score higher on post-tests (Luo, Kiewra, & Samuelson, 2016).

With this in mind, it would be a good idea to plan breaks in lectures, videos, or independent reading periods to allow students to look over, add to, and revise their notes, ideally with a partner or small group. This partner work could happen after students have had time to revise their notes alone, or students might be given access to classmates for the duration of the pause.

6. Scaffolding increases retention.

Teachers can build scaffolds into their instruction to ensure that students take better notes. One very effective type of scaffold is guided notes (also called skeleton or skeletal notes). With guided notes, the instructor provides some type of outline of the material to be covered, but with space left for students to complete key information. This strategy has been shown to substantially increase student achievement across all grade levels (elementary through college) and with students who present with various disabilities (Haydon, Mancil, Kroeger, McLeskey, & Lin, 2011).

As instructors experiment with guided notes, certain features show a lot of promise. One that I found incredibly interesting was a style developed by engineering professor Susan Reynolds to accompany her lectures: The notes combine typed information, handwritten content, and graphics, but still leave room for student notes and working out example problems.

Diagrams are pre-drawn, but some key numbers are left out for students to fill in during the lecture. These notes consolidate all the technical material for a lecture into a single document, and the information is organized to align with the lecture. The more I study these notes, the more I see how useful they are, and how well they balance the efficiency offered by guided notes with the need for students to actively participate in the encoding process.

Reynolds’ students have had strong positive reactions to this style of notes and consistently attribute the notes as a key factor in their engagement and learning in the course (Reynolds & Tackie, 2016).

While teachers should experiment with different styles, the take-away here is that if you want students to get the most out of a learning experience, provide them with some form of partially completed notes.

In the meantime, you can add another layer of scaffolding by simply adding more verbal cues to your learning experiences (Kiewra, 2002). Research shows that simply saying things like, “This is an important point,” or “Be sure to add this to your notes,” instructors can ensure that students include key ideas in their notes. Providing written cues on the board or a slideshow can also help students structure their notes and decide what information to include.

7. Providing instructor notes improves learning.

In an article I wrote a few years ago, I denounced instructor-prepared notes as an ineffective method for teaching , primarily because encoding this information required no effort from students and therefore made the learning too passive.

Although I stand by the assertion that we should avoid simply supplying students with notes, I need to refine the message: Research has shown that when we give students complete, well-written, instructor-prepared notes to review after they take their own notes, they learn significantly more than with their own notes alone (Kiewra, 1985).

If we combine this strategy with student revision, collaboration, and pausing to improve note-taking and learning—in other words, having students pause during an intake session to collaboratively revise their notes, then let them review instructor notes at the end—we can give our students an incredibly powerful learning experience.

One concern is that providing notes might make students more passive about taking their own notes during the learning experience. Here are some suggestions for addressing that:

Assigning a small grade for student notes would likely compel most students to do them, but this could distort the validity of a grade , as we discussed in another post.
It would probably be more effective to simply build note-taking into the class activities. For example, if students are encouraged to take notes, and then they are given a pause every few minutes to compare and revise notes, it would be pretty awkward for them to turn to a partner and have nothing to contribute.
Sharing the research with students that those taking notes then revising them with instructor notes has greater impact than instructor notes alone might push students to take more notes.
Allowing students to choose a note-taking format that works best for them would also boost student motivation for taking the notes.

8. Handwritten notes may be more powerful than digital notes, but digital note-taking can be fine-tuned.

Studies have shown that students who take notes by hand learn more than those who take notes on a laptop (Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2014; Carter, Greenberg, & Walker, 2017).

This research confirms what a number of educators suspect about the negative effects of digital devices in the classroom, and some have taken it to mean they should definitely ban laptops from their lectures (Dynarski, 2017). Others argue that prohibiting laptop use robs students of the opportunity to develop metacognitive awareness of their own levels of distraction and make the appropriate adjustments (Holland, 2017).

Because technology is always changing, and because as a species, we are still adjusting to these new formats, I would hesitate to ban laptops from the classroom. Here’s why:

Research on this topic is still pretty young: Some researchers have found no significant difference in performance between paper-based and digital note-takers (Artz, Johnson, Robson, & Taengnoi, 2017). My guess is that more research will pile up and get more refined, so we should take a measured approach for the time being.
Other researchers are looking at ways to reduce some of the problems associated with digital note-taking, like distraction: One study found that while doing online research, students who used matrix-style notes and were given time limits were much less likely to become distracted by other online material than students without those conditions (Wu, & Xie, 2018).
I believe we serve our students better by helping them find a note-taking system that works best for them. With that in mind, I would be more likely to have students experiment with hand-written and digital notes, share the research with them, and give them opportunities to reflect on and measure their results.

See What Other Teachers are Doing

To learn more about what other teachers have found to be most effective note-taking methods, I put the call out on Twitter, asking teachers to share what works for them. You can browse that conversation here .

Artz, B., Johnson, M., Robson, D., & Taengnoi, S. (2017). Note-taking in the digital age: Evidence from classroom random control trials. http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3036455

Boyle, J. R. (2013). Strategic note-taking for inclusive middle school science classrooms. Remedial and Special Education, 34 (2), 78-90. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0741932511410862

Carter, S. P., Greenberg, K., & Walker, M. S. (2017). The impact of computer usage on academic performance: Evidence from a randomized trial at the United States Military Academy. Economics of Education Review, 56, 118-132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2016.12.005

Chang, W., & Ku, Y. (2014). The effects of note-taking skills instruction on elementary students’ reading. The Journal of Educational Research, 108 (4), 278–291. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2014.886175

Dynarski, S. (2017). For Note Taking, Low-Tech is Often Best. Retrieved from https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/17/08/note-taking-low-tech-often-best

Haydon, T., Mancil, G.R., Kroeger, S.D., McLeskey, J., & Lin, W.J. (2011). A review of the effectiveness of guided notes for students who struggle learning academic content. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 55 (4), 226-231. http://doi.org/10.1080/1045988X.2010.548415

Holland, B. (2017). Note taking editorials – groundhog day all over again. Retrieved from http://brholland.com/note-taking-editorials-groundhog-day-all-over-again/

Kiewra, K.A. (1985). Providing the instructor’s notes: an effective addition to student notetaking. Educational Psychologist, 20 (1), 33-39. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep2001_5

Kiewra, K.A. (2002). How classroom teachers can help students learn and teach them how to learn. Theory into Practice, 41 (2), 71-80. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4102_3

Luo, L., Kiewra, K.A. & Samuelson, L. (2016). Revising lecture notes: how revision, pauses, and partners affect note taking and achievement. Instructional Science, 44 (1). 45-67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-016-9370-4

Mueller, P.A., & Oppenheimer, D.M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 25 (6), 1159-1168. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614524581

Nye, P.A., Crooks, T.J., Powley, M., & Tripp, G. (1984). Student note-taking related to university examination performance. Higher Education, 13 (1), 85-97. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00136532

Rahmani, M., & Sadeghi, K. (2011). Effects of note-taking training on reading comprehension and recall. The Reading Matrix, 11 (2). Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/85a8/f016516e61de663ac9413d9bec58fa07bccd.pdf

Reynolds, S.M., & Tackie, R.N. (2016). A novel approach to skeleton-note instruction in large engineering courses: Unified and concise handouts that are fun and colorful. American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, LA, June 26-29, 2016. Retrieved from https://www.asee.org/public/conferences/64/papers/15115/view

Robin, A., Foxx, R. M., Martello, J., & Archable, C. (1977). Teaching note-taking skills to underachieving college students. The Journal of Educational Research, 71 (2), 81-85. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.1977.10885042

Wammes, J.D., Meade, M.E., & Fernandes, M.A. (2016). The drawing effect: Evidence for reliable and robust memory benefits in free recall. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69 (9). http://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2015.1094494

Wu, J. Y., & Xie, C. (2018). Using time pressure and note-taking to prevent digital distraction behavior and enhance online search performance: Perspectives from the load theory of attention and cognitive control. Computers in Human Behavior, 88, 244-254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.07.008

What to Read Next

Categories: Instruction , Learning Theory , Podcast

Tags: learning & memory , teaching strategies

68 Comments

What grade should note taking begin? Middle school? Upper elementary? 🤔🤔

I have the same question. I teach gr 3 and am trying to think of ways to incorporate this into our class.

And THANK-YOU for consolidating all the research for us here! This website is my go-to source for research-backed, teaching best-practice info.

I’ve done some of this in grade 3! For example, we watched a video and I asked them to jot down what they noticed. We’d recently done some mind mapping so I suggested they do it in that format. Then I asked them to share what they had noticed and we made a mind map together, with students adding anything they had missed (wherever they felt it fit best).

Hi, Joyous! I love that you’re asking this question. What about 1st grade? Kids love to write and doodle, right? As a former 1st grade teacher, all throughout the day, I provided tons of opportunities for kids to record their thinking. They were writing, doodling, drawing arrows, labeling, captioning … doing all that stuff that we want them to do when showing understanding. Of course, this came with a lot of scaffolding, modeling, and direct teaching. I think sketchnoting is perhaps the most natural way to get kids started. Here’s a specific activity I did at the end of the year that some might say was a science lesson, others a reading lesson, and others a writing lesson. I say it was all that and more. My real intention was to teach a learning process: 1. Listen to just get familiar with the content. 2. Listen again, this time really visualizing the content. Draw, write, label what you understand. 3. Listen again and fix or change. The tool we used was a Scholastic News issue that happened to coincide with our weather unit. (I read it aloud, one section at a time.) Here’s a link to 4 samples of student work. In case you’re wondering, one of the samples is from an ELL student, another from a struggling student and another from a gifted student. Several note-taking strategies were part of this lesson: sketchnoting, revision, pausing, scaffolding, and shout-outs, which I considered a form of collaboration. While kids were sketching and revising, I saw some really neat things happening, that I’d just shout out. For example, “Hey, if anybody’s interested, I’m noticing Johnny is numbering the different stages. See if that’s something that will work for you.” I’ll be honest. I did this lesson 3 years ago and at the time, I didn’t even think of it as notetaking. Then Jenn’s post helped me realize that note-taking, that thing I hated most growing up (almost as much as I hated liver and onions for dinner) was actually something I was teaching my 1st graders. Not only could they do it, but they enjoyed it…and the learning really did stick. Hope this helps!

I think note taking should start in middle school.

note taking should begin at the earliest time possible. If there is time in elementary school then good. Does vocabulary count as note taking. I mean remembering how to spell is important.

kindergarten

I think note taking should start from elementary.

Thank you for consolidating the research. You’ve given me a lot to think about.

