The student should leave five to seven lines, or about two inches (5 cm), at the bottom of the page. The student divides the paper into two columns: the note-taking column (usually on the right) is twice the size of the questions/key word column (on the left). This system of taking notes is important as a high school or college level student. The Cornell method provides a systematic format for condensing and organizing notes. Pauk advocated its use in his best-selling book How to Study in College.
The Cornell Notes system (also Cornell note-taking system, Cornell method, or Cornell way) is a note-taking system devised in the 1940s by Walter Pauk, an education professor at Cornell University. Here’s a bit of history about it as an approach that’s been around since the 1940s. Don’t know about Cornell note-taking? I know I hadn’t heard about it until I attended AVID training a score of years ago.
