How to Take Lecture Notes: Before, During, and After Class

To take good lecture notes, preview the material before class, write down ideas and examples in your own words during it instead of transcribing, and turn your notes into questions within a day. Taking notes helps a little on its own. Reviewing and testing yourself on them afterward is where most of the benefit comes from.

That last part is the one most students skip. They leave class with pages of notes, don't open them for three weeks, and find a record of the lecture that no longer makes sense.

This guide covers how to take lecture notes in three stages (before, during, and after class), what the laptop-versus-handwriting research actually found, an example of weak and strong notes from the same lecture, and a template you can copy.

What makes lecture notes useful?

Note-taking does two jobs. Writing things down helps you process the lecture as you hear it, and the notes give you something to study from later. Research separates the two, and the second job turns out to be bigger.

A 2005 meta-analysis of 57 studies found the benefit of simply taking notes, compared with just listening, was positive but modest. A 2006 meta-analysis of 33 studies looked at taking notes and reviewing them and found a substantial benefit. The same review found that giving students a framework, such as the instructor's outline or partial notes, made note-taking more effective than training or instructions alone.

So good lecture notes have two qualities: they're complete enough to study from, and they're built to be reviewed, with structure and questions rather than a wall of text. Everything below serves one of those two goals.

Before class: set up in ten minutes

You'll take better notes on material you've seen once, because you can recognize the important parts as they come by.

1. Skim what's posted. Read the slide titles, the reading's headings and summary, or the syllabus line for this lecture. You're building a map, not studying.
2. Download or print the slides if they're available. Then you can annotate them instead of copying them, which frees your attention for what the lecturer says.
3. Write the headings on your page. If the slides show four sections, put four headings down with space under each. You've just made your own framework.
4. Bring last lecture's open questions. Anything you marked "?" last time is worth listening for, or asking about.

If you use the Cornell note-taking system, this is also when you rule the cue column and summary box.

During class: what to write down

You can't write everything, and you shouldn't try. Listen for signals that something matters:

• Repetition. If the lecturer says it twice, write it once.
• Enumeration. "There are three reasons..." means you should leave three numbered lines.
• Emphasis. "The key point is," "people always get this wrong," "this will come up again," a change in pace or tone.
• Board or tablet writing. If they took the time to write it, copy it.
• Examples and explanations. These are rarely on the slides and are what makes the notes make sense in three weeks.

Skip what you can get later: definitions printed in the textbook, slide text you've downloaded, and stories that don't connect to a point.

Write ideas, not sentences

Paraphrase in short phrases. Leave a blank line between ideas and indent supporting details under main points, so the structure is visible at a glance. Put a "?" next to anything you didn't follow, and keep going. You'll fix it after class.

Consistent shorthand saves real time. A small set you actually remember beats a big system you don't:

Slide-heavy and fast lectures

When the slides are dense, write in the margins of your printed or downloaded copy: what the lecturer adds, why it matters, an example. The 2005 meta-analysis found that visual presentation of the material interfered with note-taking, and copying slide text while listening is the extreme case.

When the lecturer moves fast, switch to fragments and arrows, leave gaps you can fill later, and don't stop to perfect anything. If the course allows recordings, note the timestamp beside a gap so you can jump straight to it.

Example: weak vs useful notes from the same lecture

Here is what two students wrote during the same few minutes of an intro economics lecture on price elasticity of demand.

Transcript-style notes:

Price elasticity of demand is how much quantity demanded responds
to a change in price. It's the percentage change in quantity demanded
divided by the percentage change in price. If it is greater than 1
demand is elastic. If it is less than 1 it is inelastic. Things that
affect it are substitutes and necessities and also time and how much
of your income it is.

Useful notes:

PRICE ELASTICITY OF DEMAND (PED)
- PED = %Δ quantity demanded / %Δ price
   - |PED| > 1 → elastic (qty very responsive)
   - |PED| < 1 → inelastic
- What makes demand MORE elastic:
   1. many substitutes (e.g. one cereal brand)
   2. luxury, not necessity
   3. big share of income
   4. more time to adjust
   e.g. gasoline: inelastic short run, more elastic long run
- ! Revenue: inelastic → raise price → revenue ↑
             elastic → raise price → revenue ↓   (on exam every yr)
- ? why does time make demand more elastic → check ch. 5

The second version is shorter per idea but holds more: the structure, the lecturer's examples, the point flagged for the exam, and an open question to resolve. After class, each block becomes a question: "Why is gasoline demand inelastic in the short run?" "What happens to revenue if a firm raises the price of a good with elastic demand?"