“Whether it’s taking notes from lectures (Kiewra, 2002) or from reading (Rahmani & Sadeghi, 2011; Chang & Ku, 2014), note-taking has been shown to improve student learning. In other words, if we want our students to remember more of what they learn in our classes, it’s better to have them take notes than it is to not have them take notes.”

Does it improve student “learning” or “retention”? I think there is definitely power in taking notes but does this actually look at deep understanding of a concept and application or retention and regurgitation? Would love to know your thoughts.

Thanks for sharing this! So much great stuff 🙂

Hey George,

I think we can define “learning” in a lot of different ways. If students are only consuming information, recording it, and then regurgitating it, but never applying it in any authentic way, then it’s questionable whether they are really learning it.

On the other hand, without consuming actual information and ideas that have been put out into the world by others, students will be limited in how far their application can go. I can think of all kinds of examples, but I’ll use myself here:

When I wanted to create a podcast, I watched a lot of YouTube videos and read a lot of articles that taught me how to do it. I took notes. Lots of them. Messy at first, but then I rewrote and reorganized them so they were more useful to me later. I watched some of the videos more than once and revised my notes. Then, as I practiced with all the technical elements of audio recording and editing, I referred back to those notes. The learning was an interplay between intake, processing (note-taking), and application. If any of those parts were missing, I think the learning would suffer.

Thank you for the useful information!

Loved this. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how to teach my kids with special needs how to do notes, and I loved how you covered scaffolded notes and the digital issue. This is just amazing.

I saw Daniel Willingham, a widely respected educational researcher, present on this topic a year or so ago. This post by him is a good summary and also points to some research studies that you didn’t include. Enjoy, everyone! https://tinyurl.com/ycxtk4rf

Thanks so much, Angela!

A very important issue in note taking is the distinction learning from taking notes and using notes to learn. These processes are distinct and very different issues can be important with each. If notes are not used for review, some learners would be better off note taking notes. Note review does not necessarily depend on the learner taking notes.

What a great resource on how to make note-taking an integral part of our classroom. I am planning on using a few TED talk videos in my 9th and 11th grade English classes, and this has helped me think about how to have the students taking notes in a much more scaffolded way for their learning.

Thank you, Jennifer, for such a useful and thoughtful post. I’ve just translated it to Portuguese to share with my colleagues and oldest students at my school. Your writings have already inspired my teaching so many times! Ines

Thank you for that wonderful summary. I was looking for ways to introduce note-taking for my fourth graders. This gave me tons of info. Thank you 😊

Great post! I’m wondering if you have any handy-dandy “how to take notes” mini-courses like the plagiarism one you created? I bought that one and love it! Thanks for all of your hard work and your honesty. It shines through in your podcasts.

I have been thinking about doing one…It’s just not made yet!

I’ve used Cornell notetaking for many years now. And I’ve added a column on the right to place visuals. And like Doug Neill, I’ve observed some of my high school students using the visuals on their tests! I’ve given them extra points for using them. I’m excited to use more visuals this year!Great info. Thanks

The age-old tradition of note-taking with a few more research based findings made this podcast truly interesting, and for that, Jenn needs to be complimented for preparing and sharing such an important part of learning at all academic levels. As a high school teacher of 30+ years, I have always encouraged my students to take notes at all time, having a notebook open and ready to go- write, draw, doodle, something. I do give them ideas on how to be a great note-taker! I kept my hand-written notes for years (depending on my need for them in high school, undergraduate, and then graduate school) I even have years of notes as a teacher and I always feel that adding or editing newer versions has been fun and has brought new meaning to teaching. With changes coming along with 21st-century learning, it is always good to blend the old and the new… thank you Jenn for bringing new light to this tradition. Cheers.

Hi Jennifer,

Thank you so much for sharing your finds. I am curious to hear your thoughts about taking notes in a proficiency/ci based world language classroom. I provide the students with visuals and specific phrases in context for comprehension purposes. I have strayed away from traditional practices in the language classroom, and therefore having the students sit for 20-25 minutes taking notes is not a reality in my classroom.

Thanks! Kia

Hi Kia ~ I’m not familiar with the methods you’re describing. I found something about Comprehensible Input in language learning, but I’m not sure if that’s right. Also, the description I read didn’t make much sense. If you could explain the process a bit more, that would help.

With that said, what I’m trying to get across in this post is about the value of note-taking in general, and in some classrooms, that might mean just a few notes every couple of days. It wouldn’t have to be 20-25 minutes of solid note-taking. In your class, do students take in any information that they might remember better by writing it down? If so, and if they don’t currently have any strategies for doing that, you might consider building it into your class time.

I love the information on scaffolding and guided notes! I see so much value and potential in that to help kids get the value of note taking even if thier natural aptitude is poor in this area.

Do you have any suggestions on how students who struggle with note taking like my daughter who is dyslexic, as well as been diagnosed with DCD (developmental coordination disorder) can modify note taking so they can gain the benefit of the process without using all available focus and attention on it, and losing out on the greater information because they are struggling with writing and spelling?

Hi Angela ~

I have a couple of suggestions: (1) Guided notes are especially helpful for students who don’t take notes quickly. If her teachers are willing/able to provide skeletal notes where more is already written down and your daughter just fills in key information, it would really benefit her. (2) She could be paired with another student in class who takes good notes and sit beside that student, watching as the notes are built and even suggesting additions or changes as they are written. Then the notes could be copied (or shared digitally) for your daughter to use in her own studies. (3) She could make audio recordings of lectures and listen later so she can add to the notes she took during class. Using something like a Livescribe Pen would even tie her written notes in with specific parts of the audio.

This collection looks like it would have some more in-depth suggestions.

Hope this helps!

Thanks so much for this, already shared with all my HS classes with appropriate emphasis of course. I find assigning a simple grade that is reviewed regularly helps with motivation 1-3 dependent on the level of engagement/reflection. On the point of handwritten v typed notes, I’m so tired of hearing this argument trotted out, a close reading of the research shows that the issue is not the medium, but the method; ie are they mindlessly transcribing, or actively summarising/reflecting/questioning? When taught the latter, then the medium used is irrelevant, the bigger issue—as your post so effectively highlights—is that note taking is rarely actually taught (like the skill of summarising and paraphrasing) it’s assumed that it’s an automatic talent… For those that are interested in a more critical consideration of the research around typing and note taking, please see my post here: http://doverdlc.blogspot.com/2016/04/typing-vs-writing.html

Thanks for sharing this, Sean.

Just an update for you. In the months since we revisited note taking with renewed vigour inspired by your article, it’s been reassuring to see how effective this practice is. But I have to say my thoughts in handwritten v digital have deepened as a result… I LOVE the wise/nuanced position you take in this post, but FWIW, here’s what I’m noticing with my HS students, who all use digital notes:

I’m a ‘tech coach’ and developed a model I call SAMMS to facilitate ways to help teachers move their use of digital tools from replacement to transformative (RAT) or Substitution to Transformation (SAMR). Applying that model to note taking, looks like this :

Notes that are situated: read, update, edit from anywhere, any device, any time, any place that suits you. Very difficult to lose notes this way as well.

Notes that leverage internet access: links to web resources, clarify information, add quotes, definition of terms. Notes are searchable, this alone is a game changer.

Multimodal notes: inclusion of rich media, eg image, video, voice notes…

Notes that are mutable: revisit notes and make edits/updates, especially as your perceptions/understanding evolves over time.

Social: share notes with a partner and peer/pair share. Notes shared with a teacher facilitate accountability, but also the possibility of feedback by the teacher. (This has been amazing, I learn as much from the content of their notes, as I do from any assignment they do, probably more… BTW I do grade these 1-3 just to indicate level of engagement, based on this article in fact, eg more detail, more personal!) … So if you exploit SAMMS then digital note taking is a no brainer, but combining strategies works well too, eg take notes by hand, in real time, very short hand, then type/dictate them up and add detail later; this also acts as a great opportunity to reflect, revisit, consolidate.

Hey Sean, Thanks for taking the time to share this strategy-it seems to be making an impact!

I loved your video. Great ideas I plan to try with my Aspire/GED class. Thank you.

Great to hear, Paul! I’ll be sure Jenn sees this.

Thanks for this great post & reminder. I was just needing to add formal textbook kind of learning to what students learned in a hands-on lab. Using some of your points, I hand-drew an interactive notetaking guide to the chapter that might have resembled a treasure hunt more than note-taking. After using it with 8th graders the past 2 days, I can tell you that it was more effective.

I did a little variation on the pause/reflect step. I had them do that and then collected and redistributed all the papers. Everyone had a someone else’s paper. They read thru the paper and concentrated on their recap summaries. We talked about what they noticed, what was good & what could be improved. THEN we talked about how a coach tells players how to improve on something without being “mean”. They wrote a note for improvement on the paper and briefly explained it.

And then each person got their original paper back…decided how much of the suggested improvement was valid and I gave them time to make an improvement. Especially encouraging them to make a judgment about whether the suggestion was worthy of doing or if they could customize it even better.

I will tell you that between the highlighters, colored pencils, recaps, suggestions for improvements and class pauses (which I call Hey Wait a Minutes)….it went 1,000,000% better.

Thanks for your suggestions and good ideas.

Yay! This is great to hear — thank for sharing, Marsha!

Wow — so much good stuff here. I bet your students loved it, too. Thanks for sharing this!

Do you have an example of this? This sounds engaging.

This podcast couldn’t have come at a better time. Starting next week, I’m attempting a note-taking portfolio for the semester that I’m really excited about.

I teach ESL to international students at a university. We’ve done listening/note-taking practice with pre-recorded lectures and an open-notes comprehension test at the end, but its inauthenticity has always driven me crazy.

So, I made my students buy Rocketbook Everlast notebooks and Frixion Pens (not an ad, I promise) in lieu of a textbook. They will have to have take notes in their major grad/undergrad classes, then submit compile their notes into a .pdf – easy to do with these notebooks – and submit them weekly/biweekly. I’ll be giving small amounts of feedback and adding criteria based on different learning theory (ex: try dual coding/sketchnotes, or Cornell notes, etc…). My hope is that this will create buy-in and accountability, while also helping them by successful in their other class. Fingers-crossed!

Thank you for all you do. Even though I’m not your typical audience, your work has been a huge inspiration! A tech-loving, graphic-designing creative who’s serious about innovation and best practices in teaching? It ticks all my boxes. 🙂

Thanks so much for sharing this, Natalie!

I love this task… but it seems a bit long.

I find Handwritting my notes more beneficial, because I can remember what I’ve written, it’s like instant mental picture in my head of words I’ve wrote, or maybe… I don’t know, just maybe I’m too “old school”. 🙂

Hi Jennifer. Thank you so much for this episode. I needed to get a clear idea of research on note taking. That being said I must express that I am frustrated at the results.

