Note-Taking Methods That Help You Learn: Cornell Notes, Outlines and the Laptop vs Paper Debate

October 25, 2026 · Study skills

Lecture notes have two jobs: to help you understand material as you hear it, and to give you something to revise from weeks later. Copying slides word for word does neither well. A method that forces you to select, rephrase and later question what you wrote does both.

The Cornell method

The Cornell system was developed by Walter Pauk, an education professor at Cornell University, and popularised in his book How to Study in College. Many university learning centres still teach it, for example the University of Cincinnati's Learning Commons. You divide each page into three areas:

• Notes (the large right-hand column): what you record during the lecture, in short phrases and your own words.
• Cues (a narrow left-hand column): filled in after class with questions or keywords that your notes answer.
• Summary (the bottom of the page): one or two sentences, written after class, on the most important point.

To revise, cover the notes column and answer the cue questions aloud. That turns your notes into a practice test, which, as our guide to revising for exams explains, is one of the most effective study techniques.

Other methods, and when to use them

• Outline notes: headings and indented sub-points. Good for well-structured lectures and readings.
• Mapping: a central topic with branches. Good for seeing connections, planning essays and subjects with many interlinked ideas.
• Charting: a table with categories as columns. Good for comparing theories, cases or historical periods; it is also how many researchers organise a literature review.

Most people combine them: Cornell layout, outline notes inside the notes column, a chart where the content is comparative.

Laptop or paper? What the research actually shows

A widely shared 2014 study by Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer, "The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard", found that students who typed notes wrote more words and copied more of the lecture verbatim, and that students who wrote by hand did better on conceptual questions. It led many people to conclude that laptops harm learning.

The picture has since become less clear. A direct replication by Kayla Morehead, John Dunlosky and Katherine Rawson, published in Educational Psychology Review in 2019, found some trends in favour of longhand but no consistent differences in test performance between groups, and the Learning Scientists summarised the result as weakening the case for a clear handwriting advantage. What does seem consistent is the mechanism: copying verbatim is a poor way to learn, whatever the tool. If you type, resist transcribing; if you write, you are forced to select.

Practical rules:

• Choose the tool that lets you summarise in your own words, not the one that lets you capture everything.
• If you use a laptop, close other tabs and notifications.
• Check whether lecture slides are posted in advance; annotating them can free you to note explanations and examples rather than copying bullet points.

Abbreviations and symbols

Speed comes from writing less, not writing faster. Build a small personal set of abbreviations and use it consistently: arrows for causes and consequences, "e.g." for examples, "≠" for contrasts, "?" in the margin for anything you did not understand, and a star for points the lecturer stressed or said would come up in assessment. Keep a key at the front of your notebook or file, so your notes are still readable at revision time.

Notes from readings

Reading notes need one thing lecture notes do not: a clear line between the author's ideas and yours. A simple layout helps:

• At the top, the full reference, ready for your reference list.
• On the left, the author's points, mostly paraphrased, with page numbers; anything copied word for word goes in quotation marks.
• On the right, your reactions: questions, agreements, objections, links to other readings.
• At the bottom, a two-sentence summary of the argument and how it relates to your assignment.

Read the abstract, introduction and conclusion first, then decide which sections deserve close reading. Most readings do not need to be noted line by line.

Turn notes into learning within 24 hours

1. Reread the notes the same day, while gaps are easy to fill.
2. Fill in the cue column with questions.
3. Write the summary in one or two sentences.
4. Note anything you did not understand and ask in the next seminar or office hour.

Ten minutes the same day saves an hour later; our time management guide shows where to fit it in a week.

A note on integrity

Notes made from readings must keep track of sources: put quotation marks around copied phrases and record page numbers, so that nothing ends up in an essay without a citation . Many universities also restrict recording lectures or sharing lecture materials; check the rules for your course.

Sources

• Pauk, W. How to Study in College (first published 1962; many later editions). Method summary: University of Cincinnati Learning Commons, The Cornell Method for Note-Taking.
• Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159–1168.
• Morehead, K., Dunlosky, J., & Rawson, K. A. (2019). How much mightier is the pen than the keyboard for note-taking? Educational Psychology Review, 31, 753–780. Summary: The Learning Scientists, New findings inform the laptop versus longhand note-taking debate (blog, February 2019).

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