Best Results Organizing

In last week’s post, Take Note: Paper Doll’s Guide to Organized Note-Taking (Part 1), we looked at the variety of situations in which we might take notes. Of course, it’s instinctual to think of classroom notes or notes in meetings first, but as we reviewed, we take notes all the time in other ways.

To review, we take notes on other inbound information:

• non-academic learning and skill acquisition
• at conferences, in webinars, and at professional lectures
• in collaborative meetings
• situationally, such as when we’re learning about a diagnosis or a new project, or we’re fielding information captured on a phone call
• in legal and financial situations, such as when conversing with professionals providing guidance
• when we’re gathering quickly-changing information when dealing with a crisis situation

In the comments for that post, my colleague Linda Samuels described the process as “Listen, capture, and engage” and that’s exactly the case when someone (a lecturer, a presenter, a group of people in a meeting) are speaking.

However, we’re not always listening and porting someone else’s spoken thoughts into our notes.

Quite often, the categories of note-taking involve figuring out for ourselves what is important and worth capturing, such as when we do research or plan travel. And sometimes, the notes we take are completely of our own devising, such as when we are writing fiction or music, designing, inventing, or otherwise capturing our own thoughts.

So, Linda is right, note-taking can be about listening (to others or ourselves) or reading, capturing, and engaging with the material. Ultimately, it’s about what they said, what they wrote. and what we thought (and continue to think).

Our notes are extensions of our brains, and the more organized they can be, the better able we will be to use that information, whether it’s to get better grades, further our careers, choose the best course of action, or create something masterful.

Today, we’re going to explore some of the best methods for organizing our note-taking.

NOTE-TAKING METHODS WHEN SOMEONE IS SPEAKING

We’re going to start with the category we think of most often when conceptualizing taking notes — when someone else is imparting information verbally.

In these situations, you generally have little-to-no sense of what information is coming next (unless the speaker has provided an outline or detailed agenda) and — unless you’re watching a recorded presentation — you have no control over the speed at which the information is coming at you. Common situations include:

• In a class lecture (whether in-person or virtually)
• When taking a webinar (whether live or recorded)
• At a conference (whether in crowded plenary sessions, like keynotes, or smaller breakout sessions)
• In a brainstorming session or meeting at work

As we look at methods of note-taking in these situations, we’ll begin with text-based notes, and then look beyond at notes that employ graphics and symbols.

TEXT-BASED NOTE-TAKING METHODS

Sentence Method

Have you ever been in a course or at a conference where you’ve been given no sense of the outline of material to come? It’s hard to take notes without context.

If the information is coming out firehouse-style, with a rapid-fire, fast-and-furious assault of information (and often abbreviations or unfamiliar buzzwords), the best thing you can do is to accept that you will not get the necessary context, and treat each thing you hear as existing on its own little island.

Literally, each new thought or fact that you hear gets its own sentence/line in your notes. If you can transcribe it into your own words, do so; if you haven’t a clue, start the line with some quotation marks, write as much as you can of what you hear in a sentence, close the quotation marks, and put an asterisk (or whatever symbol you prefer) in the left margin, to remind you to come back for it later.

If you write each sentence sequentially, with a break between lines (skipping a line on paper, or double- or even triple-spacing on your screen), you’ll at least capture the essentials and give yourself space to revise and make it make sense once you do get context. That context may come either from continued lecturing, from reading a textbook or associated PDFs, going to office hours with your professor or a one-on-one meeting with your supervisor, or speaking with your fellow students or colleagues

The disadvantage of the sentence method, which is not very different from most people’s default “try to get everything down” method is that until you go back to review and flesh out your notes (and perhaps add context from your readings or later discussions), the notes themselves don’t really indicate which points are major vs. trivial.

The Sentence Method is equally applicable to analog or digital note-taking. Just remember, as we discussed last week, that digital note-taking temps you to transcribe rather than to cognitively process, making it less likely that you’ll learn as you take notes.

Outlining Method

Outlining is one step up from the sentence method in terms of organization. You know what a formal outline looks like:

I. Overarching categories start at the left.

A. Sub-categories of the overarching category are indented further right, and are indicated with a capital letter.

1. 1. 1. Examples or subcategories are numbered and indented even more.
      2. More examples are further numbered.

a. Further sub-breakdowns get lowercase letters

b. And if you need to indent further, you can start using bullet points.

B. And here’s your fabulous second sub-category under the first point

II. Your second major overarching category goes here, and the process continues.

Formal outlining tends to work well if the speaker is organized, if you already have some familiarity with the topic, and especially if you’re provided guidance in advance. In a history course, for example, you’re likely to know that you’ll need to track political, economic, and social factors. In a science course, the material is usually presented from top-level down to the specifics.