I don’t mean any criticism to you for what you’re reporting. Obviously, the results of these studies are in no way a fault of yours. Still, as a student with a learning disability who has struggled with note taking, as a student who is always the one who couldn’t get everything down even with the professors obviously pausing, I have to responsibly challenge these results.

At the same time, I don’t want to deny my bias in this matter because I struggle so hard. I feel like how many of the students I tutor in math must feel when they tell me they are bad at math. In most cases, I use Socratic method to teach them and they prove to me that they are not bad at math at all. I feel a similar disappointment that they feel for being bad at taking notes.

I don’t like notes. I don’t want to have to take notes. I don’t want to even feel pressured to take notes. With that said, I can think of a few scenarios where I would be happy regardless of note taking being a necessary part of a class.

The first scenario that comes to mind is in line with what you mentioned on this episode where teachers give their own notes. But I’m already beginning to stress out just at the thought of those notes being incomplete. The idea that I have to be paying attention at exactly the right moment to hear that one piece of information or else lose it forever is too much pressure.

The second scenario that comes to mind is is what I think could be ideal. If I were teaching class I would have my class connect with me on a single Google doc where I have information already written to some degree as a skeletal structure of what I’m going to teach but I let them collaboratively make a single set of notes together. The real magic of Google Docs isn’t just the collaboration Factor but the option 2 highlight a section of the material and comment with a question that has its own thread that can expand in dialogue with others just to figure out what does this mean?

Those are the real sorts of things that have helped me in my studies. Rather than being spoken at, I benefit from having an open dialogue where I can have a back and forth of asking questions until I understand what the teacher is trying to communicate. Most of my professors and teachers have felt too busy or too rushed to be able to handle the questions that I have. They even tell me that I have great questions but there’s never enough time for them… while the alternative is that there’s never enough time for me.

I’m going to keep reading through your sources and keep commenting and asking questions here so that I can hopefully get an idea of the best way where I can move forward. I appreciate any and all feedback and challenges to my own position that you’re willing to offer.

Steve, it sounds like you are a unique learner – but also that you understand what works best for you. (And what doesn’t.) As a high school teacher, I would recommend 1) Explaining to each teacher/professor what your needs are, and asking for permission to video. You would need to assure them that the video won’t be posted anywhere, or shared with anyone. I think many instructors who understand why you wish to have them will grant that permission, provided you don’t give them any reason to distrust you. 2) As you listen to the live lecture, write down your questions. Go to them after class/during office hours, and address those questions. It’s not that they don’t want to answer your during class, it’s simply a matter of time, as you mentioned. But office hours/after school provide a chance for you to get what you need, and at a pace that is more comfortable. 3) Ask if there is any way that you could get a snapshot of upcoming lectures so you have questions already formulated. So, you if know that next week the lecture is on Chapter 20, read it and send those questions beforehand to the teacher. Hopefully they can address those questions during their lecture, or they can reply to you via email. I do hope you find what works for you – keep at it!

On the subject of digital note taking, I have found that I can take notes as fast as my classmates if they are text only. The trouble comes first when there’s equations which isn’t so much a problem now because I’ve taught myself latex code to help with that. Then there’s the final problem that I haven’t really solved which is win I need to draw something like a graph. Unfortunately, I don’t have a device that can work with a stylus and everything I’ve tried drawing with a mouse takes too long to keep up with the notes.

One option that sometimes worked is taking pictures in class. I had the OneNote app linking to my notes on it but the software would often lag and be too slow to trust in the moment. If we simply switched to video lectures, I think that I would do a lot better because I can both listen at twice the speed of a normal lecture while also taking my time to write the notes and know that I covered everything that’s important when I’m done with the video. People keep telling me that some teachers let students record them on video but I haven’t met one such teacher yet.

Wow! This is quite interesting. My take home are: *Revision, collaboration and pausing boosts the power of notes. I have done this in time past but not intentionally. I understand now how helpful this will be to the learning process.

*Providing Instructor notes improves learning. This was my major focus before now but I would rather have my students put down their understanding first so that misconceptions can be addressed while right concepts are strengthened through collaboration before giving my own notes.

What do you think about pasting the instructor’s note in the student’s notebooks?

When discussing note taking, I find it useful to consider purpose. The classic distinction is the immediate goal of more active process and the long term goal of external storage (for study). This distinction is a great way to analyze issues such as access to distraction and the role of expert notes.

Hi Jennifer, Thanks for sharing your research on note-taking. I am a secondary teacher in Ontario. The course I teach is called Learning Strategies, which is to help students with “exceptionalities”, such as a Learning Disability or ADHD. I have been doing most of your proposed strategies in my class and you reaffirmed the important need based on research. My students are also in other subject classes and some have an accommodation (often related to grapho motor, processing, attention, or memory issues) for note-taking assistance or to be provided with copies of notes. Even with guided notes, the use of a computer, and copies of slides (provided before or after the lesson) many students struggle or resist trying to take notes. Nevermind revising notes, but the idea of doing it in class is important. Do you have any ideas (articles, contacts, strategies) that might be good for myself and my students to review? I suspect this is also a problem for post-secondary students.

Do you or any of your readers know of workshops (or conferences, or classes, etc.) that I could attend to learn more about teaching good note-taking using some or all of the strategies you address? Thank you in advance for any helpful suggestions you or others share.

Sylvia Duckworth offers some workshops and classes you might want to check out. That’s all I know of right now — hope it helps!

I think that more workshops and classes should be added because we all can learn something from deeper learning and note taking skills.

For years I have been using student centered notes in my class. Students are given a choice of note-taking methods. Examples are guided notes, cornell notes, sketch-notes and digital note-taking. Concept maps are also helpful tools.

Thank you for pointing out that there are multiple studies about notetaking that need to be considered. People don’t seem to notice that the Oppenheimer and Mueller study was done on students at Princeton- the outcomes may not be expected for everyone. Students with disabilities or poor working memory may still need computer access just to take effective notes. How does banning computers in a lecture help students that are differently abled? Here is a study that shows computers can help bridge that gap: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Note-taking-with-computers%3A-Exploring-alternative-Bui-Myerson/0352ed76cb27ff9b0edecfcf9556bc1e19756e9e

I agree with what John said about note taking. I usually do cloze notes but started doing electronic notes this year. seems to be working well for some students

Scaffolding is extremely important for special education students to effectively access the general education curriculum. I believe the same practice for this group of students should be implemented universally for all students.

As a first year teacher, reading about the benefits of guided notes was very reassuring. I teach 8th grade English and have a high percentage of students with special needs and who are English Language Learners. So I started out using guided notes for nearly every time they need to take notes. I adopted the practice with my other students as well, because they seem to benefit as well. I also want to make sure they have all of the information, and they take such a long time to write down everything (even if it’s honestly not that much). I try not to spend a lot of time “lecturing,” but if I’m stopping for upwards of 5 minutes for them to jot down a slide every few minutes, we lose so much time. Thank you again for this research and for all of the wonderful resources you provide!

First of all, let me say I really appreciate your blog/podcast. I don’t know where you find the time to research and pull this all together in such a concise and digestible manner. Thank you so much fo all that you do.

Now for some other thoughts. Please know that you are just the first of many educators and presenters who I’ll be commenting on. As educators and presenters, we have to stop using the phrases “THE research shows…” and “Research shows…” It makes us sound authoritative and backed up other authorities but it is disingenuous. Because “THE research” shows a lot of things. Even in math, medicine, and hard sciences there many disagreements in “THE research”. When my students say, “Research shows…” I always ask “which research?” This forces them to be more direct, honest, and identify the source of their research. I’m not saying you did this but we all are subject to confirmation bias and tend toward research that confirms our view of the world. Some of the studies you cited are several decades old. That alone doesn’t invalidate them but if they haven’t been replicated then we can not make definitive claims about the results. This we now know is true of a LOT of key research in my discipline, psychology. The lack of replication especially with different populations has called into question what we think we KNOW about human nature (or behavior and mental processes).

I think we would all be better off as educators and presenters when we say, “A study by…. backed by studies by….shows….” is far more accurate and genuine in the claims made. In this case, someone else can say, “But didn’t …. show the opposite result and wasn’t there some concern about …’s subject pool or use of xyz statistical method?” This opens us up to the opportunity for a more robust discussion of what “the research shows” and these various results might be applied.

I guess I’m just asking is for us to own our research and references and make it clear where we are getting the information from rather than stating “THE research shows…” This helps the voracity of intellectual debate and discovery as well as advances the inquiry. There’s a tendency to end the discussion when we say, “THE research shows…” as opposed to “According to research by ….”

Thanks again for the work you put in and the products you produce. One more suggestion for note-taking I might suggest is Kwik Notes by Jim Kwik. This technique is fast and simple yet powerful (at least to me) https://jimkwik.com/kwik-brain-013/

Cool site, not been here before. An interesting in depth article I will read in more detail.

Perfecting note taking as an art is essential to me. I find myself writing verbose digital journal entries and porting them over to Anki as a deck is ok but having to modify, break down, refactor the cards takes up half my revision time. I know this is part of encoding but I find my clunky note taking summarisation skills miss the mark and burn productivity time.

My goal is to be able to summarise points I read similar to using the Feynman technique, to be able to convey more with the minimal amount of concise info.

But anyhow thanks for this great resource, will be studying it and further aspect of your site in detail.

How do you recommend adapting these best practices for virtual school? Would you have students take notes digitally so teachers can check them, have students take notes on paper and take pictures of their notes that they upload, or just have students take notes and not have the teacher review them?

Hi Michelle! All of these are viable options, but I think it all depends on the end goal. If you want to see student notes, then I think giving them the choice to type or handwrite is valuable, just like the article mentions. Maybe consider doing this at first to see where students might need some direction and then leave it up to them? For digital notes, there are lots of apps to choose from if that’s a direction you can and want to take. You could check out Microsoft Onenote , something simpler like a shared Google Doc , or Kami if you want your students to annotate a PDF. To submit pictures beyond just emailing them to you, they could be pasted into Google Slides/Powerpoint.

Hi Jennifer – thank you for this. I found this all very helpful when putting together some activities together on note-taking for some new to HE students. Cheers!

I read with interest your document on note taking and the comments that followed. You have provided excellent guidance for a classroom in which is essentially lecture driven as you point out in your first paragraph. In this context notetaking is important because it makes a potentially passive learning environment into an active one, because to take notes, rather than replicating what they see and hear, students must process the experience enough to write it in their own words. By the way, one of the reasons note taking on a computer is less effective for learning is that a good typist can record so quickly that there is no need to think, the information passes from teacher to computer with little processing by the student’s brain. Seen as a learning tool, rewriting and editing notes becomes significant because it creates another opportunity for the student to process and reorganize the information. Thus the advice you provide for taking an editing notes in a lecture context is right on.

