Study methods
How to take lecture notes that help you study
Most students take notes in every lecture, and most of those notes are never looked at again. Good lecture notes aren't a transcript. They're the raw material for testing yourself later. Here's what to write down, whether to use a laptop or a pen, and what to do with your notes after class, which matters more than anything you do during it.
What lecture notes are for
Notes do two jobs. While you write them, they make you process the lecture: you have to decide what matters and put it in words. Afterwards, they're a record you can study from. Kenneth Kiewra's 1985 review of the research argued that much of the value of notes comes from that second job, from reviewing them later, and not only from writing them.
So the test of a good set of notes isn't how complete or neat it is. It's whether you can study from it: whether it holds the explanations you'll need, and whether you can turn it into questions.
Laptop or pen?
In a 2014 study, Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer found that students who took notes on laptops wrote more and copied the lecture more word for word. On conceptual questions afterwards, they did worse than students who wrote by hand. The study was shared widely as proof that the pen beats the keyboard.
In 2019, Kayla Morehead, John Dunlosky and Katherine Rawson repeated and extended it. The differences between laptop and longhand notes were small and inconsistent, and they concluded that the evidence doesn't yet favour one over the other. See digital vs paper flashcards for the same debate about cards.
What both point to is the habit, not the tool. Typing every word is easy on a laptop, and copying isn't thinking. If you type, summarise. The bigger risk with a laptop is everything else on it: in a 2013 study by Faria Sana, Tina Weston and Nicholas Cepeda, students who multitasked on a laptop during a lecture understood less of it, and so did the classmates who could see their screen.
What to write down
- Explanations: why something happens, not only what. The slides usually have the what.
- Definitions and terms the lecturer stresses, especially ones that aren't on the slides.
- Examples and cases, briefly, with the point each one makes.
- Anything the lecturer repeats, or says will be on the exam.
- Your own questions: a ? next to the step you didn't follow, to look up later.
Skip anything that's already on the slides word for word. If the slides are shared before the lecture, print them or open them on your tablet and write on them, so your notes hold only what the slides don't.
The Cornell method
The Cornell method was developed in the 1950s by Walter Pauk, an education professor at Cornell University. It's a page layout that builds testing yourself into your notes.
- Divide the page: a wide column on the right, a narrow column on the left, and a strip across the bottom.
- During the lecture, write your notes in the right-hand column.
- The same day, write a question or keyword in the left column for each main point.
- Write a two- or three-sentence summary of the lecture in the bottom strip.
- To review, cover the right column and answer the questions on the left from memory.
The last step is what makes it work. Covering the notes and answering the questions is active recall, and the left column is a set of flashcards in all but name.
After the lecture: the step that matters most
Spend ten minutes on your notes the same day, while the lecture is fresh. Fill in what you missed, look up every ?, and write questions for the main points. Then come back to those questions a few days later, and again before the exam.
Turning notes into flashcards is the most direct way to do this. Each main point becomes a question you answer from memory, and spaced repetition brings it back just before you'd forget. See how to make flashcards that work.
If your lecturer shares the slides as a PDF, FlashCardz turns them into flashcards in seconds, each quoting the line it came from, so your own notes can focus on the explanations the slides leave out. You can also write your own cards beside the PDF in the card maker.
Notes for different subjects
| Subject | What your notes should catch |
|---|---|
| Medicine | Mechanisms, the reasons behind the numbers, and the comparisons the lecturer stresses |
| Law | Case names with their key facts, the rule, the reasoning, and how the lecturer frames the issue |
| Languages | Examples in full sentences, the exceptions, and the phrases your teacher uses |
| Sciences and engineering | Each worked example step by step, and why each step is taken |
Common mistakes
- Trying to write everything. You'll miss the explanation while copying the slide.
- Rewriting notes neatly instead of testing yourself on them. It feels productive, but it's copying again.
- Never looking at them until the week before the exam.
- Keeping your notes in one tab and everything else in the others.
Questions
Is it better to take notes by hand or on a laptop?
The research is mixed. What matters more is summarising in your own words instead of typing word for word, and keeping other apps closed.
Should I rewrite my notes after class?
Rewriting them neatly is mostly copying. Spend that time filling gaps and turning your notes into questions you can test yourself on.
What is the Cornell note-taking method?
A page layout with a wide column for notes, a narrow column for questions you add after the lecture, and a short summary at the bottom. You review by covering the notes and answering the questions.
Do I need to take notes if the slides are online?
Yes, but different ones: write on the slides, adding the explanations, examples and anything the lecturer says that isn't on them.
Sources
- 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. doi.org/10.1177/0956797614524581
- Morehead, K., Dunlosky, J., & Rawson, K. A. (2019). How much mightier is the pen than the keyboard for note-taking? A replication and extension of Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014). Educational Psychology Review, 31(3), 753–780. doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09468-2
- Kiewra, K. A. (1985). Investigating notetaking and review: A depth of processing alternative. Educational Psychologist, 20(1), 23–32. doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep2001_4
- Sana, F., Weston, T., & Cepeda, N. J. (2013). Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. Computers & Education, 62, 24–31. doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2012.10.003
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