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Geek to Live: Take study-worthy lecture notes

Published on RSS Feed for Lifehacker.. 3 months ago

by Gina Trapani

Copying class notes after the fact is a time-consuming way to study for an exam, but it was the only thing that truly worked for me back in college. But next week I'll be in a classroom again for the first time in 8 years, pen poised over notebook, and this time I'm going to perfect a strategy that gets my notes right the first time: the Cornell Note-taking method.

We've mentioned the Cornell method in passing here and there, but today we'll dive deep into how to transcribe a lecture in a way that makes studying and cross-references a breeze throughout the semester - no copying involved.

Lay out your page for the Cornell Method

Using the Cornell method, you split your notes page into three sections, as shown below.

Notes column (right) Record the lecture here during class using short sentences and fragments that transcribe the facts you'll need. Eliminate all unnecessary words. Use bulleted lists for easy skimming, and as much shorthand as possible (without sacrificing readability.) Develop a vocabulary of abbreviations you always use, like "ex" for "for example," "v." for "very," "tho" for "though," "1st" and "2nd" for "first and second." See this useful list of common abbreviations that can help you get lecture points down as quickly as possible. Finally, leave lots of whitespace between points and paragraphs so you can go back and fill in sections later.
Cues column (left) After class, review your notes and jot questions and memory joggers in this narrow column that help connect ideas listed in the notes section. When you're studying, you will look at these cues to help you recall the salient facts in your notes, so keep that in mind when you create your cues.
Summary area (bottom) After class while you create your cues, sum up the notes on each page in one or two sentences that encapsulate the main ideas in the bottom area. You'll use the summary section to skim through your notes and find information later.

An example of a page of notes taken with the Cornell method, shamelessly ripped off from a Temple University page, is shown below. (Click to enlarge.)

Study and review your Cornell-formatted notes

The Cornell Note-taking method's creator, Walter Pauk, outlined a six-step study system to use along with this note format. The BYU web site breaks down the 6 R's: Record, Reduce, Recite, Reflect, Review and Recapitulate. While those steps are worth a read, personally I think this system boils down even further.

In short, once you've attended class and filled in the notes area, that evening, review them and fill in the cues and summary area. When the time comes to study for an exam, read through your notes. To quiz yourself, cover up the right side and use the cues on the left to jog your memory and help you rebuild the factual narrative in your mind. When you've got a paper to write, use the summary section of each notes page to flip through and find relevant facts to cite in your paper.

In essence, with the Cornell method, instead of straight transcription, you're creating your study guide as you go instead of waiting till it's time to cram for the test.

Pre-formatted Cornell Notepaper

Unless you like messing around with a ruler and pen or pencil, there are a few templates and notepaper generators that will print out pre-formatted Cornell notes-style pages. Two mentionables include:

The Cornell Method PDF Generator creates printable PDF's split into the Cornell notepaper style with unlined, ruled, or graphed sections. Optionally include your name, the date, and the name of your class, and up to 4 punch holes for use in a binder. Also, choose the line darkness on a scale from gray to black.
Cornell Word Templates are perfect for students who take their notes with Microsoft Word. This page includes instructions for creating your own Word Cornell template, and a sample you can tweak to your own needs.

How are you taking notes this semester? Had any good or bad experiences with the Cornell method? Let us know in the comments.

Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, is sharpening her Ticonderoga Number 2's for class. Her semi-weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Wednesday and Friday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

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Geek to Live: Roll your own timeline

Published on RSS Feed for Lifehacker.. 2 months ago

by Gina Trapani

I have a terrible memory, especially when it comes to when things happened. Significant life events - like graduating and 9/11 - are all landmarks that help me remember when events occurred relative to them (i.e., "that was before I moved to California.") But there are still long periods of my past that are just a big amorphous blur - especially before I started using a computer every day.

As a result, I've always been fascinated with digital timelines as a memory aid and reference: the ones that occur as artifacts of other activities (like our sent email folder and digital photo collection), and the ones we can purposefully construct for historical documentation.

So today I'll go over how to visualize a series of events using the open source dynamic widget called Timeline.

Why Timeline?

There are tons of ways to create a timeline - from a text file to an Excel spreadsheet to a weblog to a hosted webapp. While Timeline is more difficult to use than those other options, I chose it for a few reasons:

* It separates data from presentation. Timeline's event data is stored in an XML document that the view loads and renders. Unlike a spreadsheet or regular web page, the data is in an independent format that could very easily be used to create any number of different timeline formats.

* It lives on your computer. I want to keep my timelines around for a long time, publish them on my own web site, or simply keep them for my eyes only. Unlike a hosted web app, with Timeline you create and control your own data locally.

* It's highly customizable. The open source Timeline offers a lot of neat options for rendering your timeline, from zooming in on particular days on an hour-by-hour basis, embedding images and links, and displaying events down to the minute, or simply for a number of days.

* It's super good-looking. See for yourself how you can pan and zoom in on events on a Simile Timeline, on this sample Lifehacker timeline I put together in an hour or so last night:

You'll notice that it works a lot like Google Maps. Click and drag it to move forward and back in time, and click on an event dot to view its detail bubble.

Pretty cool, huh? You can have one too.

Make your own Timeline

Timeline requires that you create and edit a raw XML file, something folks who haven't at least mucked around with HTML might find insanely confusing, or at least just insane. If you're not down with the X and ML, Timeline's not for you. If you are, let's dive in.

A Timeline widget consists of two files: the XML data file, and the HTML widget file.

1. Create your events.xml file. Make a new text file and save it as events.xml. Its format is pretty simple. To give you an idea, here's the events.xml file that created the timeline above. Here's a snippet of what it looks like:

<data>
    <event 
        start="Jan 31 2005 00:00:00 GMT"
        title="Lifehacker.com launches"
        image="http://cache.lifehacker.com/assets/www.lifehacker.com/img/girl-face.png">
        After several boring weeks of "blogging in the dark," Lifehacker.com opens to the public.
     </event>
</data>

There you can see the event is defined with a start date, title, image, and description. Pan to January 31, 2005 on the Timeline above to see how this snippet looks in the Timeline widget.

Now, I like XML, but editing this document by hand got old really quick. So I threw together a Quick and Dirty Event XML-O-Matic web page, that makes it easier to enter event details and get its snippet of xml to add to your data file. Here's what that looks like:

Use the Event XML-O-Matic to build your event file.

Your events.xml file should start with the <data> tag, then include your copied and pasted event data bits. Finally, close it with the </data> tag. Again, check out this working events.xml file as a model.

2. Set up the HTML widget file. Timeline's presentation is highly-customizable, but all its options go beyond the scope of this article. To get you started with a plain Jane timeline as shown above, download this timeline.html file into the same directory where your events.xml file lives.

Then, open the timeline.html file with your web browser. Voila! The events you defined in your data file will render on your timeline. Be sure to head on over to the Timeline web site for more great timeline examples and documentation on how to customize your timeline.

The possibilities for historical personal documentation are endless with a timeline. Map your life story on a personal timeline or your resume on a career timeline. Visualize your family history, or your kid's progression from a teensy little infant to an angsty teen. Chart your travels or goal progress on a timeline, too.

How do you remember sequences of events in your life? Got any questions or thoughts on Timeline? Let us know in the comments. Thanks to Sean O for pointing out Timeline.

Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, suffers from CRS syndrome - Can't Remember Sh Stuff. Her semi-weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Wednesday and Friday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.