Do Notes Really Help Us Learn? What Research (and My Brain) Says

I still remember the first time I came across research that said taking notes helps you retain information. It felt validating because I’d already noticed it in my own life — scribbling things down made them stick. But years later, I started to wonder: is that still the consensus, or just one of those “study tips” we pass around without checking the science?

Turns out, researchers have been testing note-taking for decades. And while the basic message — yes, it helps — still holds, the details are more complicated than I expected.

Why Notes Work in the First Place

Early studies like Fischer and Harris back in 1973 showed something simple but powerful: students who took notes performed better than those who didn’t, even if they never looked at the notes again. Just writing things down seemed to lock the material in more firmly.

Later work by scholars like Kenneth Kiewra and others explained why: note-taking isn’t just copying. When you rephrase, organize, or summarize what you’re hearing, you engage deeper processing. Your brain isn’t just hearing — it’s translating, filing, and connecting. Think of it like building extra neural scaffolding around new ideas.

The Handwriting Advantage (Maybe)

For years, a famous study by Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014) dominated the conversation. They found that students who took notes by hand remembered concepts better than those who typed on laptops. The reason? Typists tended to transcribe verbatim, while longhand forced students to condense and think.

Newer studies complicate that picture. A direct replication by Heather Urry and colleagues didn’t find the same strong handwriting advantage, and their meta-analysis of eight similar studies echoed this: no consistent benefit. A 2022 study even showed no significant difference between handwriting, tablets, and laptops when students could use their preferred method.

So, does handwriting still win? Neuroscience leans yes: a 2024 Scientific American report described brain imaging work showing handwriting activates a wider range of regions — motor, visual, sensory, memory — compared to typing. But the behavioral data is mixed. My takeaway: writing by hand might give you a brain boost, but how you process the material matters more than the tool.

Voice Notes and Other New Twists

It’s not just hand versus keyboard anymore. A 2020 study compared typed notes with voice-recorded notes and found that students who spoke their notes out loud created richer, more connected summaries. And a 2025 study in introductory physics classes found that when students were actually taught how to take effective notes and allowed to use them, their exam scores and grades improved significantly.

So maybe the real story isn’t handwriting versus typing — it’s whether we teach students to use notes well in the first place.

Reviewing: The Secret Sauce

Here’s a humbling truth: taking good notes doesn’t help much if you never look at them again. Recent studies, like Salame (2024), found that students who didn’t review their notes underperformed, even when their raw notes were solid. Writing helps encode, but reviewing is what turns notes into long-term knowledge.

This resonates with me. I’ve filled notebooks only to close them and never return. The act of writing helped, but the ideas that lasted were the ones I revisited later.

But… Not So Fast

Research also points to limits and caveats:

• Cornell Notes. This structured method of dividing a page into cues, notes, and summaries sometimes helps, sometimes doesn’t. Nursing students showed gains, but high schoolers often didn’t. The notes looked better, but grades didn’t always follow.
• The “Paper Effect.” In one experiment, students who took notes and then had them removed performed worse on recall than students who relied only on memory. Over-reliance on notes can sometimes backfire.
• Digital distractions. Laptops in class can tank performance if they become multitasking machines. Harvard research even shows that students sitting near a distracted laptop user scored lower.
• Quantity vs. quality. More words on the page doesn’t equal more learning. Notes only work when they’re processed, not when they’re copied wholesale.
• Handouts vs. notes. Reviews suggest that active note-taking often helps more than receiving pre-made handouts, but this isn’t universal. Digital tools and handouts can still be useful when they’re combined with active engagement.

So What’s the Consensus?

If I had to distill the research (and my own trial and error) into a few truths, it’d be these:

• Always take notes. Even if you never look back, the act itself helps you encode information.
• But review them too. Reviewing is where the real retention happens.
• Quality beats quantity. Summarize, rephrase, organize. Don’t just transcribe.
• Method matters less than mindset. Handwriting may light up more brain regions, but thoughtful processing matters more than pen versus keyboard.
• Experiment with new tools. Voice notes or structured systems may fit some learners better. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all.

My Personal Takeaway

For me, note-taking is part memory, part mindfulness. It keeps me engaged in the moment and gives me something to return to later. But the science reminded me of what I was skipping: review. Notes don’t just need to be written — they need to be lived with.

So the next time I sit through a lecture or read a dense article, I’ll still jot down what matters. But I’ll also block time to circle back, underline, connect dots, and maybe even say the notes out loud. Because the consensus isn’t just “take notes.” It’s “take notes well — and don’t let them gather dust.”

References

• Fischer, J. L., & Harris, M. B. (1973). Note-taking and recall. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 35(1), 384.
• Kiewra, K. A. (1987). Notetaking and review: The research and its implications. Instructional Science, 16(3), 233–249.
• Kiewra, K. A. (1989). A review of note-taking: The encoding-storage paradigm and beyond. Educational Psychology Review, 1(2), 147–172.
• Bohay, M., Blakely, D. P., Tamplin, A. K., & Radvansky, G. A. (2011). Note-taking, review, memory, and comprehension. American Journal of Psychology, 124(1), 63–73.
• Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159–1168.
• Urry, H. L., et al. (2021). A multi-site replication of Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014). Psychological Science, 32(10), 1561–1572.
• Wiechmann, A., et al. (2022). Comparing handwritten, laptop, and tablet note-taking. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 924771.
• Scientific American. (2024). Why writing by hand is better for memory and learning.
• Khan, A., et al. (2020). Using voice note-taking to promote learners’ conceptual understanding. arXiv preprint.
• Adhikari, S., Neupane, A., & Poudyal, H. (2025). Effective note-taking in introductory physics courses. arXiv preprint.
• Salame, I. (2024). The impact of note-taking and review on academic performance. International Journal of Instruction, 17(3), 561–576.
• Stacy, A. M., & Cain, J. (2015). Note-taking and handouts in the digital age. Medical Education, 49(7), 731–732.
• Wired. (2014). The paper effect: If you note something, you’re likely to forget it.
• Harvard Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. (2024). Technology policies: Managing distraction in class.