However, there is another classroom context in which your suggestions need to be modified. In a classroom where the student is actively engaged by the work itself, as in active reading, or creative math problem solving or science investigations, or any other type of investigation, it is the work itself that engages the student. In this case, notetaking and the notebook take on a different role, and the strategies therefore change and are more nuanced. In this case I prefer to think of the notebook as a grade-level appropriate intellectual diary of the student’s experiences. A format I like has been called by some an interactive notebook in which the right page is a record of the student work and thinking and the left page is a place for further creative thought, perhaps In the form of questions, wonderings, doodles, sketches, etc. In this context, there is no place for editing or rewriting the notes, because the notes represent the most accurate description of what the student experienced because they were written at the time of the experience. Those notes are in a sense sacred since they represent the real experience of the student to the extent that they could represent it. Therefore, they should not be edited. On the other hand, it would be appropriate to create, on subsequent pages, a new document that incorporates information from the notes and other sources to create a more complete explanatory document of the student work. In this context, the notebook is conceptually divided into two parts, one private, and one public. That distinction plays a role when the teachers evaluates student notebooks. The private part that student creates as work is done is assessed in terms of process and creativity, depending on the context of the lesson plan. If the work is spelled out by the teacher, then the evaluation would be in terms of how well the student used the process provided by the teacher. If the lesson design is more open, the evaluation would be more in terms of what ideas the student brought to the activity. Having done the work and perhaps contributed to a whole class discussion of the work, the student could then write a new entry that includes both their own private notes as well as the insights from other students and the teach in discussion. That public part could then be evaluated on the basis of content accuracy, and if appropriate, writing clarity, accuracy, format, etc. In the current context in STEM learning, this active classroom format has become the norm but sadly not the most common context, which remains the lecture format. That said, your document is important for those who choose to continue to lecture in spite of the new norms. However, I suggest your document needs to be amended to support those teachers who are working to transition to the new more student centered classroom inherent in the new STEM learning standards.

Hi Joseph! Thank you so much for taking the time to write in and share this. I’ll make sure Jenn sees your suggestions.

The video and article provided many great tips. I want my students to take note taking seriously and not to think of it as a chore. Most of my students take a photo of notes, but I am sure the notes get lost amongst the photos they reall want to view.

I was listening to this episode while walking on the beach and it hit me that Math Giraffe on TPT offers amazing doodle notes templates. I recently found these and can’t wait to use them in my classroom. I love the research and all the ideas presented.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Graphic-Organizer-Review-Cards-Huge-Deck-of-Bite-Sized-Doodle-Note-Templates-4035675

I always due my notes like this

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The 13 Most Effective Note-Taking Methods

These are efficient note-taking methods that anyone can pick up and use to take better notes.

By Sander Tamm
Mar 19, 2024

E-student.org is supported by our community of learners. When you visit links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

“Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work.” Albert Einstein

When you’re first learning a new concept, you’re taking in further information that has to go through the process of memorization.

The human brain, however, is inefficient at remembering things.

Within 24 hours of leaving class, your brain will have forgotten more than half of what it remembered at the end of the class.

This phenomenon is described by the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve , which perfectly illustrates the need for note-taking .

Compare the right-side green line with the left-side red line.

Someone who takes notes and reviews them three times (green line) remembers nearly everything after a week. On the other hand, a person who doesn’t review their notes at all (red line) forgets everything within a week.

Don’t be the red line – make sure you’re one of the green lines instead! To do so, you’ll need to learn how to take effective , visually interesting , and/or aesthetical notes .

To help you do so, these are the best note-taking methods:

Best Note-Taking Methods

Outline note-taking method.

Best for: Most subjects except science classes such as physics or math

Difficulty level: Medium

The outline method of note-taking uses indentation to store information in a clear hierarchy. When applicable, the outline method is one of the most efficient note-taking formats as it creates meticulously well-organized notes. The method can also be used in both deductive and inductive order.

Outlined notes are some of the easiest to review, as it’s one of the few systems that allow you to see space relationships between topics. However, the method is not always suitable for taking notes during a live lecture, and outlining requires a clear lesson structure.

Advantages:

Space relationships between topics are visible,
Information is recorded in a logical, hierarchical manner,
Outlined notes are quick and easy to review pre-exam,
Special notepaper & preparation not required,
Research on the outline method has been positive,
Usable during class (slow to medium-paced lectures).

Disadvantages:

Unsuitable for some STEM subjects,
Learning materials/lectures require a clear structure,
Outlining notes requires intense concentration and thought.

Cornell Note-Taking Method

Example of the Cornell method of note-taking

Best for: Recording main concepts & forming study questions

Difficulty level: Easy

The Cornell note-taking method , developed over half a century ago, is a tried-and-true strategy for taking effective notes. It uses two top columns (the “cue” and “note” columns), together with a single bottom row (the summary section), to record notes.

The method is versatile, usable for most subjects, and one of the simplest yet most effective note-taking methods. By mastering the Cornell system, you’ll always have at least one solid note-taking skill under your belt. The Cornell system is one of the most popular note-taking strategies in the world for a good reason.

Organized and systematic for both recording and reviewing notes
Time-efficient and requires little effort,
Taking Cornell notes is very easy to learn,
Suitable for most subjects (except equation-based subjects),
Fulfills a natural learning cycle within one single page,
Ideal for extracting major concepts and ideas.
Requires creating or purchasing Cornell-style pages,
Large quantities of Cornell notes can be challenging to organize,
Not great at reducing the size of notes,
Research on the Cornell method is mixed.

The Cornell method is a variant of the split-page note-taking method (also known as the two-column method). Try the split-page method if you are finding the Cornell method a bit too restrictive but you like the basic approach of cues or keywords combined with more detailed notes.

Boxing Note-Taking Method

Example of boxing method notes taken on an iPad

Best for: Digital note-taking with a stylus pen

The boxing method of note-taking uses boxes to visually separate topics within a page. While the boxing method was designed for digital devices, it’s a technique that can be easily adapted to handwritten notes.

Using the boxing strategy results in notes that are visually pleasing and easy to review. The method also takes full advantage of digital-only features such as lassoing, resizing, and moving notes after writing. Together with mind mapping, it’s one of the most effective note-taking strategies for visual learners.

Takes advantage of digital note-taking tools,
Great for learners with a visual learning style,
Aesthetically pleasing notes,
Notes reduce well.
Slightly time-intensive,
Not always practical for note-taking during lectures.

Charting Note-Taking Method

Best for: Recording facts and statistics

Difficulty level: Hard

The charting method of note-taking , also known as “matrix note-taking,” uses charts to classify information within rows and columns. While the method is not usable for many subjects, it is a remarkable tool under the right circumstances. This method is best used with subjects with factual or statistical information that can be categorized into tables.

On the other hand, it’s not suitable for note-taking during live lectures, very detailed topics, and subjects where the space relationships between content are essential. It’s also not well-suited for subjects that have many equation-based problems.

A compelling method for subjects with lots of facts and statistics,
Easy comparisons between different topics,
Reduces note sizes better than any other method,
Charted notes are straightforward and efficient to review,
Very efficient for studying comparisons.
Unsuitable for most subjects,
Requires a basic understanding of the topic,
Very time-intensive.

Mapping Note-Taking Method

Best for: Analyzing visual connections between key ideas and concepts

The mapping method of note-taking , also known as “concept mapping,” connects different thoughts, ideas, concepts, and facts through visualization. Both Leonardo Da Vinci’s and Albert Einstein’s notebooks reportedly contained mapping-style notes that connected drawings to words and notes.

The mapping method starts with a central topic in the middle of the page before branching into smaller subtopics, supporting topics, and more minor details. The method provides a one-of-a-kind graphical overview of lecture content that is irreplaceable for visual learners.

Mapping is best used in content-rich college classes where the information is structured. However, taking notes in a live class with this method is very rarely possible due to its time-consuming nature.

Advantages:

An excellent method for visual learning styles,
It gives a comprehensive overview of a large subject,
It helps you understand the connections between small elements within a major topic,
Maximizes active participation,
Reviewing mapped notes is very efficient.

Disadvantages:

Requires a good understanding of the topic,
Requires strong concentration,
It cannot be used effectively during class,
It can be difficult to correctly include all relationships ,
Mapping is very time-consuming.

Sentence Note-Taking Method

Example of the sentence method of note-taking

Best for: Quick, unstructured note-taking

Difficulty level: Very easy

The sentence method of note-taking uses sentences separated by lines to quickly transcribe as much information as possible from the information source. It requires quick handwriting or typing skills to be used effectively, and it’s likely the most commonly used note-taking method due to its simplicity.

Using the sentence method results in oversized notes that are notoriously difficult to review afterward. However, the sentence method can sometimes be the only viable choice for fast-paced, unstructured lessons you’re unprepared for. It’s often a good idea to rewrite notes taken with the sentence method after class.

Try not to rely on this method when you have a choice, but keep it as a backup plan when you can’t use an alternative note-taking strategy.

It can be used for any subject and type of class,
Very easy to implement,
Suitable for quick note-taking during class.
Reviewing sentence method notes after class is difficult and time-consuming,
No inter- and intra- relationships between notes are visible,
The main points are indistinguishable from more minor details,
Quick handwriting or typing speed required,
No element of metacognitive note analysis during note-taking.

Blurting Note-Taking Method

Best for: Studying and memorizing complex topics

Difficulty level: Medium

Unlike passively highlighting text or rereading notes, the Blurting Method is truly one of the most efficient ways to understand where you are at in your knowledge and do something about it at the same time.

The blurting method of note-taking is an active recall technique that can be used to help you learn and remember information. Active recall is basically a learning technique that involves testing yourself on the material that you’re trying to learn and has been shown to be a very effective way to make.

The blurting method, at its simplest, is reading a section of text or notes, then closing them and writing down as much of the information as you can remember. This makes your brain work harder to retain the information, making it really hammer the info down into your long-term memory.

It can help you identify the areas where you need to focus in your study time, thus making sure that the gaps in your knowledge are covered.
It gives you a better understanding of the material, as you are forced to put the information into your own words.
Recall ensures information is retained longer.
It’s a flexible method that can be modified to suit your needs.
The method can be used on any type of written learning material – but also after listening to lectures and online course videos.
This method is time-consuming, and some might find it tedious.
It does not replace note-taking during on-going lectures.
It is mentally taxing.
It is not the most efficient method for memorizing a lot of facts – use flashcards or a similar method in this case

Q/E/C Note-Taking Method

Best for: Argumentative subjects (such as history, philosophy, and literature)

The Question/Evidence/Conclusion (Q/E/C) method of note-taking is a simple but powerful method for organizing and recording information from lectures. Focused on capturing the big ideas and how they relate to each other, the method is structured around concepts that require arguing and evidence to create a clear and concise summary. Each concept is divided up into three parts: question, evidence, and conclusion.