A more informal outlining system will focus on putting the super-mostest-importantest stuff toward the left, indenting somewhat for sub-categories, and indenting more for examples or less important things. When you’re informally outlining, it takes some effort to get a sense of the speaker’s intent to create your sense own of hierarchy.

An outlining method works best when you have enough time to consider and make decisions about organizing the information as it is spoken. Of course, if you’re not entirely sure about the information coming at you (or the person lecturing isn’t particularly organized), neither method of outlining is likely to be much superior to the sentence method. 

Cornell Note-Taking System

When I arrived at Cornell University in August 1985, I had never heard of the Cornell Note-Taking Method. About a week into my freshman year, I sat in a biology lab where a teaching assistant taught us the basics, and (as I inhaled the scent of what I assumed was formaldehyde and anticipated having to be cruel to a poor, departed cousin of Kermit) I assumed that this note-taking method was specific to my school.

I had no idea that it had been devised 30+ years earlier by Cornell professor of developmental education, Walter Pauk, who made the method famous in How to Study in College. 

The Cornell Note-Taking Method requires dividing each page into three sections. (N.B. — remember that abbreviation from last week? — some people refer to a fourth section, which is the top of the page, where you reference what the notes are about. You could call it the topic line or the subject line. However, it seems a bit too obvious to discuss in depth.)

First, the majority of the page is divided into two vertical columns or sections, with the left (Cue) column taking up about a third of the page and the right (Notes) column taking up about two-thirds.

Sticklers would say to divide it as 30% for Cue and 70% for Notes. In this regard, Paper Doll is not a stickler. If this were an 8 1/2″ x 11″ piece of notebook paper, the Cue column might be 2 1/2″ and the Notes column 6″.

The bottom of the page is not divided vertically, but spans the entire page horizontally. It’s used as a summary section. I’ve seen some articles require that the section should be 2 inches high, but again, I’m not a stickler. (I attended college before there were many pre-created styles of Cornell Notes notebooks. I just eyeballed everything. Nobody will put you in note-taking jail if your lines aren’t straight.)

How does it all work? 

• The Notes Column — In this section, take notes by whatever method you can — sentence method, outlining method, your default note-taking style, etc. The key is to record the lecture or presentation as faithfully and meaningfully as possible here. Quoting the words Linda Samuels used at the start of this post, this is where you listen and capture.
• The Cue Column — As you take notes, the cue column will largely remain empty, but as soon as possible after the lecture or the presentation, re-read your notes and declutter them. Reduce the material in the Notes column to their essence. What is it you absolutely need to know? This is where you engage!

In an academic setting, you might use the cues to “recite, review, and reflect” (in Pauk’s words) as you study. You can use the Cue section to write prompting questions to help you quiz yourself later. 

At a professional conference, these might be ideas you intend to put into practice, such as marketing methods or software platforms you intend to try. 

• The Summary Section — This area gives you the chance to sum up the key information from that page in just a few sentences.

 

Cornell Note-Taking is best for academic notes, conference notes, or any time you’re focused on learning or key aspects of something presented by someone else, as it encourages intentional notet active recall. (You can also use it for taking notes on study material you read.)

Understand that it will be rare for the end of the page to sync up with the end a concept. That’s OK; use the Summary Section to summarize the concepts on that page. 

You might also wish to try the Cornell Note-Taking Method in collaborative meeting notes, and use the cue column for action items that are your responsibility.

To learn more about the Cornell Note-Taking Method, Cornell University offers a free public-facing course called Note-Taking Strategies.

Products to Help the Cornell Note-Taking Method

You can absolutely try the Cornell Note-Taking Method with a sheet of notebook or bank paper and a writing implement and just free-draw the dividing lines; a ruler or any available straight-edge will perfect your lines. But if you (or your favorite student) are more likely to commit to a method when  there are fun school or office supplies to use, you can add a variety of goodies to your note-taking arsenal. For example:

Cornell Notes Notebook — rustic cover, 8 1/2″ x 11″, lined, 120 sheets, $6.99

Oxford Tops FocusNotes —8 1/2″ x 11″, 50 sheets, three-hole punched, $6.06

Oxford FocusNotes — 6 ” 9″, 80 pages, top spiral bound steno version (good for lefties), $6.14

Mochi Things Pieces of Moment Cornell Notebooks — 7 1/2″ x 10″ pages, unlined notes section, grid summary section, only 26 pages (!) but 8 gorgeous designer colors, $6.95

Horizontal-style iQ Organizer Tablet — 8 1/2″ x 6″, landscape, 80 sheets, $5.99

Of course, if you prefer the digital approach, a number of digital platforms have Cornell templates built in:

• Evernote’s Cornell Notes Template 
• Notion’s Cornell Notes Template
• Incomptech Cornell Lined Graph Paper PDF Generator (super-cool and customizable)

• How to Make a Cornell Notes Template with Word
• Goodnotes Free Cornell Notes Template (for iPads and tablets)

VISUAL AND HYBRID NOTE-TAKING METHODS

Some people (like Paper Doll) think in words; in fact, I think in outlines, with Roman numerals, capital letters, Latin numbers, and lowercase letters, and in my head, I see how new, inbound information should fit in that mental model. (Y’know how they taught outlines in fourth grade? That’s what’s going on in my head.)

