Think. Notes. Summary.

One shape. No exceptions.

Cornell divides the page in three: a margin, a body, a foot. In the margin goes the question the page answers. Cornell calls it the cue.

Here it is the Think. Thought precedes the thing, and the page already gives it the first column. Name it plainly and the order cannot be skipped. You write the Think first, or you do not write.

The system is Walter Pauk’s, set down in How to Study in College. Cornell is the youngest of the eight and the only one built after the Revolution: chartered in 1865, land-grant, nonsectarian, coeducational, on Ezra Cornell’s intention that any person find instruction in any study. The first American Ivy, not the last colonial one.

Write the Think first. A vague question makes a vague entry.