The Q/E/C is ideally suited for most subjects in the humanities, especially ones that tend to present in an argumentative form, such as history, philosophy, and literature. It is also a very useful method to include in your toolbox for other subjects, including technical ones, where it can be suited for certain classes.

The method is also an excellent way to outline or plan for your essays, as it helps you develop a clear structure and will likely help you identify additional questions and counterarguments along the way that you may need to consider.

Helps you focus on the bigger picture
Helps you keep track of the relationship between the overall topic and the arguments/evidence
An excellent way to clearly record more argumentative presentations
Clear way of presenting arguments and counterarguments
Forces you to synthesize arguments and write a conclusion
A good fit for the humanities and non-technical subjects
Matches the way many lecturers present (and view the world)
Useful method for outlining argumentative essays
Less suitable for technical subjects or for concepts with more complex relationships
Challenging to use during fast-paced or poorly structured lectures
Requires concentration and reflection
Can be difficult to use if you don’t yet have an overall grasp of a new subject

Morse Code Note-Taking Method

Best for: Quickly absorb large volumes of course material in argumentative subjects.

Difficulty level: Hard

A fairly recent addition to the realm of note-taking methods – but one that many academics swear by – is the Morse Code note-taking method , a variant of the Q/E/C method . Not to be confused with Morse Code itself, this note-taking method uses dots and dashes to mark up course literature while you are reading it . Importantly, it enables you to keep reading while taking notes rather than pausing to jot down your notes.

Dots are used to denote the main ideas, and dashes for supporting facts, arguments, and examples. After you have finished reading the entire text, you use your notes in the margin to type up notes and then condense them into a format that is useful for further review.

As you do not stop reading, it is among the most efficient methods for covering larger quantities of text.
It helps extract the main and supporting points from a text.
It promotes active reading through the note-taking
It facilitates reading comprehension and critical thinking through the decoding and condensing stages.
It is not applicable to all types of reading material (in particular, material that is not structured in an argumentative academic style).
Very little information is captured in your notes – if you wait too long to decode your notes, you may have forgotten the context.
Less suitable for readers who tend to lose their focus when engaging in continuous reading (who may benefit from pausing and processing their notes paragraph by paragraph or page by page.

Flow Note-Taking Method

Flow notes example - adding relationships and detail

Best for: Understanding interrelationships between concepts at a higher level

While linear note-taking methods (such as the sentence and outline methods) have their place in your toolkit, you will want to complement these with non-linear methods that force you to actively engage with the topic at hand as a whole. Using such methods translate into a better understanding of an area and how its different component parts relate to each other. One of the main non-linear approaches that you should become familiar with is the flow method of note-taking .

It can look similar to the mapping method, but the focus of this method is on the higher-level concepts and ideas and how they relate to each other. Detailed descriptions and paraphernalia have to take a step back. The relationships are indicated using arrows and lines, in whichever way you find useful.

The flow method aims to have you learn during class by having you engage actively with the content.
Even though you are actively learning during class, you also get useful notes for revision – while the notes are not in the most useful format for revision, they tend not to be terrible
It’s a flexible method that suits most subjects.
It is a good choice for note-taking after having followed a class or after having read all material to solidify your understanding.
The method can be personalized to suit individuals’ needs and preferences.
The flow method is not well suited for topics of which you have no prior understanding, as it can be difficult to pick out what is more or less important and figure out how they relate to each other during the class.
While engaging mainly with the bigger picture, you risk missing important details during lectures.
Flow notes can easily turn out quite messy and are not ideal for revision (you can try to mitigate this by adding cue words to your notes to prompt you to describe relationships during revisions).
It can be difficult to find the time to actively engage with a topic during fast-paced lectures, forcing you to take detailed notes and apply the flow method after class instead.
Practice with the method is needed as you need to figure out how to best use it to suit your learning style.

REAP Method

Best for: Active reading to build deeper understanding of texts

The REAP method (Read, Encode, Annotate, Ponder) was developed by Marilyn Eanet and Anthony Manzo at the University of Missouri at Kansas City in 1976 as a response to what they saw as inadequate teaching methods for developing active reading. The method is designed to help students be able to understand the meaning of texts through reflecting and communicating on their content.

REAP consists of four stages:

Reading: Reading the text provided to identify the ideas expressed by the author.
Encoding: “Encoding” the main ideas identified in the text in your own words.
Annotating: Writing “annotations” of the ideas, quotes, etc., in the text.
Pondering: Reflecting on the content and writing comments or criticisms of the text, and discussing with others.

This will make you return to a text multiple times, each time from a different vantage point, and let you gradually analyze the text at a higher and higher level.

A scientifically proven effective method for improving reading comprehension and recall
Helps build capacity to engage critically with texts
Provides a framework for re-engaging with a text from multiple vantage points
Method that takes a lot of time, focus, and mental energy
Not suitable for note-taking during lectures
Less suitable for all texts (such as some college textbooks) or learning purposes (such as more detailed memorization)

Focused Question Clusters Method

Best for: Preparing for multiple-choice or other fact-based tests

Focused Question Clusters is a method, proposed by Cal Newport, to help students use their textbooks and existing lecture notes to prepare for MCQ-style exams by writing questions and then quizzing themselves.

Focused Question Clusters involve the following main steps:

Identify your main topic and the relevant subtopics.
For each subtopic, write a series (or a “cluster”) of questions that relate to it, covering the main points. The questions should be clear and possible to answer with a few words.
Write a few background topics to the topic as a whole.
Use these questions to review (you might want to employ one of the relevant study methods for how you quiz yourself, such as active recall )

Although this kind of rapid-fire questions will help most with preparing for multiple-choice style exams, the engagement with the material will also help your brain to make the connections to get a deeper understanding of the topic.

An effective way to gain and retain knowledge about a topic
Particularly effective for MCQ-style exams
A useful tool for studying in groups
Question drafting can be divided up and the results shared as a resource between students studying together
Drafting the questions takes a considerable amount of time and effort
Not the best way to engage with more argumentative topics

Highlighting Method

Best for: Quickly marking up a text that you plan to review later on.

Difficulty level: Easy

Highlighting is a popular study technique that involves marking important passages in a text. The overall idea is to highlight important points in a text – common ones are key numbers, dates, names, and other key points – that can then be easily spotted when reviewing the whole material. In its pure form, it does not involve writing any notes, but in practice, it is often combined with other note-taking methods .

This a useful method for students, researchers, and anyone else who needs to go through a lot of material as it allows them to quickly find the information they need later on. Note, however, that while this method is very commonly used, it has been the topic of scientific studies that have found it of questionable value for studying.

Easy to get started with.
Does not require writing.
Provides you with a marked-up text that can help you revise more efficiently.
It’s easy to go on autopilot with the method and become a passive reader rather than actively engaging with the text.
Studies have found it to be of questionable value.

Sander Tamm

Downsides of E-Learning: Self-Motivation and Time Management

It can be challenging to stay motivated when studying online – and with greater flexibility, finding the time can strangely enough often feel more difficult. In this article, we’ll look at some of the factors at play and how you can stay focused on your desired e-learning results.

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The Flow Method of Note-Taking: Notes for Active Learning

In our article on the flow note-taking method, we’ll look at how this approach can help you take a more active role in your learning and better understand how concepts relate to each other.

Note-Taking

Categories: Engaging with Courses

A student writing notes with a pencil and a student tying on a laptop.

Think about how you take notes during class. Do you use a specific system? Do you feel that system is working for you? What could be improved? How might taking notes during a lecture, section, or seminar be different online versus in the classroom?

Adjust how you take notes during synchronous vs. asynchronous learning (slightly) .

First, let’s distinguish between synchronous and asynchronous instruction. Synchronous classes are held live with the instructor and students together, and asynchronous classes are recorded by the professor for students to view at their convenience. Sometimes asynchronous instruction may include a recording of a live Zoom session with the instructor and students.

With this distinction in mind, here are some tips on how to take notes during both types of instruction:

During a live class, jot down notes as the lecture or discussion progresses. Try to do so during pauses in the lecture or discussion so that you don’t miss the next piece of information. This form of note-taking is something that you’re probably already used to doing in the classroom.

Recorded lectures and class discussions can be paused, but we suggest you try to watch videos all the way through the first time without stopping them. This method allows you to see the whole arc of the material as you take notes and will prevent you from being tempted to write down every word the instructor says (which is typically less useful for studying than notes where you’ve processed the instructor’s words as you listened). You can write down the time marker if you think you’ll need to return to fill in a gap, which you may find is unnecessary once you’ve seen the video the whole way through. We also encourage you to watch videos at their regular speed, as if you were sitting in a synchronous lecture or discussion. Then, you can take notes as you normally would during those activities. If you do increase the speed, note that research shows that benefits diminish beyond 1.25x.

When viewing recordings, check in with yourself and your level of attention frequently as you watch. Are you really listening deeply? Are you absorbing the material? Do you need a break? When deciding when to view asynchronous material, make sure you budget enough time to view videos, take notes, and give yourself breaks. An ARC Academic Coach can help customize a plan for you if you’re having trouble figuring out how much time to allot for this.

Whether you are participating in a live class or viewing a recording, you can annotate lecture notes or slides during lecture if they are available. Having the slides as a foundation makes it easier to jot down information that you learn during lecture and add your own questions or clarifications in context. These notes can be useful to take to section and office hours, allowing you to clarify any confusion you have about the material.

Typing notes on your computer is convenient, but consider that research has shown – for those who are able to do so – that we learn better when we write notes by hand . When we write notes by hand, we transcribe less and interpret more. In other words, we do not write down the instructor’s words verbatim, but rather we put the concepts in our own words, which indicates that learning is already taking place. Some students find it helpful to type up their handwritten notes during review, expanding on what they have written. Others add to their handwritten notes.

Plan to review your class notes regularly. Write a check mark next to the material you understand really well, and put a question mark where you need to review or expand on your own or with the help of an instructor. You can also use color-coding to label these categories. Looking at your notes right after lecture is a good way to mark any areas of confusion you are immediately aware of, but make sure to return to them sometime after your lecture to see if you’ve retained your understanding of the material. Looking over class notes right before section can be a great way to prepare for those sessions, while also allowing you to locate any parts of lecture you need clarified when section meets or when you go to office hours.

