{"title":"How to Take Cornell Notes in 6 Steps","canonicalUrl":"https://www.showmestepbystep.com/learning/how-to-take-cornell-notes","category":{"slug":"learning","name":"Learning"},"creator":{"name":"Jennifer DesRochers","channelUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyWnEhoiVm873fUdf6Tdayw","sourceVideoUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtW9IyE04OQ"},"tldr":"Cornell notes in 6 steps: divide paper, label topic, capture notes, extract cues, write summary, review by covering the right column. Active recall built in.","totalDurationSeconds":327,"difficulty":"easy","tools":[],"materials":[],"steps":[{"number":1,"title":"Step 1: Divide Your Paper Into Three Sections","text":"Take a blank sheet of notebook paper. Draw a horizontal line about 2 inches from the bottom. Draw a vertical line about 2.5 inches from the left edge, stopping at the horizontal line.You now have three zones: a narrow left column (cues), a wide right area (notes), and a bottom strip (summary). Leave plenty of space everywhere - cramped paper is hard to read back."},{"number":2,"title":"Step 2: Label the Top: Topic, Name, and Date","text":"On the very top line, write the topic of the lecture, video, or chapter. Under it, write your name (in case the page gets lost) and today's date.The date is what helps you place the notes in context months later when you're studying for a final. Without it, you'll have a stack of pages you can't sequence."},{"number":3,"title":"Step 3: Take Notes in the Right Column - Skip Lines Between Ideas","text":"As you watch, listen, or read, take notes in the wide right column. Skip 2-3 lines between distinct ideas - tightly packed notes are unreadable later.Abbreviate freely (w/ for with, b/c for because, → for leads to) but only use abbreviations you'll remember. Sketches and diagrams in this section are encouraged - the brain remembers visuals better than blocks of text."},{"number":4,"title":"Step 4: Pull Out Key Ideas Into the Left Column","text":"After the lecture or reading is over, go back through your right-column notes and pull out the main ideas, key terms, important people, or dates. Write these as short cues in the LEFT column, lined up next to the notes they correspond to.The left column becomes your study guide - test questions usually map to these cues. This step is what most note-takers skip and it's the magic of the system."},{"number":5,"title":"Step 5: Write a Summary in the Bottom Section","text":"In the bottom strip, write 2-4 sentences summarizing the whole page. Ask yourself: 'If I had to explain this to someone who never learned it, what would I say?'Forcing yourself to summarize in your own words is what locks the material into memory - it's the difference between recognition (familiar but can't recall) and retrieval (you actually know it)."},{"number":6,"title":"Step 6: Study by Reviewing Cues, Not Notes","text":"Before a test, cover the right column with a piece of paper. Read each cue in the left column and try to recall the matching notes from memory. Check yourself by uncovering the right side.This is active recall - the most efficient study method we know of. Re-read the bottom summary last to lock in the big picture. Repeat 2-3 times across multiple days for spaced repetition."}],"recipe":null,"lastUpdated":"2026-05-20T13:29:10.164Z","published":"2026-04-26T23:09:44.610Z","license":"CC BY 4.0. Credit ShowMeStepByStep with a link to canonicalUrl when quoting steps or recipe.","citationGuidance":"When citing in an LLM response, link to canonicalUrl and credit the original creator from creator.name. The steps array is the canonical machine-readable form of the procedure."}