The usefulness of taking notes to enhance recall was assessed, based on reviewing the research literature using the techniques of meta-analysis. Meta-analysis allows for both the computation of the strength of an effect within studies and the determination of mean effect sizes averaged across related studies. Fourteen studies that maintained notetaking versus non-notetaking (listening) group comparisons were examined, along with seven studies that included a group that took notes and mentally reviewed notes and another group that took no notes but reviewed the lecturer's full notes. Specifically, the following research questions were addressed: whether the process of taking notes in itself aids recall; and whether reviewing one's notes aids recall. Results indicated that the process of taking notes in itself does little to enhance recall performance (encoding hypothesis), but that permitting students to review their own notes (external storage hypothesis) clearly results in superior recall achievement. The control group for nearly half the studies had access to the lecturer's full notes. While the control group had 100 percent of the possible test information available to them, the notetaking groups almost surely had less information at their disposal. Problems with meta-analysis are identified. References and a master list of Georgia State University reading and learning assistance technical reports are appended. (SW)