During the lesson and during review, write down questions that you can research yourself or ask to the instructor, a friend, or a tutor. Asking questions allows you to synthesize your knowledge of the material and expand your learning by observing areas of confusion or misunderstanding.

Common note-taking techniques

The Cornell Method for note-taking is designed to help you keep an eye on the broader concepts being explored in your course while also taking specific notes on what your lecturer or section leader is saying. Typically done by hand, the Cornell Method involves drawing a line down the edge of your paper and devoting one side to taking notes as you normally would, and the other to including questions, connections, key terms, patterns, and other guiding information that is meant to help you organize your thinking when reviewing the material. You can also use this space to keep track of related textbook pages or p-set questions.

Outlining is the note-taking method most students intuitively use. It involves writing down information as if you are recreating the professor’s outline for the lecture as you listen. Your aim is to construct bullet points for each idea and to organize them so that major concepts serve as headings with the related subpoints flowing from them. The downside of this method is that it works best when students are easily able to identify the major concepts in a course and less well when the material is not naturally organizing itself in that way.

Mapping involves creating a concept map out of the ideas presented in lecture. It can work well for spatial learners or in situations where the main concepts of lecture can be simply condensed and organized. It may be less useful in complex lectures, since it focuses primarily on central ideas (typically, there’s not a lot of room to provide detail in a concept map!). You might also try using mapping for STEM courses where processes or cycles are studied.

Sentence note-taking involves simply writing an individual sentence for each point you want to register in a lecture. It works well in situations where you cannot outline because you don’t intuitively understand the structure of the material and can’t distinguish major ideas from subpoints based on the lecturer’s style. Typically, this method works best if you have the time afterward to go back and organize your sentences more clearly based on having heard the entire lecture.

If you are looking for help with using some of the tips and techniques described above, come to the ARC’s note-taking workshop, offered several times every semester.

Grades 6-12
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11 Helpful Note-Taking Strategies Your Students Should Know

It’s a skill they can use later in life too.

Examples of note taking strategies including mapping and boxing.

We’ve all been there: You’re delivering a lecture full of insight, but students haven’t even picked up a pencil. Yes, today’s students expect printouts, class web pages, and graphic organizers, but good old-fashioned note-taking is still a skill they should master. Here’s why, along with some note-taking strategies they should try.

Why is it important for students to have good note-taking skills?

When it comes to learning and remembering information, study after study has shown the importance of actively taking notes rather than passively reading a handout later on. The act of writing engages different parts of the brain, forging new pathways that help students retain information in long-term memory.

What’s more, the studies show that the more detailed the notes, the better. And using different note-taking strategies helps too. In some cases, a general outline can be effective. But when you want students to analyze the content, encouraging charting or mapping can be more helpful.

One more good reason to learn to take notes? It’s a skill we use throughout our entire lives. Most jobs require you to be able to take notes during meetings or other activities so you can refer back to them later on. Adults use note-taking strategies on a regular basis, so teaching kids the skill early on will help them succeed later in life.

Digital vs. Handwritten Notes

There’s a lot of discussion these days about whether handwriting notes is better than typing them on a computer. Some worry that the digital devices themselves serve as too much of a distraction. When kids aren’t taking notes, they might be browsing the web, playing games, or sending each other messages instead of participating in the lesson. Others wonder if typing is less effective than handwriting when it comes to retaining information.

The research is still out on whether handwritten notes are better than digital. Some studies say that handwriting is better for learning, while others note that many people type faster than they write, enabling them to take more complete notes that way. And those who have dysgraphia or other learning disabilities should be able to take notes in the way that suits them best. Read more arguments from both sides here.

Graphic Organizers

Many teachers use what’s called “structured note-taking” in their classrooms. They provide easy-to-read graphic organizers that only require students to write in specific information. Learn more about graphic organizers here.

This is an excellent beginning strategy that enables students to grasp difficult concepts and focus on content and connections. But students should also learn to take notes from scratch. After all, in real life, the most they’re likely to get is a printed agenda for a meeting. They’ll need to know how to capture the important points themselves.

General Tips for Taking Good Notes

Ultimately, what’s most important is that students learn to take notes, period. Whatever method or strategies they choose, the key is having information in their own words they can return to later when they need to review and study. Here are some general tips to share with your students.

Focus on recording the main points of the lesson. Listen for key words and phrases, but don’t try to frantically write everything you hear.
Try to summarize the information in your own words rather than writing down the teacher’s words verbatim. Write your notes in a way that will make sense to you later on.
Jot down words you’re unfamiliar with or confused about and look them up later. Consider circling these words so they’re easy to spot when you’re reviewing your notes later.
Add color, either while you’re taking notes or later on, with a highlighter. Color helps show relationships between concepts, and it engages the brain better too.
Don’t be afraid to ask your teacher to repeat something if you feel like you missed it. If you feel like you can’t interrupt, put a star by that section to remind you to ask about it after class.
If your handwriting is hard to read, or you think you can organize the information in a better way, go ahead and re-copy your notes after class. It’s a good way to reinforce the information too.

Symbols and Abbreviations

Using standard note-taking symbols and abbreviations can be really helpful. There’s no need to memorize all of them at once; choose a few that seem the most useful and give them a try. You can add more as you get better at taking notes. Refer to the chart above for a good list. ADVERTISEMENT

Helpful Note-Taking Strategies

The most important thing about learning how to take notes is finding a strategy that works. Each student will have a different favorite strategy, so it’s helpful to expose students to different strategies. These are note-taking strategies that can be used across grade levels and subjects.

Boxing Method

Colorful math notes on exponential models and kinematics using boxing note taking strategies

For students who have trouble keeping things organized (including their thoughts), the boxing strategy can be very helpful. Each box contains a complete concept, idea, or category. Adding extra colors with pens or highlighters makes things even better. Boxing is a fairly new note-taking strategy, one that’s gained popularity among college students who take notes on digital devices. But it also works well with handwritten notes.

How it works: Start a box on the page, but don’t draw the fourth line on the bottom. Take your notes inside that box, keeping everything relating to one idea or concept together. When you’re finished with that section, draw the final line to close the box, and begin a new one. (If you’re using a tablet or laptop instead, you can draw a text box instead. It will automatically resize as you work.)

Charting Method

When students need to organize, compare and contrast, or categorize, the charting method comes in handy. It’s simple and easy and works well digitally or when taking notes by hand.

How it works: Draw lines to divide the page into columns and rows. Write headers on the columns (and rows, if necessary). As you take notes, put the information into the appropriate place on the chart. It’s that simple.

Cornell Note-Taking Method

Page demonstrating the Cornell method of note taking (Note Taking Strategies)

The Cornell method is more than just a note-taking strategy. It offers tips on how to use notes after class for studying too. Cornell University professor Walter Pauk created this method in the 1950s. Others quickly adopted it, since it’s easy to learn and has been proven to help students learn.

How it works: Divide a page into two columns. The wider column on the right is the Notes column. Here, take concise notes during class, capturing keywords and other important information. Leave space across the bottom of the page or section for the summary, which you’ll complete after class. This is the space for a brief overview of what was covered.

The left-hand column is known as the Cue column. Use it after class to write review questions that relate to the information in your notes. Then, cover up the Notes section and try to answer the questions in the Cue column. Take some time to reflect on the information, making connections and evaluating what you’ve learned. At the end of each week, review all of the notes you’ve taken to reinforce the learning.

Mapping Method

The mapping method is terrific for visual learners, as it helps show the connections between main points and supporting details. It’s also helpful for analyzing and evaluating content, rather than just writing it down. Fun fact: Leonardo da Vinci used this method!

How it works: Start by writing a main topic in the middle of the page. If you like, you can use the same color for all your main topics, then switch to different colors as you add and connect subtopics. Continue to add supporting details where they fit, drawing lines and arrows to note connections. Switch to a new page to begin a new main topic.

Outline Method

This is one of the oldest methods of note-taking, and one most kids learn somewhere along the way. You can teach them to use the standard Roman numeral and lettering/numbering system . Or just use bullet points and dashes to simplify things. This logical strategy works well in nearly any subject.

How it works: Start a main topic to the farthest left on the page. Add subtopics and supporting details on the lines beneath, indenting them slightly:

Supporting Detail

Start the next main topic all the way to the left, and continue your notes. Rather than writing long sections, try to keep your notes to just key words and phrases, enough to jog your memory later on.

Sentence Method

The sentence method looks similar to the outline method, but it includes much more information. As the name implies, students write full sentences for each line. This requires the ability to write (or type) quickly and is best for students who have mastered both these skills. One benefit to the sentence method is that you’re likely to have more-complete notes to refer to after class.

How it works: Start a topic by writing the main point on one line. On the lines beneath it, add bullet points and a full sentence describing the supporting information. Be sure to use your own words rather than the teacher’s. This ensures you’re fully understanding the information rather than just recording what you hear.

Sketchnotes

Sketchnotes are fairly new but have a real appeal for those who learn best visually. They combine elements of mapping or boxing with meaningful doodles. The colorful result is fun to look at, and some students may retain images better than words.

How it works: There aren’t a lot of rules with sketchnotes. Basically, students should try to capture keywords and important phrases, then add images that help them connect with the topic. Block lettering and other doodles are fun to add too.

Check out: 8 Creative Ways To Use Sketchnotes in Your Classroom

Q/E/C Method

The Question/Evidence/Conclusion method of note-taking is a way to organize and record information from lectures. The Q/E/C note-taking method is ideal for subjects in the humanities, such as history, philosophy, and literature. It helps students keep track of how information is being presented, while focusing on the bigger picture.

How it works: Students organize their notes by listening first for the question being addressed. Then, they write the evidence that answers the question. Finally, they draw a conclusion. At the end of a lecture, students can review their notes and have concise summaries of each main topic.

Flow Method

Flow note-taking is a nonlinear way to take notes. Nonlinear note-taking methods ask students to actively engage with the topic that they’re learning about as they listen. Flow note-taking looks similar to mapping, but the idea here is to connect higher-level ideas and how they relate to each other. Students write the topics and draw arrows to indicate how they connect with each other.

The flow note-taking method is active and requires students to think about what they are learning as they learn it. It’s also flexible, and useful in most subjects. It is best when students have some background knowledge, however.

How it works: Students start by writing one main topic. Then, they jot down the next topic and connect the two to show how they are connected. They write the next topic and continue until they have a web.

REAP Method

The REAP method (Read, Encode, Annotate, Ponder) is an active reading note-taking strategy. The idea is that students are engaging with text by reflecting and thinking about their content. Using REAP helps students improve reading comprehension and recall of information. It also builds students’ ability to engage with text and learn how to engage with complex texts.

