Su/Cornell Note Taking System

This past week i used the SUCornell note taking strategy. Note taking is something that most people do, but how they do it is what really matters. Before this class I would sit through class taking notes without any real organization or pattern. When it came time to study, my notes were hard to read and what i could read of them didn't make sense to me. Using the SU/Cornell note taking strategy made it easy for me to go back into my notes, easily understand them and know where in my notes to find information. The SU/Cornell note taking strategy is beneficial for kinesthetic and visual learners. The way the notes are organized and rereading them as well as a summary of the notes is what makes this true. The first class i used this in was math 221. In math there is a lot of notes, and sometimes i find myself just writing stuff all over the paper trying to keep up and pay attention. This past week using the SU/Cornell notes was very beneficial in this class. I started by drawing the format on paper, this consists of a vertical line 2.5 inches in from the left which is called the recall column, then a line across the top a couple inches in, which leaves a large box on the right side of the paper called the summary box. Then during the week i recorded as many notes as i could in the summary box. After each class i reviewed my notes and reduced them to key terms and ideas and wrote them in the recall column. The next day i summarized my notes in the top part of the paper, so when i look back at the notes i have a summary of each page. The recall column and summary box provide efficient ways to review and think of test questions.


I also used the SU/Cornell strategy in my political science 121 class. In this class the professor goes pretty fast so i tend to scribble and write sentences that don't make very much sense. So using this strategy really helped me. Like i described earlier i created the format for the notes, which includes the summary box and the recall column. After class i reread the notes and put down key terms and ideas in the recall column. Following that i summarized the notes the next day, this goes in the top part of the page known as the summary box. Then i reviewed these places in my notes at the end of the week.