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How to Study in College

TENTH EDITION

By Walter Pauk，Cornell University, Emeritus

Start with the Cornell System

What is the Cornell System?

All of the methodical preparation you’ve done will be wasted if you just wing it when you start to take notes. Instead of taking a chance on a haphazard, seat-of-the-pants method of taking notes, you need a proven note-taking system. The Cornell System, which was developed at Cornell University almost fifty years ago, has been embraced by countless colleges and universities in the United States and throughout the world. It can be used for taking separate notes, for marking your textbook, and even for annotating electronic texts. The system is flexible and far reaching, but its secret is simple: Wide margins on the outside and the bottom of the text area are the key.

Take Separate Notes

The notes you jot down can become a handwritten textbook. In fact, in many instances they are more practical, meaningful, and up-to-date than a textbook. If you keep your notes neat, complete, and well organized, they will serve you splendidly. Although Cornell-style paper can sometimes be difficult to find at school or office supply stores,* you can easily use a pen and ruler to adapt standard loose-leaf paper to the task. First, draw a vertical line down the left side of each page two-and-one-half inches from the edge of the paper; end the line two inches from the bottom of the sheet. This creates the cue column. Next, draw a horizontal line two inches from the bottom of the page. This is the border for your summary area. The large space to the right of the cue column and above the summary area is where you write your notes. Figure 10.3 shows a Cornell note sheet. As you’re taking notes, the cue column should remain empty, as should the summary area. But when the time comes to review and recite what you’ve jotted down, you’ll use the cue column for questions to help clarify meanings, reveal relationships, establish continuity, and strengthen memory. The summary area will be used to distill a page’s worth of notes down to a sentence or two. The information that goes in the largest space on the page varies from class to class and from student to student. Different courses come with different demands. The format you choose for taking your notes and the ideas you jot down are almost entirely up to you. If you have a special way of jotting down your notes, you should be able to use

it with the Cornell note sheet. About the only format you should be wary of is the outline. As crisp and neat as they may look at a glance, outlines have a way of tying your hands and forcing you to squeeze information into an unforgiving framework. When you’re taking notes—especially in a lecture—the last thing you want to be worrying about is Roman numerals. As Edward W. Fox, Cornell’s great teacher, lecturer, and historian explained:

*Special “law-rule” paper, available at some office supply stores, has an extra-wide margin similar to what the Cornell System recommends. However, it is slightly larger than standard letter-sized paper and lacks the summary area at the bottom of each page.

If outlines are a bad idea, what sort of note-taking format should you use instead?

Outlines are the tail that wagged the dog. You should be concentrating on the information itself, not on its numbering scheme. Whatever works for you is best. You can take notes in sentence or paragraph form, in lists, as definitions, by adding drawings, or by using a combination of these formats.

How do sentences in your notes differ from traditional sentences?

Take key ideas from a lecture or reading and jot them down in your own words. If you’re taking notes in a lecture, you probably won’t have time to write out complete sentences. Instead, write telegraphically, leaving out articles such as a, an, and the, and abbreviating words you use often. Figure 10.4 provides an example.

How do you make items stand out in list-style notes?

Start with a topic, name, term, or process, and then list phrases or telegraphic sentences that relate. Avoid numbering the items unless the numbers are relevant to the list. If you want to make the items stand out in your notes, consider beginning each with an asterisk or a bullet point. Figure 10.7 shows what these lists are apt to look like.

What is the advantage of using drawings in your notes?

Drawings and diagrams can succinctly sum up information that may be difficult to explain in words alone. A sketch can often convey locations or relationships more effectively than a sentence or two. Figure 10.8 shows the sort of diagram that a biology student might include in her notes.

When will you need a combination of formats for your notes?

Some chapters and a few lectures may fi t into a single note-taking format, but it’s unlikely that most will. Good note takers must remain flexible, shifting quickly from one format to another to capture key information as efficiently and meaningfully as possible. It’s important to choose the right tool for the job. Figure 10.9 shows notes that combine several formats.

What can you do to be fully engaged as you take notes?

