By: Nithya K., Grade 10
For many students, this is an important question, one that is often only resolved after years of experimentation. Each method has its standout qualities and shortcomings, and the “best” method often varies by subject and situation. My two personal favorite methods are Cornell and outline notes.
Cornell notes
One of the most classic notetaking styles, Cornell notes can be found across classrooms, with a distinctive split-page format. Each page is divided into a question column on the left, notes on the right, and a summary at the bottom. This is the format that I have been required to use the most in school, and I’ve had both good and bad experiences with it.
Pros:
- It provides a structured, organized format for later review. I find the summaries to be especially helpful; I can write summaries after class to both refresh my memory and help me study quickly at a later time.
- It leaves room for add-ons after class. I’m sure everyone has missed a slide or two during a lecture, or has just been confused about a specific topic, and it can be helpful to write a question in the questions column and add the answer later. One of the main shortcomings of traditional bullet-point notes is that it’s very hard to insert information into your notes later on, especially when writing with a pen.
Cons:
- Some of the structure can be unnecessary and can take up valuable space. For example, in a math class, I don’t typically need a questions column and summary section on every page — I would prefer to use that space to do practice problems or write formulas. For me, this has been a common problem, especially in classes where I don’t have many questions about the subject material. Summaries are often welcome, but the questions column can quickly become a hindrance.
- The sections are unevenly divided. Sometimes, I repurpose the questions column to be a practice problem section. However, it can be troublesome to cram lengthy practice questions into the column, which is smaller in proportion to the notes section. Also, on some pages, I will write very little in one section; on other pages, I might write a lot in that section, so I either end up running out of space or leaving a lot of blank space.
Outline notes
Outline notetaking has been my personal favorite notetaking method in the past few years. I had unconsciously been using this method long before I learned its name, and it works well for me. It is a twist on the traditional bullet-point method; it does utilize bullet points, but organizes information into a hierarchy. It will have a main topic, then an indented subtopic underneath, and then a further indented point under the subtopic, and so on.
Pros:
- Clear organization of information. One of my favorite things about this method is that I can easily navigate to subtopics. This is especially useful when I need to study a specific chapter or section of a lesson — I can navigate to the appropriately named subtopic. It allows for quick and efficient studying.
- Cleanly indicating examples and questions. I can leave space to add information later, and I can also quickly find examples in my notes. Whenever I indent, I usually use a different symbol (such as a star or arrow instead of a plain bullet point), and this variance of symbols helps me quickly navigate to different types of information.
Cons:
- Potentially lengthy and convoluted notes. If I’m taking notes from a textbook or slideshow, I find this method to be really helpful, as the majority of the information has already been structured for me — I just have to paraphrase and transcribe it. However, if information is presented in the form of a video or lecture, many subtopics and indentations can cause my notes to spiral into a long, complicated mess.
- It’s difficult to add alternative forms of information, such as graphs and other illustrations. This is not the case with Cornell notes, where the questions column can be conveniently repurposed into a place for graphics. However, with outline notes, I struggle to find a place to put images — I always need to plan ahead and designate a spot for graphics, which can be tricky if I’m in a lecture and don’t know what order information will be presented in.
Overall, I think outline notes win this round! While Cornell notetaking is a very traditional, well-liked notetaking style that can definitely function well in some situations, outline notetaking is a better choice to handle a wide variety of types of information. It’s very adaptive, and has clear structure and organization. It also leaves less blank space on the page. Both styles work very well for different people, and other styles (such as the boxing, mind-mapping, and sentence methods) can also be quite effective.
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