Cornell Notes Template
Print Cornell note pages — cue column, note-taking area, summary strip and a header for your name, class, date and topic — on US Letter or A4, wide ruled, college ruled, narrow ruled or blank. Or switch to the online mode and take Cornell notes on screen, then copy, download or print them.
Whatever you type in these fields appears in the header; leave one empty to write it in by hand.
Pick the same paper size in the print dialog and print at 100% scale with default margins.
How to Use the Cornell Notes Template
- 1. Fill in the header, or don't. Anything you type in Name, Class, Date and Topic is printed on every page; leave a field empty to write it by hand.
- 2. Choose paper and lines. Pick US Letter or A4, then wide, college or narrow ruling — or no lines for diagrams and maths. The preview shows exactly what will print.
- 3. Print as many pages as you need. Choose a page count and print at 100% scale with the same paper size selected in the print dialog.
- 4. Or take notes on screen. Switch to Take notes online to type a cue and its notes row by row, add a summary, and copy, download or print the result.
The Cornell Method
The Cornell note-taking system was devised in the 1950s by Walter Pauk, an education professor at Cornell University, who set it out in his long-running book How to Study in College. It divides each page into three parts with three jobs: a wide column on the right for notes taken during the lecture or reading, a narrow cue column on the left for questions and keywords you add afterwards, and a strip across the bottom for a summary written in your own words. On a letter-size page the classic proportions are a cue column of about 2½ inches, a note area of about 6 inches and a summary area about 2 inches deep; this template keeps the same proportions on A4.
Pauk described the method as a cycle often summarised as the five Rs:
- Record — during class, write the main ideas and facts in the note area, in short phrases rather than full sentences.
- Reduce — soon after, turn the notes into questions and keywords in the cue column, next to the notes they point to.
- Recite — cover the note area and answer each cue aloud, in your own words, then check.
- Reflect — think about how the ideas connect to each other and to the rest of the course.
- Review — go back over the cues regularly, a few minutes at a time, rather than rereading everything before the exam.
Example: one page of biology notes
Topic: Photosynthesis
Cue
What goes in, and what comes out?
Notes
Light energy + water + carbon dioxide → glucose + oxygen. Happens in chloroplasts; chlorophyll absorbs mainly red and blue light.
Cue
What are the two stages, and where do they happen?
Notes
Light-dependent reactions (thylakoid membranes) make ATP and NADPH and release oxygen. Calvin cycle (stroma) uses them to fix carbon dioxide into sugar.
Summary
Photosynthesis stores light energy as sugar in two linked stages: the light reactions capture energy as ATP and NADPH, and the Calvin cycle spends it turning carbon dioxide into glucose.
Choosing Paper and Line Spacing
| Option | Line spacing | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Wide ruled | 11⁄32 in (8.7 mm) | Large handwriting, younger students, notes you'll annotate later |
| College ruled | 9⁄32 in (7.1 mm) | Most lecture and reading notes |
| Narrow ruled | ¼ in (6.4 mm) | Small handwriting and dense notes |
| No lines | — | Diagrams, maths, chemistry structures and mind maps |
US Letter (8.5 × 11 in) is standard in the United States and Canada; A4 (210 × 297 mm) almost everywhere else. Selecting the matching size here tells the browser which page size to lay the template out for; choosing the same size in the print dialog keeps the columns where they belong.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the Cornell note-taking method?
- A way of laying out and using notes, devised by Walter Pauk at Cornell University. You take notes in the main column during class, add questions and keywords in the left-hand cue column afterwards, and write a short summary at the bottom. Later you cover the notes and use the cues to test yourself.
- What goes in the cue column?
- Questions the notes answer, key terms, names and dates — short prompts you add after the lecture, each one next to the notes it refers to. Questions work best, because when you review you can cover the notes and try to answer them from memory.
- Can I print Cornell notes on A4 paper?
- Yes. Choose A4 as the paper size and the template redraws with the same proportions as the letter-size original. Select A4 in your print dialog too, and print at 100% scale.
- Which line spacing should I choose?
- College ruled (7.1 mm) suits most students and most lectures. Wide ruled gives more room for larger handwriting or later annotations; narrow ruled fits more on a page; no lines suits sketches, formulas and diagrams.
- Can I take Cornell notes on a laptop?
- Yes — switch to Take notes online. Each row pairs a cue with its notes, so they stay side by side as the page grows. Copy the result as text, download it as a .txt file, or print it in Cornell layout. Your notes are kept in this browser's local storage and are never uploaded.
- Does the Cornell method actually work?
- Research on the Cornell format itself is limited and its results are mixed. Its value comes from the habits it builds in, which are well supported: reviewing notes soon after class, testing yourself from the cues instead of rereading, and summarising in your own words. Used that way, any layout works better; the Cornell page just makes those steps hard to skip.