Learning & thinking · a life skill
Simple Reading Notes
a page that asks you questions
Notes you only reread feel familiar and teach you little. Rule a narrow column down the left, turn each note into a question there, and you've made a page you can cover and answer from memory, which is what makes it stay.
- Easy to start
- Medium impact
- Learn it in 1 week
- Ten minutes after each chapter
The milestone question came back; the rain one didn't. That cross is the most useful mark on the page: it tells you exactly which four lines to read again, instead of the whole chapter.
With the next chapter you read
Try it now.
A sheet of paper and a pen. The method comes from Walter Pauk, who ran Cornell University's reading and study centre and set it out in How to Study in College.
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Rule the page in three
A line down the left, about a third of the way in, for questions. A line across near the bottom, about five lines up, for the summary. Topic and pages at the top.
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Take notes on the right, short
One idea per few lines, in your own words, with a gap between ideas. Don't copy sentences: if you can't say it shorter, you haven't understood it yet.
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The same day, write the questions
Next to each note, in the left column, write the question that note answers. “Why” and “how” questions beat “what was the word for”.
This is the step people skip, and it's the one that matters. -
Cover the notes, answer aloud
Lay a card over the right side and answer each question out loud before you look. Tick what came back; cross what didn't, and reread only those.
Do it again a week later, from the questions alone. -
Sum it up in two lines
With the notes still covered, write what the whole page says. Two sentences. If you can't, the page has no point yet, and that's worth knowing too.
Reading for work, not school? Same sheet. A report on a supplier becomes “Why did delivery times slip?” and “What would it cost to switch?”. Cover it before the meeting and you'll know which answers you'd be bluffing.
Try it on yours
Make a sheet, then cover it.
Write a few notes from something you've just read, and the question each one answers. When every note has a question, cover the notes and see what comes back.
what you read
cues · notesTwo lines, written last.
Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere. Copy the sheet onto paper before you leave the page.
What the studies rate
Ten ways to study, graded.
In 2013 the psychologist John Dunlosky and four colleagues went through the research on ten study techniques that students really use, and rated each one high, moderate or low utility. Their review ran to some fifty pages in Psychological Science in the Public Interest.
Only two came out high: testing yourself, and spreading practice out over time. The two most popular habits, rereading and highlighting, came out low. So did summarising, partly because it only helps people who've been taught to do it well.
That's the honest case for the Cornell sheet. The format itself has been studied less, in small and mixed studies. What it does is build the two high-rated techniques into the page: the cue column is a test you've written for yourself, and covering it again next week spreads the practice. The summary strip is the weakest part, which is why it's two lines, written from memory, and last.
High
- Practice testingthe cue column, covered
- Distributed practicecovering it again next week
Moderate
- Elaborative interrogation“why” and “how” cues
- Self-explanation
- Interleaved practice
Low
- Summarizationthe strip at the bottom, kept short
- Highlighting
- Keyword mnemonic
- Imagery for text
- Rereading
The idea
Why it works.
Reading your notes again makes them feel familiar, and familiar feels like known. It isn't. The only way to find out whether you can recall something is to try, and the trying is also what makes the memory stronger.
Most notes can't be tried: there's nothing to answer. The cue column fixes that in a few minutes, and it changes how you read the first time, too. Once you know you'll write a question for each note, you start reading for what the question would be.
Keep it light
Habits that help.
- Leave gaps. White space between ideas is where the questions and the corrections go.
- Questions the same day. By next week you won't remember what the note meant.
- Say it, don't think it. “I know that one” is easy to believe in your head and hard to say aloud.
- Reread the crosses only. The ticks already worked. Spend the time where it's needed.
Practise this in HourLife.
In Learning: Captures. Track the books, courses, podcasts, videos and articles you are working through, log where you are, and keep what you take from them.
