How to DoCornell Notes: Template,Steps and Examples

Cornell notes divide a page into three areas: a wide column for notes taken during a lecture or while reading, a narrow column on the left for questions and keywords added afterwards, and a strip along the bottom for a short summary. The layout turns one sheet into both a record and a self-test, which is why it has stayed popular with students and adult learners for decades.

What are Cornell notes?

The system was devised in the 1950s by Walter Pauk, an educator at Cornell University, and later set out in his widely used book on study skills. Its strength is that review is built into the page. Instead of a notebook full of material you mean to revisit one day, each sheet already holds prompts that ask you to recall what is on it.

How to draw the Cornell notes template

No printed form is needed. Any lined or blank page will do.

1. Leave a band of a few lines at the top for the date, the subject and the speaker or source.
2. Rule a horizontal line across the page several lines above the bottom edge. Everything below it is the summary area.
3. Draw a vertical line from the top band down to the summary line, roughly a third of the way in from the left. The narrow left side is the cue column; the wide right side is for notes.

Some people rule up a small stack of pages in one sitting so the template is ready before every class or talk.

Area	Position	What goes in	When
Header	Top	Date, topic, source	Before you start
Notes	Right, wide	Main points, examples, diagrams	During the session
Cues	Left, narrow	Questions, keywords, prompts	Soon afterwards
Summary	Bottom	Two to four sentences in your own words	At the end of review

How to do Cornell notes in five steps

The method is often summed up as five actions, each starting with the same letter.

1. Record

During the lecture, reading or documentary, write in the notes column only. Use short phrases, abbreviations and indents, and leave space between ideas so you can add to them later.

2. Reduce

As soon as you can, ideally the same day, read through and write cues in the left column: a question, a keyword or a prompt beside each chunk. "Three causes?" next to a list of causes is enough.

3. Recite

Cover the notes column with a spare sheet. Read each cue and answer aloud or in your head, then uncover and check. This is active recall built straight into your notes.

4. Reflect

Ask how the material connects to what you already know, what seems doubtful and what you would ask the speaker if you could. Some people add these thoughts to the cue column in a different colour.

5. Review

Return to the page for a few minutes over the following days and weeks, reciting from the cues each time. Then write or refresh the summary at the bottom.

An example from an evening lecture

Imagine a public talk on the history of printing. The notes column might hold: "movable type spreads in Europe, 15th c.", "books cheaper, more readers", "spelling slowly standardised", "pamphlets feed political debate". Beside them, the cue column could read: "When did movable type spread in Europe?", "Two effects on readers?", "Effect on language?", "Link to politics?". The summary might say: "Printing with movable type made books cheaper and more common, which widened reading, gradually steadied spelling and fuelled public argument."

How to take notes in a lecture with the Cornell layout

• Listen for signposts. Phrases such as "the key point is" or "on the other hand" mark new chunks in the notes column.
• Leave the cue column alone during the talk. It belongs to review time; writing there live splits your attention.
• Sketch freely. Diagrams and arrows belong in the notes column as much as words do.
• Keep one topic per page. A fresh sheet for each new topic keeps cues and summaries clean.

For a wider look at layouts, including outlines and the sentence method, see how to take good notes. When a subject has many cross-links, turning several Cornell pages into a single mind map makes a strong end-of-week review.

Common mistakes

• Leaving the cue column empty, which turns the method into ordinary notes with a wasted margin.
• Writing summaries that copy sentences from the notes instead of restating them.
• Reviewing by rereading the right-hand side rather than covering it and reciting.
• Ruling the cue column so narrow that real questions will not fit.

Questions people ask

Does the Cornell method work on a laptop or tablet?

Yes. A two-column table with a merged row at the bottom recreates the template in any word processor, and tablet note apps handle hand-drawn versions well. The habit matters more than the medium.

Is it only for school?

Not at all. The layout suits evening classes, book clubs, work training, museum talks and documentaries just as well as university lectures.