How it works: Students complete four stages:

Reading the text
Encoding or writing the main ideas of the text in their own words
Annotating of ideas and quotes in the text
Pondering or thinking about the text and writing their reflections or discussing with others.

Watch how to use the REAP method with historical texts:

Paragraph Shrinking

Similar to REAP, paragraph shrinking is a way to condense and take notes on what students read. This strategy is a good way for students to focus in on the main idea of a text as they read through. It is useful for both fiction and nonfiction texts, but can be particularly helpful when students are working with nonfiction.

How it works: Students read a paragraph or section of text. Then, write the main topic or event in that section in the margin or on a separate page. Then, they shrink the paragraph further by stating the main idea in 10 words or less.

What note-taking strategies help your students succeed in the classroom? Come share your ideas and ask for advice in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook .

Plus, these are the executive functioning skills kids should learn, grade by grade ..

Use these note-taking strategies, including boxing, charting, mapping, outlining, and the Cornell method, to retain what you've learned.

Graphic Organizers 101: Why and How To Use Them

An incredibly valuable tool for every student, every subject. Continue Reading

03 sep 2024

How to Organize Notes: A+ Tips and Evidence-Based Methods

Whether you’re a fan of the trusty pen and notebook or rely on digital tools, knowing how to organize notes is a game-changer that saves time and cuts through frustration. Without a solid strategy, even the most detailed notes can become a chaotic mess, leaving you scrambling for information when you need it most.

In this post, we’ll share the most effective, research-backed tips on how to organize notes so they’re easy to read, simple to find, and set you up for academic success now and in the future. From classic methods like the Cornell system to modern digital AI hacks, you’ll learn how to transform your notes into your most powerful study tool. Let’s dive in!

Have a System in Place — and Stick to It

The first and most important step? Get yourself an organizational system. A solid system is the difference between notes that power you through school and notes that end up wasting your time. Whether you’re into digital tools or love the feel of pen on paper, there are countless methods for how to organize notes. The trick is to find what works for you and stick with it.

How to Organize Notes for Pen & Paper Lovers

There are plenty of note-taking systems out there, but our top pick has to be the Cornell Note-Taking System . Why? Because it’s not just popular — it’s proven. Backed by research, this method developed by Cornell Uni professor Walter Pauk has shown time and again that it boosts retention and comprehension.

The genius of the Cornell system lies in its simple yet effective layout: each page of your notes is divided into three sections— Notes , Cues , and Summary —allowing you to capture key information and reflect on it.

how to organize notes: the Cornell System

The Notes section captures key points and facts from the lecture. The Cues section is where you jot down your own questions, comments, or keywords on the subject. The Summary is a brief recap of the day’s lesson, written in your own words to reinforce what you’ve learned.

The system is flexible—perfect for adapting to different subjects. For visual-heavy topics like chemistry or math, you might expand sections to include diagrams or formulas. But the real magic lies in the Summary—a quick, focused review that helps lock in information and prep for exams. For best results, complete it after class when the material is still fresh, and see how it boosts your retention and comprehension.

How to Organize Notes Digitally

When it comes to digital note-taking, it all starts with picking the right app and sticking with it. The goal is to have all your notes in one place which makes it easy to find what you need, so you spend less time searching and more time actually studying. You don’t need anything fancy—even MS Word or Google Docs can do the trick although there are fancier options like Notability, Evernote, Notion, Obsidian, and so many more. At the end of the day it doesn’t make much difference which app you choose as long as you can stick with it.

Keep a Consistent Structure

A consistent structure is everything. Whether you organize by subject, date, or project, stick to a method that makes sense for you. It’s also a brilliant idea to have one log with links to all your individual files so you can find anything in seconds.

Use Your Phone as a Scanner

how to organize notes: use mobile scanners

Forget wasting time on library scanners—your phone can do it all. With the right app, you can scan notes, pages, and handouts without ever leaving your dorm. iScanner is our top recommendation for its generous PDF editor in the free version, AI search that can find any document (handwritten or typed) by a keyword, and device syncing. Plus, the app offers a bonus for students —be sure to check it out!

Sync Across Devices

Make sure your chosen app syncs across devices. This way, your study materials are always at your fingertips, no matter where you are. Take notes on your laptop in class, then review them on your phone on the bus.

Review and Declutter Regularly

Don’t let digital clutter take over. Set aside time each week to review your notes, archive what’s no longer needed, and highlight the essentials. A little routine maintenance keeps your notes sharp and study-ready.

Ace Your Studies with These Science-Backed Tips on How to Organize Your Notes

Paraphrase to Boost Your Memory

Rewriting something in your own words is a fantastic way to boost engagement and retention. Sure, it might feel easier to jot down your professor’s words verbatim, but resist the urge! Even a slight rephrase can make a huge difference in how much you remember after the lecture.

Capture Concepts, Not Just Words

Trying to write down everything a professor says? You’ll burn out fast — and miss the point. Instead, focus on capturing the core concepts in short, punchy phrases. The goal is to get the gist, not every word.

Short & Sweet: Use Abbreviations to Save Time

Don’t forget how useful abbreviations can be! Use the common ones like w/o for without , b/c for because , & for and , and feel free to invent your own: your notes, your rules! It will save you tons of time down the road.

Think Visually

How to organize notes: visualize information

A picture is worth a thousand words, especially when studying. Visualizing concepts—through diagrams, mind maps, or sketches—can supercharge your memory and make exam prep much easier!

Use Highlighters

Highlight key points and anything that’s tricky to remember or grasp. It’s a quick way to see which sections need more of your focus.

But Don’t Go Overboard with Highlighters!

It’s easy to go highlight-crazy (we’ve all been there), but too much color can be distracting. Keep it simple and highlight only the essentials to stay focused—when everything is highlighted nothing is.

Add Dates and Page Numbers

If you’re a fan of handwritten notes, always add dates and page numbers. It might feel tedious now, but future you will be grateful when it comes time to review.

Got Time to Kill? Learn Shorthand

Ever heard of shorthand writing ? It’s a quick way to jot down notes using symbols and contractions instead of full words. Stenographers and journalists have relied on it for centuries, and it can seriously speed up your note-taking!

Don’t Rely on Notes Too Much

When it’s time to prep for exams, don’t fall into the trap of relying too heavily on your notes. Simply reading through them can create a false sense of progress — like you’ve got it all down, when you really don’t. Notes are great for organizing and understanding new material, but they aren’t enough on their own. For serious exam prep, you’ll need to mix in other strategies to truly test your knowledge and ensure you’re ready.

Thanks for joining!

Effective Note-Taking Strategies for Research

Elements of Effective Notes
Note-Taking Strategies

Note-Taking Resources

Library sources.

Note-Taking Tips

There are several programs that can assist you in taking and organizing notes electronically:

Evernote : A downloadable application that helps you take, organize, and archive notes. There is a mobile version of the program available as well for smart devices. The free version lets you sync your account to two devices, tag your notes for fast retrieval, and apply different formatting. However, it has size limits on uploads and note sizes.

Google Docs: A basic word processing program that is part of Google's free applications. You must have a Gmail account to access this service.

Google Keep: A note-taking service that is part of Google's free applications. You must have a Gmail account to access this service.

Microsoft Office (OneNote): Operates on Microsoft Windows and macOS only, but allows you to share notes with others for collaboration. It acts as a "digital notebook" to store text, charts, images, and graphs. You will need to have a Microsoft Office plan to use this program, but you can install Microsoft Office through the university. Instructions on this process are included here.

Simplenote: A note-taking application that as accessible from most web browsers. It is available on Android, Linux, Windows, iOS, and macOS devices.

Workflowy: A free platform that allows you to organize your notes vertically.

The following eBooks and journal articles may guide you in identifying the best note-taking strategy for your courses.

Ideas in Practice: Strategic Note Taking in Developmental Mathematics by Carol Eades; William M. Moore ISBN: 08943907 Publication Date: 2007 This article conveys the importance of note taking in postsecondary developmental mathematics. It presents a strategic note-taking methodology that is designed to help students increase self-regulation and facilitate learning. Although the note-taking system is applied to developmental mathematics, it can be used for any course. The article also describes what note-taking strategies can and cannot do for students and instructors. The authors conclude by inviting readers to analyze the success of this systematic process in their own classes. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Methods & Techniques: Techniques for Increasing Student Learning from Educational Videos: Notes Versus Guiding Questions by Timothy J. Lawson; James H. Bodle; Tracy A. McDonough ISBN: 0098-6283 Publication Date: 2007 We examined the effectiveness of several techniques for enhancing student learning from educational videos. Introductory psychology students (N = 113) watched a video about intelligence and testing while taking notes, not taking notes, writing answers to guiding questions, or thinking about guiding questions without writing answers. Afterward, students took a quiz containing questions on the video information; half of the quiz questions were related and half were unrelated to the guiding questions. Results showed that students who wrote answers to the guiding questions had the highest quiz performance on items related to the guiding questions. The 4 groups did not differ significantly in their performance on items unrelated to the guiding questions.
Note taking and summarising strategies for senior humanities classes by Kathleen Thomas ISBN: 1448-1324 Publication Date: September 2013 If you asked my year 12 Global Politics class to repeat one of my regular sayings, they would tell you: "Make sure you are taking notes!" The study design of Global Politics requires students to master a great deal of content in order to adequately apply key concepts and ideas. I often resort to the stock-standard (dull, let's be honest!) PowerPoint in order to get through the nuts and bolts of a case study or global situation. While my students could never be accused of being disengaged, I have occasionally witnessed glassy eyes and an ever-so-lightly-nodding-off-to-sleep head during one of my PowerPoints.

