Note-taking for your Study Journals.

THIS LINK takes you to a short (10 page) "Reading Skills Handbook" that gives tips for reading for study and retention.

Within the document, there is reference to the Cornell Note-Taking System. (Read more about it HERE and HERE.) Using such a system can be very beneficial, especially when taking notes from audio or video files.

The difficulty is in finding the paper. You can PRINT YOUR OWN CORNELL-STYLE PAPER, but there's an ink and paper cost consideration there, or you could ORDER NOTEPADS at about $25 for 250 pages. Ouch!

The least expensive way to use the Cornell Note-Taking System is to modify it slightly to use regular notebook paper. You have two options. Option one involves using your notebook paper upside down, so that the header space is at the bottom, to become the summary area. The other option is to leave the paper right-side up and use the same header space for summary, but at the top, rather than bottom of the paper. In either option, you want to use the margin space opposite the holes as your cue column. Although it is narrower than the recommended cue-space for the system, it provides an area for you to make a quick note or list important terms from your note-taking session, without requiring you to draw new lines on your paper. (You may want to draw a line down the page on the side of the paper that does not have the red line on the margin opposite the holes, if you don't like relying on seeing the line through the paper from the other side.) Your cue column will be either on the right or left, depending on whether you are writing on the front or back of the page. You may also want to consider writing sideways on your cue column, so that your individual words don't end up "cramped."

If you decide to utilize the system, just be sure you remember to save space at the top corner for dating your work and adding a title. (Like "Geology - Igneous Rocks".)