Study Skills

[wx247]

Does anyone know the best way to get through a whole lot of text that is very boring and complex, beyond skimming? Is there a method anyone knows about? I could really use it. This text I am reading is putting me to sleep. It could be because it is 11:30 and I am usually in bed by 10:30, but I doubt it.

[Miss Mary]

I would recommend breaking it up and making an outline from it. Summing up each section of several paragraphs at a time.

My 10th Grade daughter and I just got thru Julius Ceasar (sp?) a few weeks ago. Talk about difficult reading material! She had to sum up scene/acts, list characters, and give a moral to each one. She's not a strong reader and relied upon me to help. I haven't taken a college course in over 5 years now so I was really rusty! Even though this was college prep English, it was still very confusing. At one point she just said - if my teacher sees that I at least tried to figure this out, I get credit. They discussed each scene in class so by test time I think she knew what the moral was. We put in a few very late nights......we even began talking like that - good morrow! LOL

Good luck Garrett.

[wx247]

That is a great idea. Thanks Miss Mary!

[kevin]

Study in the same place every time. Get a chair which isn't too comfortable and a desk which isn't cluttered. Make sure nothing will distract you, computer, telephone, family, and start reading. When you find words you don't know, write them down and check them out later. Don't highlight generally. Don't take too many notes. You'll know if you're taking too many notes if you're writing complete sentences and copying things you should just be able to remember from the text. Oh and set manageable goals. 100 pages isn't doable in one go for most people, but generally if you're consistent and don't try to cram you'll be able to spread them out. Reward yourself, and don't leave until you've met your goal.

That's the method that works for me, and yes I make A's at a university. Might not work for you though, adjust as you see fit.

What class are you reading for?

[Miss Mary]

Ditto on the complete sentences. Skip them, these are your notes. I took very short notes in college class lectures. I had to, the Professors went so fast. I began taking my notes in an outline form. As soon as a teacher would say, I will mention 3 areas that are important.....I would list them right away, leaving lots of space for more outline format notes. Waiting. Sometimes they'd get off track and if either I or another student hadn't asked about the third (test material), my notes would be incomplete. In fact, I had my own shorthand - TM (test material), VI (very important), etc. There were more but I can't remember them all. Because I was 30, non-traditional college student age and all, my advisor suggested I take a Study Skills class (ironically your topic title). Maybe this is where I got some of these ideas. Fuzzy on that.

I took the first seat usually too. To not get distracted by other students. Or miss anything. I learned that when a teacher reviewed material many times, it would be on a test or exam. Each and every single time. Much younger students would be walking out of class after a difficult test, complaining they hadn't studied well b/c they didn't think a certain section would be on the test. How did I study so well they asked? I said it's easy, you pay attention! Some of us even starting asking - will this be on the test? Why not?!!! A test shouldn't be a mystery, more like a review (one teacher told me this).

I agree on the study habits at home. Very good advice Kevin gave you there Garrett.

I clearly remember making large study charts for Western Civ. Comparing 2 or 3 civilizations. On each line, on each side, I wrote each aspect we compared (religion, customs, etc.). During a test, I swear I could almost see that chart in my mind if I closed my eyes. Because I would make the left hand side alphabetical, for example if you compared California to New York, CA would be on your left hand side. And again, each line was the same for all civilizations. So I knew oh yeah, 4 down were customs..... I got all A's in that class. Not trying to brag but those charts saved me!

The other thing I would do is if we were permitted to jot notes on our tests, I would immediately flip them over to write down Algebra formulas, History notes, very difficult spellings I had memorized, before I even glanced at the test. I just skimmed my notes out in the hall, walked in and sat down. Got handed the test, flipped it over and jotted my notes down first, after that I took a deep breath and took the test. I had more than one Prof tell me that was a good idea - writing down difficult memorized test material first.

My daughters prefer flash cards. I prefer the chart sized study guide if it's a large unit (so I can visually imagine it while taking the test, a set of flash cards would be a jumbled mess in my head). I used rulers and black magic markers to divide the study charts, again to separate and condense.

Mary

[azsnowman]

I would recommend breaking it up and making an outline from it. Summing up each section of several paragraphs at a time.

VERY good idea Mary, this is how I'm getting through these classes I'm STILL taking I feel like I've made college a "career" now, people ask what I do for a living, I simply tell them I'm a FULL TIME student

Dennis

[Persepone]

In class:

Go to class. Every time. Don't skip. Sit in front where you can see/hear and are not distracted by other students, etc. Write down "words" that the professor says--not sentences, not whole paragraphs--just enough so you can remember what he said in class. But do copy stuff off the board. And do NOT spend so much time trying to take notes that you aren't paying attention to the POINT the professor is trying to make.

Pay special attention to "stories" the professor tells to emphasize his points. Try to figure out why they are relevant, etc. The analogies should make sense. If they do not, make an appointment and ask the professor about them.

