[ravenstine]

They tried to get us to take Cornell notes back in high school. I think they can work for some people, but I found that it created too much mental overhead. Seemed to turn me into more of a recording device than a mind comprehending a lecture. The note-taking style seems to assume a certain format of lecture, and if a teacher deviates from that then it can be more confusing than simply taking notes without the extra columns and cells.

That said, I think it's a good idea, but might not be for everyone. Kind of like how there are different apps like Notion, Trello, Quip, OneNote, etc., and while Notion works for a lot of people, some people benefit more from Trello's boards and cards.

[jerf]

In grad school for computer science, after some struggle, I eventually found that the best thing for me was just to not to take notes at all. Just engage with the class maximally, and make sure to do the homework relatively soon after that (maximizing the time between when you cover something in class and practice it with homework, aka, "waiting until the last minute", is a bad idea for all sorts of reasons).

Obviously, my plan doesn't work for everyone, or every class (this is a bad idea for fact-dump classes for me). But certainly after this I tended to look at everyone's list of "things you have to do to succeed in class" more as a menu than a proscription. Still do look at a lot of things that way; you can see it in our industry too, where you can find people telling you just have to use this type of type system or that type of database... yes, thank you for adding to my menu, but I'll examine that for myself, thanks.

[Bartweiss]

I've had this problem with every form of structured note-taking I've ever tried. My focus is redirected to writing everything down and ensuring I'm using the appropriate format like a stenographer, so badly that when the professor asks "Any questions? Does everyone understand this?" I don't know whether I understand - I haven't engaged my brain yet.

Even worse, I have to start wrestling with the format as soon as anything unusual happens. If I miss something, or the professor makes a mistake, or someone asks an important question clarifying that bit 10 lines ago, or the structure of the information isn't linear, I want to be able to bounce around my notes connecting and fixing things in a way that I'll understand later.

Structured systems like Cornell notes work well enough in a slow, perfectly sequential lecture, but everything works there. And I imagine they might probably be good for memorizing completely synthetic content like the rules of an unfamiliar game, where there's not much thought to apply. But for practical notetaking, I think their best use is after the lecture, as a way to convert "get the content down" notes into a study-friendly format.

[sukilot]

Thorough note-taking from a live stream is only appropriate when it's impossible to record.

In school, thorough note-taking during lecture is a terrible idea. Only jot down your own questions to follow up on later; don't copy the material. Record the material and replay it later to review.

Note-talking "offline", at your own pace, from a book or a recording, is a great way to build your memory of the material.