How to take better notes
Notes are not a recording of the lecture — they are a tool for thinking. The best notes are shorter than you expect, written in your own words, and designed to be tested against later.
Learn with EfikoStep by step
- Summarise, do not transcribe. Write ideas in your own words instead of copying verbatim. Rephrasing forces you to understand as you go.
- Use the Cornell layout. Split the page: notes on the right, cue questions on the left, a summary at the bottom. The cues turn your notes into a self-test.
- Connect ideas. Draw links between new material and what you already know. Learning is mostly about connections, not isolated facts.
- Review and question. Within a day, revisit your notes and cover the answers — try to recall them from the cues. This is where notes become memory.
A good test of your notes is simple: a week later, can you reconstruct the lecture from them? If yes, they are working. If they are a wall of transcription you never revisit, a shorter, question-driven page will serve you far better.
Frequently asked questions
Should I type or handwrite notes?
Either can work, but writing by hand tends to encourage summarising rather than transcribing, which aids memory. The key is putting ideas in your own words.
What is the Cornell note-taking method?
A page layout with a wide notes column, a narrow cue column for questions, and a summary at the bottom — designed so your notes double as a self-test.