Cornell Notes: Take Effective Notes (opens in new tab)

Oh my goodness, cornell notes. Perhaps it was the way we were forced to use cornell notes by my secondary school teachers, but I never saw the appeal nor the benefit.

The summarization portion is probably the main advantage over the other note taking methods IMO.

I started using this just to test it out when I started studying compci a year ago.

It works relatively well for me, though I have become extremely relaxed in the way I use it.

When I started I would write much more in the "recall" column. Now when I write in the note section, I add to the recall section if it makes sense for the note (so, not always - before I would always try to write in the recall column even for things where it didn't make sense to). I also skip the summary bit out of pure laziness.

It works alright. It's become more of a routine study thing more than anything. But I do think it helps me order my thoughts, creating questions in the recall column is a useful exercise I feel.

I've never regretted the "unstructured data" approach to note-taking. I write furiously fast, and copious note-taking has enhanced both aided and unaided recall. It works very well during didactic teaching sessions (as opposed to conversational, Socratic teaching). I happen not to be a fan of Socratic teaching anyway.