Notemaking by Jim Burke - Academic success requires various competencies, among them the ability to know and use a variety of tools and techniques to generate and organize information and ideas. Jim Burke refers to the tools and techniques on this page as “notemaking” because “taking notes” is passive: just as we must make meaning, so we must make notes—in our head, on the page, and in our notebooks. None of the ideas here are new, though he hopes the way he has designed these “school tools” helps you use them more effectively. To see how long people have been using graphic notes and Cornell Notes, check out these excerpts from Leonardo da Vinci’s journals. With few exceptions, the tools and techniques listed here are appropriate for all classes; many use them in grades as low as fourth and fifth with success, though he does not have exemplars. The tools here are intentionally free of directions because their intuitive design allows for multiple uses. Over time he will try to add more exemplars for the different techniques so you can see these different uses. This has been added to the tools section of Research Resources Subject Tracer™ Information Blog.