However, to my shock and utter confusion, not everyone in the world is exactly like Paper Doll. Not everyone thinks and understands best solely in terms of text-based notes. For the visually inclined, there are a note-taking methods that incorporate graphics that represent concepts and the connections between them.

Mind Mapping

Mind maps are literally maps that allow you to see how to get from one concept to another. The basis of mind-mapping is that, depending on the complexity of your understanding of the connections between concepts, you can use branching diagrams to draw the way ideas are connected.

And the better you understand a concept, the better you will remember it!

Mind mapping helps you to visually connect ideas regardless of how they are presented. The key is that you have to pay attention to the nuances of the way your lecturer or presenter delivers information so that you know whether whether something is a whale (a big, new idea) or a small fish swimming in the specifics with other little fishies. 

For academic purposes, reviewing your mind maps requires that you restructure each of your thought processes, ensuring you truly understand. You can even break down the sections of your mind map onto index cards to text yourself on small sub-sections, then piece them altogether like a jigsaw puzzle to see the big picture.

Nicoguaro, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Mind mapping for knowledge acquisition is often best done free-hand, as classrooms, webinars, and conference settings don’t offer the time necessary to quickly click and format a device screen; however, you can take traditional text-based notes and then study by creating visual links as you understand the relationship between concepts.

In a group/work meeting, you might capture brainstormed notes on a white board. For whatever purpose you’re using mind-mapping, if you employ an analog method as you acquire the information, you can always adapt and augment your notes afterward in a digital format.

Popular mind-mapping software platforms are MindMeister, Coggle, Scapple, MindNode, and The Brain.

Even if you’re a visual thinker, mind mapping may be hard to use in an academic setting, when you need to capture a lot of complex details. However, it’s an exemplary tool for visual thinkers taking notes on their own research and personal creative projects.

Sketchnoting

Mind mapping requires words, maybe a few circles about the big concepts, and lines connecting the ideas.

But what if you are so creative and/or non-linear that you need actual pictures for your notes to have meaning? Sketchnoting may offer a better solution; it blends text with doodles and drawings, as well as customized symbols, to help make sense of material presented in a class or at a conference.

Designer and author Mike Rohde coined the term sketchnoting in 2006. His process uses words, pictures, and symbols, including:

• standard text
• emphasized text (though colors, all-caps, “bubbling” of letters, and anything that makes the text stand out)
• shapes, either on their own or combined with bullet points
• “containers” or larger shapes, like boxes, quote bubbles, thought bubbles, for showing larger concepts
• “connectors” like solid or dotted lines, arrows, or squiggles to show connections between concepts
• symbols and icons
• drawings, usually done in quick comic-esque style to capture metaphors

Most of the videos on sketchnoting are long; however this little intro (designed as a teaser for a course) is just five minutes and provides a good overview.

 

Personally, the most creative I get is drawing a delta (a Greek letter that looks like a triangle) as the shortcut for the word “change,” and arrows up/down/right/left to mean increase, decrease, backward, forward.

Additionally, my drawing skills are so poor that when playing Pictionary with my family, it’s been noted that my cows, cars, and maps of the United States all look pretty similar. (Conversely, getting the word “motorcade,” my sister once drew the entire JFK assassination, complete with the grassy knoll and the book depository. I suspect only one person in a family gets artistic talent.)

For a visually creative person, sketchnoting can enliven the material and make it grippier to understand and remember. 

If you’d like to delve more deeply into using sketchnoting, Rodhe has his own YouTube channel, and there are there are numerous books on sketchnoting, starting Rohde’s own The Sketchbook Handbook: The Illustrated Guide to Visual Notetaking.

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Next time, we’ll continue this series and look at the importance of annotation for learning, as well as note-taking methods for situations that do not involve lectures or presentations, such as research and creation. This will include Zettelkasten, Ahrens Smart Notes, and the Feynman Technique, and we’ll match up the various note-taking situations with the best methods, both analog and digital.

We’ll wrap up this series with thoughts on how AI can help us take notes (or improve our notes), provided we take certain cautions.

Tell me, did you use any special note-taking methods when you were in school? And how do you take notes when you’re in a class, webinar, conference session, or meeting? Please share in the comments.