Whether you are taking notes on sheets of paper, making marks in your textbook, or typing your notes onscreen, you need to be fully engaged. To avoid drifting into the sort of robotic routine that adds little to learning, it is important to remain inquisitive as you take your notes, to keep alert for signs that will tip you off to the meaning of what you’re reading or learning, to record things efficiently, and, as always, to stay flexible for the inevitable exceptions and special cases.

What is the secret to being an active participant?

Whether you are taking notes on sheets of paper, making marks in your textbook, or typing your notes onscreen, you need to be fully engaged. To avoid drifting into the sort of robotic routine that adds little to learning, it is important to remain inquisitive as you take your notes, to keep alert for signs that will tip you off to the meaning of what you’re reading or learning, to record things efficiently, and, as always, to stay flexible for the inevitable exceptions and special cases.

Be Inquisitive

You can’t really expect to do a good job of gleaning the most important information from a lecture or reading unless you are paying attention. And while getting enough sleep and sitting up straight can help promote alertness, the real secret to being an active participant is to maintain an inquisitive mindset. Formulating questions, whether silently or aloud, will unlock the meaning of information in a way that listening or reading passively just can’t approach.

Although the communication may seem one-sided, both the speaker and the listener play important roles in a classroom lecture. The speaker’s responsibility is to make points clearly. The listener’s responsibility is to understand what the speaker says. If a speaker’s message is not clear and the listener asks a clarifying question, both the speaker and the listener benefit. The speaker is encouraged and gratified to know that the audience is interested. The listener can concentrate on what the speaker has to say and feel good about raising a question that other, more timid members of the audience might have been hesitant to ask.

As vital as questions can be to comprehension, they often go unasked. A professor at the University of Virginia who conducted a survey found that 94 percent of her students had failed to understand something in at least one class lecture during the semester. Seventy percent of the students had not asked clarifying questions even though they knew they could. When she asked them why they had remained silent, they answered with such statements as “I was afraid I’d look stupid,” “I didn’t want to make myself conspicuous,” “I was too proud to ask,” and “I was too confused to know what question to ask.” The way to dispel the fear of asking is to remember that the only dumb question is the one that is never asked. The way to dispel confusion is to acknowledge it by saying, “I’m confused about the last point you made” or “I’m confused about how the example pertains to your main point.” In this situation, as in most, honesty is the best policy.

It’s easy to see how questions can help clarify important points in a classroom lecture. After all, you usually have an expert right there who can sense your confusion and respond to the questions. Not so with a textbook assignment, where all you have are silent words on a printed page. Instead of approaching a textbook as a passive recipient of its information, build on the relationship you formed with the author or authors when you first surveyed the book and read over its prefatory material by constantly formulating questions as you read, by wondering out loud about issues or aspects that concern you, and by writing out questions that help you pinpoint and remember the most important information. The latter really serves as the foundation for taking notes and mastering them.

If asking questions as you read doesn’t seem to come naturally at first, a good way to start is by reading the headings and subheadings in your assignment and turning them into questions. This is an important ice-breaker in a number of textbook reading systems, including the well-known SQ3R system.

It doesn’t take much to transform a typical textbook heading or subheading into an attention-getting question. For example, the main heading “Basic Aspects of Memory” could be turned into the question “What are the basic aspects of memory?” The technique is simple, but it works. Questions encourage interaction. Suddenly you will be reading with a purpose instead of just passively taking in information. And if your question is answered early in the discussion, simply ask another, based on what you have read.

What is the final step that makes your note taking effective?

Despite indisputable benefits, taking effective notes can be difficult for many students. Of course, most students take some sort of notes when they attend lectures; and a smaller number do so when they’re reading. But in each case, the students who take notes often come close but don’t quite reach the point where their notes are truly effective. Taking effective notes requires work; it requires time; and it forces you to be actively engaged in what you’re reading or listening to. This can be a little daunting, especially when you may already have a false sense of accomplishment from half-baked notes or markings. Take that final step. Cross that threshold and make your note taking truly effective. You’ll be working harder initially, it’s true. All new skills require a little extra effort at the outset. But the benefits you derive will materialize almost immediately when you begin to master the notes that you have taken and make your new knowledge permanent instead of just fleeting.