Uploaded August 2016 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Learn to study faster and more efficiently, and remember more! I will show you my favorite system for taking notes, called the Cornell Notetaking System. You'll learn a way to take better notes and become a better active listener. I'll explain how to use this method and show you an example of it. Using the Cornell template will help you remember more of what you hear in class and help you organize your notes better. This method will help you if you are a student in a high school, language school, or university, or if you attend meetings, conferences, or like studying on your own! You can practice using the Cornell Notetaking Method with this video on the differences between British and American spelling at youtube.com/watch?v=BG017jvhB7I , or any other engVid lesson!
To test how well you understood this lesson, take the quiz here: engvid.com/how-to-study-efficiently-the-cornell-notes-method
Find more free advice on how to take good notes here:
goodluckexams.com/how-to-take-effective-study-notes
TRANSCRIPT
Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's video I am going to teach you an amazing way to listen and take notes. This method I am going to teach you today is really, really going to help you, and I know this because I use this method myself, and I found it has really, really helped me when I was in university, during meetings, during all sorts of different situations. This method really works.
So, first, before I teach you about the method, I want you to think about yourself and I want you to think about: When do you take notes? Okay? So, when do you listen and when do you take notes? So, some of you might think... Maybe you're in university, maybe you're in college, maybe you're in high school, and you have to listen to your teacher talk, and you have to take notes to help you remember what they are saying. Maybe you've graduated and you're working in a business, and you have meetings and... Or presentations, and you also need to take notes. So, this method will work for whether you're working or you're studying. Maybe you're taking the IELTS or the TOEFL, this can also help you on the TOEFL test in terms of improving your listening and taking notes.
So, how do you take notes? Okay? I know some students, they watch their professor or their teacher talk, and they use their computer, and they just type everything their professor or teacher says. Is this something you do? Maybe you write your notes, and you write every single thing your professor says down on a piece of paper, or anything somebody says. Well, there are a couple of problems with these methods, and I'm going to explain to you some of the problems now. So, for people who like to take notes by computer, there are some advantages of this. You're able to type really quickly and you're able to get a lot of what you hear down on your computer, and it's easy to save. But the problem with this is it's a type of passive listening. So, a lot of the times you're not actually using your brain to interpret what you're listening to, and you're not actively listening. You're just copying word for word, you're not actually doing anything active with the material you're listening to. So, working with a computer-and I've seen this in my university-a lot of students also end up going on Facebook during the lesson or lecture. So, a lot of the times they get very distracted. When they should be listening, they're actually not.
So, for me personally and I think for a lot of people, using a computer to take notes is not the best method. Again, for some people it might work, but for a lot of people it doesn't. A lot of the times it's actually better to take notes by hand, and the reason is when you take notes by hand, you have to think about what you're writing because writing takes a bit longer than typing. So you're organizing the material, therefore it's more of an active way to listen. Okay? And they've done psychology studies on this, and they do find that taking your notes by hand is often better than taking notes by a computer.
So, today I am going to teach you a way to take notes by hand using what is called "The Cornell Method". This method was developed at Cornell University, and a lot of universities actually encourage students to use this method because it is very good. So, what is the Cornell Method? Okay, well, I'm glad you asked. So, I have here an example of how you would organize your paper. Imagine this is your paper that you take your notes on. What you can do is you can make a box just like this where you have a box where you write the title and the date of the lesson, you have a square or a rectangle here, you have a rectangle here, and you have a rectangle at the bottom. Okay? So, in total you have-one, two, three, four-four different rectangles.
Learn to study faster and more efficiently, and remember more! I will show you my favorite system for taking notes, called the Cornell Notetaking System. You'll learn a way to take better notes and become a better active listener. I'll explain how to use this method and show you an example of it. Using the Cornell template will help you remember more of what you hear in class and help you organize your notes better. This method will help you if you are a student in a high school, language school, or university, or if you attend meetings, conferences, or like studying on your own! You can practice using the Cornell Notetaking Method with this video on the differences between British and American spelling at youtube.com/watch?v=BG017jvhB7I , or any other engVid lesson!
To test how well you understood this lesson, take the quiz here: engvid.com/how-to-study-efficiently-the-cornell-notes-method
Find more free advice on how to take good notes here:
goodluckexams.com/how-to-take-effective-study-notes
TRANSCRIPT
Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's video I am going to teach you an amazing way to listen and take notes. This method I am going to teach you today is really, really going to help you, and I know this because I use this method myself, and I found it has really, really helped me when I was in university, during meetings, during all sorts of different situations. This method really works.
So, first, before I teach you about the method, I want you to think about yourself and I want you to think about: When do you take notes? Okay? So, when do you listen and when do you take notes? So, some of you might think... Maybe you're in university, maybe you're in college, maybe you're in high school, and you have to listen to your teacher talk, and you have to take notes to help you remember what they are saying. Maybe you've graduated and you're working in a business, and you have meetings and... Or presentations, and you also need to take notes. So, this method will work for whether you're working or you're studying. Maybe you're taking the IELTS or the TOEFL, this can also help you on the TOEFL test in terms of improving your listening and taking notes.
So, how do you take notes? Okay? I know some students, they watch their professor or their teacher talk, and they use their computer, and they just type everything their professor or teacher says. Is this something you do? Maybe you write your notes, and you write every single thing your professor says down on a piece of paper, or anything somebody says. Well, there are a couple of problems with these methods, and I'm going to explain to you some of the problems now. So, for people who like to take notes by computer, there are some advantages of this. You're able to type really quickly and you're able to get a lot of what you hear down on your computer, and it's easy to save. But the problem with this is it's a type of passive listening. So, a lot of the times you're not actually using your brain to interpret what you're listening to, and you're not actively listening. You're just copying word for word, you're not actually doing anything active with the material you're listening to. So, working with a computer-and I've seen this in my university-a lot of students also end up going on Facebook during the lesson or lecture. So, a lot of the times they get very distracted. When they should be listening, they're actually not.
So, for me personally and I think for a lot of people, using a computer to take notes is not the best method. Again, for some people it might work, but for a lot of people it doesn't. A lot of the times it's actually better to take notes by hand, and the reason is when you take notes by hand, you have to think about what you're writing because writing takes a bit longer than typing. So you're organizing the material, therefore it's more of an active way to listen. Okay? And they've done psychology studies on this, and they do find that taking your notes by hand is often better than taking notes by a computer.
So, today I am going to teach you a way to take notes by hand using what is called "The Cornell Method". This method was developed at Cornell University, and a lot of universities actually encourage students to use this method because it is very good. So, what is the Cornell Method? Okay, well, I'm glad you asked. So, I have here an example of how you would organize your paper. Imagine this is your paper that you take your notes on. What you can do is you can make a box just like this where you have a box where you write the title and the date of the lesson, you have a square or a rectangle here, you have a rectangle here, and you have a rectangle at the bottom. Okay? So, in total you have-one, two, three, four-four different rectangles.
