Cornell Notes: Walter Pauk's Two-Column Method Versus the Research

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In the 1950s Cornell University education professor Walter Pauk designed a note-taking system for the flood of postwar students facing dense lectures, laying it out in chapter 10 of his bestseller How to Study in College. The page is split so the right-hand note column is exactly twice the width of the left, with five to seven lines, about two inches, left blank at the bottom. Notes on the right must use paraphrase, symbols and abbreviations rather than full sentences. Questions and keywords go in the left column as soon as possible after the lecture, and during review the student covers the right side and uses the cues for active recall, which the hosts link to interrupting the forgetting curve.

The evidence is mixed. A 2023 Al-Baha University study found better listening comprehension, a 2023 study of nursing students found gains in learning performance, and a 2010 Wichita State University study in a secondary English class found Cornell notes beat teacher-supplied guided notes for synthesis and application, while guided notes did better for simple recall. Other work found nothing. A 2023 family and consumer sciences study showed no difference from students' own methods, a 2013 study found students produced better notes without higher achievement, and a 2016 Rutgers doctoral thesis found eighth graders wrote more words but captured fewer key points. The hosts point to cognitive load and argue the method works through intentional friction that digital templates can erase.

• One host compares the layout to panning for gold, with the margins acting as a sieve.
• The hosts liken guided notes to a grocery list and Cornell notes to the recipe for baking the cake.
• The 2013 finding is described as a better notes paradox: neater notes, no better test results.
• Apps such as Columns and templates for Notion, Evernote, GoodNotes and Microsoft Word now replicate the format.
• Typing into a digital template at 80 words per minute can turn the method back into transcription.