The art of note-taking has been around for millennia, ever since the invention of the first writing system.
Before full sentences were used and the rules of grammar developed, ancient scribes carved their notes into clay tablets. Thousands of these tablets have survived to this day, detailing everything from shopping lists to messages to inventory.
Plenty of the most iconic people throughout history have utilized note-taking in their work in one way or another.
Pliny the Elder, a prodigious Roman author from the 1st century A.D., took notes on every book he read and compiled those notes into 160 volumes. His notes are a valuable insight into 1st-century Roman life.
Leonardo da Vinci covered his notebooks with sketches and comments, producing an estimated 20,000 to 28,000 pages.
His notes were an invaluable means of discovering more about the natural world and revolutionized mankind’s understanding of anatomy, geology, botany, aerodynamics, geology, and more.
Meanwhile, Thomas Edison was one of the most prolific note-takers in all of history, amassing a staggering 5 million pages of notes.
For a man who was expelled from school as a boy for “mental deficiencies,” his success is quite the recommendation for adopting this practice! Without his notes, he never would have been able to invent the light bulb, as his “invention of 1,000 steps” wouldn’t have made it past the first handful.
Note-taking became popular with the aristocracy during the Renaissance, moving beyond the sphere of scholars and philosophers. Many of their collections have been passed down today, once again demonstrating the timelessness of good notes.
Today, we use notes as the backbone of academia. Students of all levels and disciplines use note-taking methods to capture information for their studies, whether it’s during a lecture, a reading assignment, or video sessions. When most people think of note-taking, they think of the classroom.
However, the benefits of note-taking extend far beyond academia. Anyone can use this skill in their everyday lives to record thoughts, ideas, and events that happen in their lives.
Plenty of successful entrepreneurs and artists have used the art of taking notes to ensure that they never lose an idea when the spark of inspiration hits.
Millions have adopted a journaling habit that helps them record their thoughts, emotions, and observations. Millions more utilize to-do lists on a daily basis, noting their goals, action items, and progress.
You, too, can harness this ancient practice and use it to improve your life. Whether you’re a student, artist, businessman, police officer, barista, or stay-at-home mom, writing notes can have a positive impact on your life.
Dear reader, you may be a seasoned taker of notes or a complete rookie looking for a place to start. Either way, you’ve come to the right place. We’re going to take a look at one of the most timeless and popular note-taking styles on the market: the outline method.
What Is the Outline Method?
The outlining method is a common note-taking method that uses a hierarchical format to organize information.
The note-taker can delineate categories within the subject by using headings, subheadings, and various kinds of bullet points to indicate groupings and their relationships.
The basic format is as follows:
For reviewing purposes, the document is titled with the subject matter or lecture content as well as the date.
Main topics are identified and recorded on the left side of the page, typically aligned with the left margin if using physical notebook paper. These can be bolded, underlined, color-coded, or italicized to make them stand out as headings.
Subtopics are added as subheadings underneath and indented to the right of the main topics. This may be indicated by bullet points, dashes, arrows, capital letters, or numerals.
Supporting information is positioned underneath the subtopics, with another indentation to the right. They may be marked with bullet points, dashes, arrows, lowercase letters, or numerals.
All further details are added with further indentation, with each piece of information getting progressively smaller and moving farther to the right on the page.
The result is a veritable “outline” of the subject material, defined by the shape of all of its essential features.
Other Note Taking Methods
Taking notes with the outline method is only one of many styles that you can utilize. Just to give you an idea of other note-taking strategies, let’s take a look at a few of the other most popular styles:
Mapping Method
Start by writing the subject title at the center of your page and drawing a circle around it. Then, draw lines branching out to more circles, in which you can put topics, subtopics, and supporting information.
This style is a graphic representation of the subject that focuses on illustrating its internal connections. It emphasizes critical thinking and seeing how topics relate to each other.
Cornell Method
Make a column on the left margin of your page for key terms. The rest of the page to the right will hold the body text of your notes. Meanwhile, cordon off the bottom margin of the page for a place to summarize the key highlights and takeaways.