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Last Updated: Jul 31, 2024 9:24 AM
URL: https://library.tiffin.edu/effectivenotetakingstrategies

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Speaker 1: So, today I was going to do a video that was all about the various bits of literature I've been reading recently but then I thought what might be useful potentially to others is if I show you my method for reading and taking notes on journal articles, papers, essays and books. So, here I've got a paper that I first read yesterday called Cosmopolitan Cities, The Frontier in the 21st Century and I'm already halfway through my process of reading and taking notes upon this particular paper. So, as you might be able to see I've already gone through and highlighted lots of different bits. Now, I tend to use both highlighting and note-taking but I use them both in a slightly different way. If I've highlighted something it essentially means that I can go back and I can read through this paper the next time much quicker than previously. So, what I tend to do is pick out sentences that kind of describe the rest of a paragraph. So, in the abstract there might be a little bit more highlighted than later on where it starts to get a bit more sparse where I've highlighted and where I've haven't. So, in a sociology paper like this, particularly what I'm looking for is anywhere where it explains in a simple sentence what the study is that's going to be carried out or perhaps explains in a simple sentence the findings. So, here we can see, for example, that the authors have said that we conceptualize cosmopolitan cities as urban areas whose cultures emphasize values including autonomy, freedom, egalitarian and mutual respect. Now, that is not only useful for my reading of the article but also for my writing later on. So, that's where my notes start to come in. So, here is Evernote which is a note-taking application and what I'm going to do is I'm going to make a new note and I'm going to call it Cosmopolitan Cities, the frontier in the 21st century? Wonderful. What I also do, and I stole this tip from the thesis whisperer, is that I use the tags in here. So, I've already got a folder called PhD but that's got, as well as notes on literature, that's also got some administrative notes, notes on supervisions. So, what I'm going to do is I'm also going to tag this one Literature Notes and I'm going to tag it with the names of the authors. Tagging it with the names of the authors means that, when I'm continuing my reading, I might be able to group together some of the work by grouping it together as a body of work by a particular author. The first thing I'm going to do in the actual body of the note is I always jot down the reference for the particular article that I'm working on. This is really useful as I found previously I've done an awful lot of searching for a reference for a particular book or a particular article and I've had to go back to the article and find it. If it's in my notes then it's there that I can just copy it down and bung it in a bibliography where I might need to use it. So, with the reference now jotted down, what I'm going to do is start to scan through and look for bits that I might pull out that might actually become useful for my writing later. Now, this will differ to what I've highlighted because my goal with highlighting is that I can come back and scan through the article and, if I'm looking for something in particular, I can use the highlighted sections as a bit of orientation to find what I'm looking for. The bits that I jot down will often be bits I've also highlighted but I won't jot down everything that I've highlighted, if that makes sense. So, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to jot down this quote that I found a little bit earlier. And, as you can see, what I do is I always put the full inline citation at the end of the sentence. This is a personal thing, just it helps me get the author's names and dates in my head so that they're a bit more stuck in there. It can be a bit repetitive with some work but it does really help to kind of log that in. Now, there's something doubly interesting about this particular quote here. So, I'm really interested in how we define a cosmopolitan or metropolitan city as opposed to a non-cosmopolitan or non-metropolitan city. And that's why I've taken that particular quote there. What it's also got is it's got a reference to a work by Mostrin in 2005. So, what I'm also going to do is, down the bottom of my note-taking article, I'm going to do a quick to read section where I'm going to put Mostrin 2005 which means that when I get to the end of the article I can copy down all of the things that I think I should go and read from this article and I can search those out and read those articles as well. And that, very simply, is my note-taking method for reading and understanding papers. So, it's highlighting for reading and being able to go back and scan the article, it's note-taking for things that I might be able to use directly in my work. Other note-taking options obviously do exist and, if your method differs from mine, then please do let me know down in the comments. It's always really useful to find out how people go from taking a massive body of literature and taking out the work that they need. Of course, if you have enjoyed this video, I'm thinking about maybe doing some more little things like this that kind of give an insight into my kind of academic process. So, if you've enjoyed this then do hit the subscribe button. Cheers.

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How To Take Study Notes: 5 Effective Note Taking Methods
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10 Note Taking Strategies to Write a Better Essay
How To Take Notes For Research Paper
Top 5 Note Taking Strategies What S The Best Note Tak
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Research Note Taking
Boost Productivity with Smart Note-Taking
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Mastering Digital Note-Taking
Note Taking Strategies and Techniques
Smart Tools: Elevate Your Student Experience with AI

COMMENTS

9 Organizing Research: Taking and Keeping Effective Notes
Whether you choose to use a low-tech method of taking and organizing your notes or an app that will help you organize your research, here are a few pointers for good note-taking. Principles of note-taking. Start out how you mean to go on, and guard from the beginning against losing notes. If you are going low-tech, choose a method that prevents ...
How to take Research Notes
Note Taking Tips: Taking Notes By Hand: Research notebooks don't belong to you so make sure your notes are legible for others. Use post-it notes or tabs to flag important sections. Start sorting your notes early so that you don't become backed up and disorganized. Only write with a pen as pencils aren't permanent & sharpies can bleed through.
Reading Well and Taking Research Notes
The Craft of Research, Third Edition addresses notetaking in a section called "Recording What You Find" (pp. 95-100). Below is a summary of the system outlined in the book. Take full notes. Whether you take notes on cards, in a notebook, or on the computer, it's vital to record information accurately and completely.
PDF Notes on Note-Taking: Review of Research and Insights for Students and
This literature overview is designed as a resource for both students and instructors. to gain insight into what education research reveals about note-taking. Specifically, this. review discusses the cognitive mechanisms behind note-taking, how to assess the quality. of notes, and optimal practices.
42 Timeless Tips On How To Effectively Take Research Notes
Incorporate diagrams, charts, or tables to enhance understanding and retention. 8. Incorporate Quotations. Capture direct quotes accurately to support your arguments and findings. 9. Review Regularly. Schedule time to review and update your notes to reinforce retention. 10. Utilize Color Coding.
Effective Note-Taking Strategies for Research
The following are commonly used strategies for taking notes in an academic setting: Outlines: Highlights the most important ideas with Roman numerals and organizes subtopics below each Roman numeral. Each subtopic is indented slightly to the right, with more specific subtopics indented the farthest.
13.5 Research Process: Making Notes, Synthesizing ...
9.3 Glance at Genre: Rhetorical Strategies; 9.4 Annotated Student Sample: "Rhetorical Analysis: Evicted by Matthew Desmond" by Eliana Evans; 9.5 Writing Process: ... Types of Research Notes. Taking good notes will make the research process easier by enabling you to locate and remember sources and use them effectively. While some research ...
PDF Taking and Organizing Notes for Research Papers
Taking and Organizing Notes for Research Papers Why take notes? Note taking is the transcription of information using shortening techniques to create an outside ... In this handout, I explained the importance of notetaking for research papers, provided tips for writing and arranging, and highlighted two common forms of notetaking: the index card
Note-taking for Research
Note-taking for Research. As you determine which sources you will rely on most, it is important to establish a system for keeping track of your sources and taking notes. There are several ways to go about it, and no one system is necessarily superior. What matters is that you keep materials in order; record bibliographical information you will ...
Yale University Library Research Guides: Note Taking: Techniques
Within the Pomodoro Technique, the idea is to break down a project into specific units of time, spaced by short breaks. Decide the task. Set your timer. Work on the task. Put a checkmark on a piece of paper. Take a small break and set the timer again. After you do four cycles, you can take a longer break.
How to Do Research: A Step-By-Step Guide: 4a. Take Notes
On each note card: Use only one side to record a single idea, fact or quote from one source. It will be easier to rearrange them later when it comes time to organize your paper. Include a heading or key words at the top of the card. Include the Work Cited source card number. Include the page number where you found the information. Taking notes:
Effective Note-Taking Strategies for Research
Regardless of the strategy you use, effective notes should contain the following elements: A title for the section or page of notes you are taking; The date you took the notes, or the date of the lesson/lecture; The lecture or resource's main ideas (preferably in your own words) Definitions of any key words relevant to the lesson
4.4 Helpful Note-Taking Strategies
The strategies in this section represent various ways to take notes in such a way that you are able to study after the initial note-taking session. Cornell Method One of the most recognizable note-taking systems is called the Cornell Method , a relatively simple way to take effective notes devised by Cornell University education professor Dr ...
Note-taking tools and tips
So, I sum up what have I get from this article for me as student. 1. Taking note with your words. 2. Right after you have took notes in the morning, review your notes in same day. 3. Review your notes in regular day and dont forget to do space repetition, I mean don't study the day right before the test for marathone.
Effective Note-Taking Strategies for Research
Write clearly. Your notes will not be effective if you cannot read them! If you are taking notes from a recorded lecture or video, you can pause the video to gather your thoughts and write down ideas. Use blank paper space to separate topics, especially if the instructor moves on to a new topic during class ("Chapter 11: Note-Taking Strategies ...
Note-taking: A Research Roundup
3. Explicitly teaching note-taking strategies can make a difference. Although some students seem to have an intuitive sense for what notes to record, for everyone else, getting trained in specific note-taking strategies can significantly improve the quality of notes and the amount of material they remember later.
The 13 Most Effective Note-Taking Methods
Not great at reducing the size of notes, Research on the Cornell method is ... resizing, and moving notes after writing. Together with mind mapping, it's one of the most effective note-taking strategies for visual learners. Advantages: Takes advantage of digital note-taking tools, Great for learners with a visual learning style, Aesthetically ...
Note-Taking
The Cornell Method for note-taking is designed to help you keep an eye on the broader concepts being explored in your course while also taking specific notes on what your lecturer or section leader is saying. Typically done by hand, the Cornell Method involves drawing a line down the edge of your paper and devoting one side to taking notes as ...
11 Note-Taking Strategies That Help Students Learn
REAP Method. The REAP method (Read, Encode, Annotate, Ponder) is an active reading note-taking strategy. The idea is that students are engaging with text by reflecting and thinking about their content. Using REAP helps students improve reading comprehension and recall of information.
(Pdf) Research on Student Notetaking: Implications for Faculty and
Research on notetaking indicates that taking notes in class and reviewing those notes (either in class or. afterward) have a positive impact on student learning. Not surprisingly, the ...
Effective Note-Taking Strategies for Research
The act of taking notes keeps you engaged with the material. Quality notes summarize the main points of a lecture or resource, omitting details that may be irrelevant. They help you retain information long-term. Tests your understanding of the material ("Chapter 11: Note-Taking Strategies," n.d.). They reinforce information by making you ...
How to Organize Notes: A+ Tips and Evidence-Based Methods
It's a quick way to jot down notes using symbols and contractions instead of full words. Stenographers and journalists have relied on it for centuries, and it can seriously speed up your note-taking! Don't Rely on Notes Too Much. When it's time to prep for exams, don't fall into the trap of relying too heavily on your notes.
7 Note-Taking Tips to Make Studying a Breeze
2 Prioritize the speaker or text. We all want our notes to be as thorough as possible, but don't ignore the teacher or text because you're too focused on note-taking. Always keep the speaker or reading at the center of your attention, and take notes only to complement your direct learning, not supplant it.
Effective Note-Taking Strategies for Research
It presents a strategic note-taking methodology that is designed to help students increase self-regulation and facilitate learning. Although the note-taking system is applied to developmental mathematics, it can be used for any course. The article also describes what note-taking strategies can and cannot do for students and instructors.
Effective Note-Taking Techniques for Academic Reading and Research
Discover a practical method for reading and taking notes on journal articles, papers, essays, and books to enhance your academic research process. ... papers, essays, and books to enhance your academic research process. File. How to Read, Take Notes On and Understand Journal Articles Essay Tips. Added on 09/02/2024. Speakers.