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Summary of strategy: see text below.

Cornell Notes

  • to help me take organized notes
  • to help me identify keywords and concepts from a lecture
  • to help me scam my notes to locate important information
Divide the paper into two sections.
  • Draw a vertical line from top to bottom that is a few inches from the left margin.
An image of a piece of paper divided into sections
Document
  • Write your name, course, and date at the top of each page
  • Write a general title for the lecture
An image of a sectioned piece of paper indicating where to place the course, your name, and date.
Write Notes
  • Write all main ideas/concepts on the right side of the page
  • Be sure to skip one line between ideas and several lines between topics
  • Mark ideas that go together with an asterik *
An image of a page showing the key points and the notes in the middle sections of the page.
Review and clarify
  • Review the notes soon after the lecture
  • Make sure your notes are clear; that the information makes sense
Review and clarify then pull out the main ideas.
Pull out main ideas, topics, terms, places, dates, etc.
  • The main ideas and information from the right column of your notes
  • Write the main ideas in the left column, matching it with the details
Summarize
  • Write a summary
  • At the bottom of your page
  • Mention all key points
An image indicated where to write the summary on the page
Study
  • Use both columns of your notes to study for tests
An image of an A+ paper.

View an example of this strategy.

Example 1: Biology