The Cornell method is one of the most organized methods available and can be applied to most disciplines and used by all manner of students. However, it can be rigid and time-consuming to create.
Sentence Method
Write a new sentence for every fact or topic presented. Feel free to number them as you go along, though bullet points work too.
This is a bare-bones type of strategy. It’s better than writing paragraphs or nothing at all, but the structure’s simplicity borders on a lack thereof. However, it does pair very well with shorthand and can be very fast.
Charting Method
Use columns, tables, or charts to organize data, with labels acting as headings.
This method can capture vast amounts of data in a very concise space. Everything is categorized, and it’s extremely easy to identify associations and connections between the data points. It minimizes the amount of writing required and is great for memorizing complex facts.
Box Method
Draw boxes or frames around content to signify groupings. Put boxes inside of boxes to indicate topics and subtopics.
The box method offers a visual approach to taking notes. If clustering points wasn’t enough, it also allows room for drawing diagrams, sketches, or other visual aids; simply add them to a box.
7 Facts About the Outline Note-Taking Method
The outline organization is one of a kind and unique among the other note-taking methods. Most students find this style of note-taking to be the most intuitive and easy to learn.
Very likely, you’ve seen this method used before or have used it yourself. This blog post isn’t meant to be a beginner’s guide, but rather a more in-depth look at facts you may not have known about this iconic style.
The outline method is made up of simple steps, but there’s plenty of room in the process to pay attention and see how these 7 fun facts play out.
Ancient Origins
The outline method is one of the very oldest, going as far back as ancient Greece and Rome. That’s right, it was birthed in the cradle of western civilization alongside ideas of democracy and freedom of thought.
It was common practice for students in those cultures to study rhetoric, the art of effective verbal persuasion. Today, we may think of rhetoric as merely the ability to speak well and persuade an argument, but for the ancient Greeks and Romans, it was an art.
Classical Rome witnessed the first codification of the five canons of rhetoric. The five canons consisted of five stages of developing a persuasive speech: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.
Right there, you can see where the benefits of the outline method would come in. When drafting a persuasive argument, the five canons could be categorized under five separate headings.
Ancient rhetoricians instructed their students to break their discourse into sections. From there, they could build a speech with all of its arguments laid out in a very clear and orderly manner.
Not that students in ancient Rome used the outline method exactly the same as we know it in our modern day; the exact format, symbols, and other devices have evolved through the centuries.
But in terms of sentiment and usage, it certainly doesn’t seem to have strayed all that far from its origins.
Ranked as One of the Best
The outline method is consistently ranked as one of the best note-taking methods out there by both researchers and students, worldwide. Many high-achieving students rely on it as an effective study skill that helps them succeed in their academics, one exam and course at a time.
If you glance at the laptops of undergraduate students sitting in any university lecture hall, chances are you’re going to see some variation of the outline method. It’s straightforward and intuitive, which helps minimize distractions while taking notes.
Outlining is suitable for most subjects. partly because it’s so simple to use. In fact, its simplicity is what makes it such an effective method of note taking. Students of any age, grade level, or discipline can find a way to make outlining work for them.
Outlining is also the style closest to to-do lists or any kind of listed notes with bullet points and the potential for topics and subtopics.
The only subjects where this style may not be ideal are some STEM subjects, such as physics or math. Those subjects don’t always offer a clear informational structure, making them harder to outline. Math, for example, relies mostly on formulas rather than hierarchies of information.
Has a Logically Coherent Structure
Between 1984 and 1995, educational psychologist Kenneth A. Kiewra wrote over 20 research papers at the University of Nebraska on the topic of note-taking, many of which focused on the outline method.
He listed several significant benefits of this method. For one, it lays out all the information in a very superordinate-subordinate manner. This, in turn, facilitates local coherence between each line on the page.
In other words, the hierarchical structure tells you exactly how each line relates to the preceding and following lines. Its indentation on the page informs you of its importance to the overall topic.
