Alpha Man Education

Note-Taking

Reviewing Your Notes So They Actually Help

Moderate or mixed evidence 5 min read Level: Beginner Reviewed October 30, 2026

Taking notes is only half the job. Learn how to fix, shorten and test yourself on your notes after class, and why rereading them is not enough.

Evidence rating: Moderate or mixed evidence. Reviewing notes is linked to better learning in studies of note-taking (Kobayashi, 2005; Jansen et al., 2017), and students who revise notes after a lecture can gain from filling in missed points (Luo et al., 2016). Reviewing by rereading is a weak method in a large review of study techniques (Dunlosky et al., 2013). So the evidence supports reviewing in an active way, such as testing yourself, more than rereading. How we rate evidence

What it is

Reviewing your notes means going back to them after class and doing something useful with them. That could be fixing gaps, shortening them, turning them into questions or testing yourself. It is different from reading them over, which is what many students do.

Research on note-taking suggests that having notes can help, and that reviewing them helps more (Kobayashi, 2005). But a large review of study techniques found that rereading is a low-utility way to study, because it feels easy and builds a false sense of knowing (Dunlosky et al., 2013). The way you review matters.

A good review has two parts. The first, soon after class, is to clean up and fill in the notes while the lecture is still fresh. The second, over the next days and weeks, is to practice remembering what the notes say. Both parts can be short. Ten minutes after class and fifteen minutes on a weekend can be enough to make a real difference for some students. The key is that every review ends with you trying to produce something, such as an answer, a summary or a solved problem, instead of only reading. If you only have time for one part, choose the testing part, because it shows you what you really know. A common sign that a review is working is that you find mistakes. If you never find any, you are probably only skimming.

When to use it

  • You take notes in class but rarely open them again until a test.
  • Your notes have gaps, arrows you cannot decode or words you missed.
  • You want a simple routine that works with any note-taking format.
  • You have ten to twenty minutes after a class or at the end of the day.

How to apply it

  1. Review within 24 hours. Set a fixed time, such as the last 10 minutes of study hall or after dinner.
  2. Read through once and fix what is unclear. Spell out abbreviations, add missing words and mark parts you did not understand.
  3. Fill gaps from the textbook, slides or a classmate. Write additions in a different color so you can see what you added.
  4. Underline or circle the main ideas. Aim for no more than a few per page.
  5. Turn each main idea into a question. Write the questions on the margin, on index cards or in a separate list.
  6. Cover the notes and answer the questions out loud or on paper. Then check and mark the ones you missed.
  7. Review again after about three days and a week later, spending most of the time on the missed questions.

Step-by-step examples

Example: a 15-minute review after a history class

  1. At 4:00 pm, a student reads his class notes on the Industrial Revolution and fixes a note that reads "fact. = bad".
  2. He realizes he meant "factory conditions were bad" and adds details from the textbook.
  3. He writes three questions: Why did people move to cities? What were factory conditions like? What changed for workers over time?
  4. He covers the notes and answers each question in two sentences, then checks.
  5. He misses the last question. He rewrites that part of the notes and puts a star on it.

Example: a weekly review for a chemistry class

  1. Every Sunday, a student spends 30 minutes on the week's four pages of chemistry notes.
  2. She goes through all four pages and writes a one-paragraph summary of each in her own words.
  3. She picks the five hardest problems from the week and redoes them on a blank page without looking.
  4. Any problem she cannot solve is copied onto a list titled "Ask the teacher".
  5. She brings that list to office hours on Monday.

Advantages

  • It catches mistakes and gaps while you can still fix them.
  • It turns passive notes into practice material.
  • It works with any format, including Cornell, outline and concept maps.
  • Short, regular reviews are easier to keep up with than long sessions.

Limitations

  • It takes time on top of class, which can be hard in a busy week.
  • If you only reread, it can give a false feeling of knowing.
  • If the original notes are wrong or too thin, reviewing them will not fix that without a second source.
  • Studies mostly test a single lecture and a quiz soon afterward, so long-term gains from different review habits are less clear.

Common mistakes

  • Waiting until the night before the test for the first review.
  • Highlighting the entire page, which marks everything and ranks nothing.
  • Recopying notes neatly with no thinking, which can feel productive without much benefit.
  • Reading the notes again and again instead of covering them and recalling.
  • Skipping the questions you missed, since they are what you most need to review.

Recommended next steps

References

  1. Kobayashi, K. (2005). What limits the encoding effect of note-taking? A meta-analytic examination. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30(2), 242-262.
  2. Jansen, R. S., Lakens, D., & IJsselsteijn, W. A. (2017). An integrative review of the cognitive costs and benefits of note-taking. Educational Research Review, 22, 223-233.
  3. Luo, L., Kiewra, K. A., & Samuelson, L. (2016). Revising lecture notes: How revision, pauses, and partners affect note taking and achievement. Instructional Science, 44(1), 45-67.
  4. Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58.

This guide is general educational information. Study methods work differently for different people, and no method guarantees better grades or results.

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