Laptop or handwritten notes: what does the research say?

You've probably heard that handwritten notes beat typed ones. The real picture is more mixed.

• The famous study. In 2014, Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer ran three experiments in which students who took notes on laptops did worse on conceptual questions than students who wrote by hand. Laptop users typed more words and copied the lecture more word for word, and the authors argued that verbatim copying meant shallower processing.
• The replications. A 2019 direct replication found no consistent difference between longhand, laptop, and eWriter groups. Pooled with other direct replications, it showed only a small advantage for longhand that wasn't statistically significant. A 2021 replication with 142 students again found that laptop users typed more and copied more verbatim, but the two groups' quiz scores, factual or conceptual, didn't differ significantly.
• The meta-analysis. A 2024 review of 24 studies with college students found a small advantage for handwritten notes on achievement, and a large advantage for typing in how much gets written down.

The bigger, clearer risk with a laptop is everything else on it. In a 2013 experiment, students who multitasked on a laptop during a lecture scored lower on a comprehension test, and so did students who could merely see a multitasking classmate's screen. Our guide to digital distractions while studying covers the settings that help.

What to do: use whichever you'll stay focused with. If you type, paraphrase instead of transcribing, close every other tab, and turn off notifications. If you write by hand, accept that you'll capture less and rely on the after-class review to fill gaps. For math and science lectures full of equations and diagrams, paper or a tablet with a stylus is usually faster.

Should you record lectures?

A recording is a backup, not a replacement for notes. It's useful for filling the specific gaps you marked during class, especially in fast or technical lectures. It's a trap if it lets you stop paying attention, because rewatching a full lecture takes as long as the lecture did and is a passive way to review. If your course posts lectures on YouTube, our guide to making flashcards from YouTube videos shows how to turn a transcript into cards.

Check your course policy first, and ask the lecturer if it's unclear. If you're considering an AI tool that transcribes and summarizes lectures, our review of AI lecture note takers covers accuracy, consent, and how to turn the output into study material.

After class: the 24-hour review

This is the step that turns notes into learning. Do it the same evening or the next day, while you can still remember what your abbreviations meant. It takes 20 to 30 minutes per lecture.

1. Fill the gaps (5–10 minutes). Resolve each "?" using the textbook, slides, recording, or a classmate. Fix anything you wrote down wrong.
2. Write questions in the margin (5–10 minutes). Beside each block of notes, write one question that the block answers. This is the core of the Cornell method, and it works in any notebook.
3. Recall with the notes covered (10 minutes). Answer each question from memory, then check. Or close everything and write down all you remember from the lecture, then compare. Mark what you missed.
4. Send misses to your review system. Anything you missed goes into flashcards or onto tomorrow's list. Our notes-to-flashcards workflow shows how to convert a page of notes into cards quickly.

Then revisit the same questions a few days later and again after a week. The forgetting curve explainer shows why that timing matters, and retrieval practice explained covers why answering questions beats rereading notes.

Lecture notes template to copy

Copy this page layout for each lecture. It works on paper, in a notes app, or in a document, and it walks you through all three stages:

COURSE: ________  LECTURE #__: ________  DATE: ____

BEFORE CLASS
Headings: 1. _______  2. _______  3. _______
Open questions from last lecture: ______________

DURING CLASS                  | AFTER CLASS
                              | (a question per block)
1. ______________             | Q:
   - idea                     |
     - example / explanation  |
   ! stressed point           |
   ? didn't follow            |
2. ______________             | Q:

SUMMARY (3 sentences, after class, from memory):

Recall check:  day 1 ___   day 3 ___   day 7 ___
Missed (send to flashcards): ___________________

If you fill in the template in Word, you can turn the Word document into flashcards after class and edit the drafts.

Not sure which page layout fits your classes? Our comparison of note-taking methods matches Cornell, outline, mapping, and charting notes to subjects and lecture styles.