The outline method is extremely orderly and logical. Each piece of entry has a placement in the hierarchy, so much so that you know how everything relates simply by looking at it. Everything belongs.
The downside of this local and logical coherence is that it can be challenging to fit information into your notes when it doesn’t have a clear place in the hierarchy.
If it can’t be obviously categorized under this or that heading or subheading, then where do you put it? The solution for some students is to make a separate side box for all of the random data points that they want to remember but don’t know where to place them.
And again, while this logical sequencing is a strength in the vast majority of cases, the outline method may struggle to organize a lecture or topic that is very disorganized or lacks clear logic.
Perfect for Speed and Connections
Another aspect of the outline method is that its effectiveness makes it the fastest note-taking method on the market. Since the hierarchy is quite simple and intuitive, it’s easy to jot down notes at break-neck speed.
You don’t even have to use full sentences. Just capture the essence of each concept; you can be as detailed as time allows, but you can also focus on the broad brushstrokes.
This is another reason behind this style’s popularity: it’s simple, effective, versatile, and fast. What more could you want?
As already touched on, the hierarchy and local coherence make it obvious how each data point relates to all the others. The way it’s structured makes it extremely easy to understand the connections between all of the items.
This sets you up nicely to begin building internal connections between the data based on the associations that are immediately established the minute you place each piece of information.
Belongs to the Family of Tree Structures
Let’s get more technical for a moment. As we’ve discussed in the preceding sections, the outline method is a combination of logic and hierarchy, local coherence, and connections, all wrapped up in a fast, efficient format.
It belongs to what is known as the family of “tree structures.” If your first thought when you think “tree structure” is of a family tree, then you’re on the right track! It’s a branch of data visualization in which elements of a hierarchical system can be presented as a tree diagram.
To fit this criteria, the elements must be categorized into categories and subcategories, aka, that superordinate-subordinate relationship we mentioned earlier.
You can easily take your outline and map it out on a tree diagram, with the document’s title being the trunk, topics being the main branches, subtopics being smaller branches, and so on.
In other words, each topic is the sum of its parts. You can break down complex subjects into smaller, more digestible ones. Doing so helps you better understand the subject at a granular level.
Because of this, outlines can also be used for problem solving or breaking down tasks into more manageable steps. Its linear nature may not allow for the same degree of horizontal complexity as, say, the logic tree that is mind mapping, but it’s still nothing to sneeze at.
Outlines Can Be Formal or Informal
Outlines can take many forms, as we’ve discussed, though amidst their differences, they retain a core set of similar characteristics. Namely, that there are topics, subtopics, and supporting details.
You can organize this on your page in whatever manner you choose, as far as the symbols go. The differences can be described as formal and informal outlining.
You’ll know a formal outline when you see it; this is the traditional outline complete with Roman numerals, uppercase and lowercase letters, and very neat, consistent headings and subheadings.
It takes effort to make a formal outline, because it’s more rigid and thorough. It takes formatting the information to the next level.
Most students and note-takers will use a more informal method of outlining. This type of outline foregoes Roman numerals and letters, instead using mere bullet points, arrows, or dashes. It has fewer details and more flexibility.
The main points are still lined up with the left margin of the page, with supporting points indented beneath them. The indentation is the biggest indication of where a piece of data fits in the hierarchy; the farther right, the smaller the piece of information.
Makes Reviewing Easy
Try reading through your outline, and you’ll see how smooth it is.
The clear outline structure and local coherence make it extremely easy to review your notes. There’s a linear flow of logic in which each subsequent piece of data fits nicely into what came before.
The ability to draw internal connections helps with this as well; it systematizes your notes into topics, which makes the knowledge easier to remember.
Reviewing is a key part of any note-taking practice, so the fact that the outline method offers such an easy approach to reviewing and memorizing information is a huge benefit and a feather in its cap.
