Note-Taking Systems

As a SUNY Empire State College student, you will spend much of your study time reading and responding to textbooks, journal articles, and other types of academic materials.  Fortunately, there are note-taking techniques available that can improve your ability to find and organize key concepts efficiently and effectively.

• Taking Notes–The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) website provides an exercise in one way to be more effective in taking notes from your textbooks.
• Other Note-taking Systems–Cal Poly's Academic Skills Center provides examples of note-taking methods such as mapping, charting and the Cornell Note-taking Method.
• Note-taking Tutorial--The Southern Oregon University's "Tips for Online Learning/Distance Learning" includes a helpful resource for note-taking.

For additional support with note-taking, please contact a director of academic support in your region.

If you have links to note-taking resources that you would like to share or suggestions for improving this website, please send them to Academic.Support@esc.edu.