Outlining: The Pros and Cons
Not bad, right? There’s more to the outline method than meets the eye. It is both elegantly simple and surprisingly tough to construct at first.
We’ve touched on a number of the key advantages and disadvantages of the outline format, but let’s take a minute to really highlight the pros and cons of this note-taking process.
When used correctly, an outline will help you record content and keep track of how different topics relate to each other, all laid out in a very logical and sequential manner. You can easily use those relationships to build internal connections.
Another advantage is that outlines are very easy to review, and you can easily edit them into study questions by turning the main points into questions. Retrieval is very manageable.
It’s very fast and efficient, which is a big benefit when absorbing large amounts of highly structured content. You can organize a lot of information quickly by using an outline.
Outlining facilitates local coherence, which makes information fit together neatly and logically. When done at scale, this leads to the global coherence of the entire document as well.
Among the disadvantages we’ve touched on is the limited use of outline note-taking in certain STEM subjects or any situation in which the information being presented is not particularly linear or logical.
Outlining also requires quite a bit of concentration and hands-on thinking to place everything in the hierarchy correctly.
There is also limited room for adding additional information after the fact, at least on physical notebook paper. Outline notes also don’t offer any real creative avenues, as they don’t leave much room for sketches or diagrams.
Conclusion
As you can see, the outline method works in favor of the majority of note-takers. Its popularity is indisputable, having been used since antiquity by all manner of iconic historical figures who offer real-life examples of the benefits of this method.
This method is, of course, just one of many in the illustrious history of note-taking. There are other valuable styles out there, and it’s in the best interest of every serious note-taker to be adept at more than one of them.
You can never have too many tools in your belt. And outlining is an effective note taking method that’s right up there with the very best of them. But just to prove this, we briefly looked at a few of the alternative methods, including mind mapping and the famous Cornell method.
Then, we dove into seven things about the outline method you may not have known. Let’s recap:
- First up were the style’s ancient origins. Outlining is at least somewhat responsible for the development of the art of rhetoric in ancient Greece and Rome, as students found that they could draft discourse ideas in an outline that was easy to organize and review.
- This style is one of the top-ranked, if not the most common. Certainly, it’s widely used by students across all levels of academia and is unlikely to ever go out of style. At least part of its popularity is due to its versatility, as it can be used for most disciplines.
- This method is the best you can find in terms of having a logically coherent structure. You won’t find a more linear and tightly-knit style anywhere. Every line is placed just so within the hierarchy, which is clearly delineated with the use of topics, subtopics, and supporting details.
- Outlining is perhaps the fastest of the traditional styles of note-taking. The simple yet efficient format allows you to record information as quickly as you need it, organizing large amounts of data with only a few dashes and indentations.
- We learned that the outline method is actually part of the family of tree structures, which is a more technical way of saying that it relies on logical hierarchies to break information down into smaller, more manageable chunks. This actually places it in the same family as mind maps, though the two look quite different on the page.
- There is a difference between formal and informal outlines, though that difference mostly comes down to whether you use more formal symbols, such as Roman numerals or letters, or the reliable bullet point or dash. Formal outlines are often more meticulous about details and grammar, while informal outlines are flexible and more free-flowing.
- Lastly, we looked at how easy outlines are to review. This is a huge advantage, as reviewing is a major aspect of taking notes in the first place. If they’re not easy to re-read, then they’ve failed as good notes.
Well, what do you think?
I hope you’ve gleaned some takeaways that enrich your understanding of this ancient style of note-taking. It may just look like a list of information, but outlines offer an impressive capacity for capturing nuance and complexity. Your study skills will benefit from organizing information in this style.
Such a structured format is fantastic for isolating key ideas and key points, using space relationships to indicate the importance of information and how it all relates. It’s an excellent way to cover detail and nuance while keeping an eye on the big picture.
Anyone can use outlines in their life, whether they’re still in school or enjoying retirement. It’s applicable to virtually any subject and can be adapted to suit your needs.
So whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a complete beginner, the outline method is a great tool to have in your toolbox.