Suspend your outrage. Try to understand what is said in "context" and why the professor is saying it. In college you read things that are often distasteful--and there is a point to it. If you get all outraged, you won't understand the point. Many things make less sense if you have no historical context and that, perhaps, is one of the more important things about college--you learn to put stuff in perspective. Try to understand the larger perspective. If you take a history class and are shown pictures of the concentration camps, don't get all outraged because your professor is showing you pictures of naked dead people--try to understand the larger perspective of the Holaucaust. What was happening in the world that made it possible for the Hollaucaust? What did other countries do? How could such a "secret" be kept, etc. etc. etc.

Suspend your sense of "I don't need to know that." Yeah, you probably do--or the professors would not spend their time trying to teach it to you. You really do need to learn math, science, etc. even if you can't imagine ever needing to know whatever it is that you don't want to learn. Don't fight it--just learn it. Then argue about whether you need to know it.
Then, after class, take 5 minutes to write down what the professor emphasized in class. What was his main point or points?

Remember that for every hour in class, you are expected to spend 2 hours outside class on independent study. This translates to the notion that if you are taking a 15 credit load (full time student), you are expected to be spending 45 hours/week studying! PLAN ACCORDINGLY!

How comfortable your study area is, whether you have music or not, and other details are less relevant than that you have allowed yourself adequate study time and that you actually do the studying each week and every week throughout the semester. If you do, you should have the reading done and not have to wade through quickly at the end of the semester. Education is a process.

How to prepare for exams:

Go over your notes. Refresh your memory on your reading. If the class has a standard textbook, use the Table of Contents as an outline (saves you writing one) and mark where the professor spent the most time. If there is no standard textbook, make a list of all the reading assignments you had during the semester and see what groupings you can make of the reading assignments--were they grouped chronologically or thematically?

Now, use those words you wrote down in your notes, paying special attention to what the professor seemed to think was important. Look for words that got repeated week after week.

Now--and here is the critical step--pretend you are the professor and you are writing the exam--what questions would you ask? Write down the questions. Write perhaps 10 "essay" questions (e.g., "What were the economic causes of the Civil War" or perhaps "Discuss Scott Fitzgerald's assertion that 'The rich are very different from you and I...'" or "what is the difference between meiosis and meitosis" or "Does the narrator of Gulliver's Travels have a sense of humor?" or whatever...

Then, actually write down the answers to the 10 essay questions that you would ask the students if you were the professor. Remember that this is "studying," you you can use whatever texts, etc. that you need. But write a complete essay for each answer--it does not have to be "long," but it does have to have an introductory paragraph, 3 supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion. If you started studying 2-3 weeks before the exams, you will have plenty of time to do this. Don't do it all in one sitting... Write questions, write essays, polish the essays, write more questions as they occur to you, write more essays... It does not matter if you think the professor will hand you a "multiple guess" exam--write essays as your study technique.

You will do very, very well on any exams that you prepare for this way. If you were in class and paid attention, you probably will have actually pre-written most of the answers that you need for your actual examination!

As for getting through a bunch of reading at the last minute... First, the faster you read, the more you retain--in general--so get through it. Don't get bogged down in the reading--just do it. But do it while you are awake--and small chunks may be the way to go, especially if it is a subject like Economics, Philosophy, etc. But the goal is to understand the IDEAS and CONCEPTS. Write those down.

Forget highlighters, tape recorders and passive learning. You need to write down your notes in order to make them "yours."

A special note about reading Shakespeare (for Mary and others). I strongly recommend trying to find a stage production or a movie of Shakespearean plays or going to a library and finding Charles & Mary Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare." so that you get a good general picture of "what's going on" before you try to work your way through the actual plays themselves. I do NOT recommend "Cliffs Notes" type study guides (more later) except as a last resort. But the problem with reading Shakespeare today (and perhaps a lot of other historical literature) is that the author could assume that the audience knew the story &/or that the audience would "see" the action. Learning to read a play and envision in their mind what is going on on stage is like being able to read the score for a symphony and being able to hear it in your head! Few can do this... (Of course, in part, that is what they are trying to teach you....)

If you don't know who's who and what's going on in a Shakespearean play before you actually try to read it (Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, Richard III, A Midsummer Night's Dream--it does not matter which one), it is going to be a tough slog through the text and at the end of it you have not learned much of anything except that you "hate" Shakespeare.

I'm always amazed when I encounter students who "studied" Chaucer and never realized that they were reading funny (and smutty) stories! But if you are trying to translate Middle English word by word for 400 pages, I guess you don't stop to laugh at the stories. It's a bunch of people stuck with each other temporarily (and knowing they won't run into each other again) playing "can you top this one?" And hundreds of years later the stories are still funny! We read modern day versions of them all the time in our e-mail, etc. and laugh like hell.

My comment about Cliff Notes, etc. These "study guides" can be very helpful if you buy them before you take the class or at the very beginning of the class and read through them so that you "know the story" or "get the basic background" before the class has gone very far--and then take them back to the library or throw them away. As a place to start, they can be very helpful. They are deadly if you use them as a substitute for doing the actual reading, going to class, etc. They are deadly if you read them as a substitute for doing your own thinking. And they are deadly if you try to use the "canned thinking" in them to write your exam questions. And never, ever, ever use them to write a term paper, etc. Remember that your professor has read each and every one of them for his/her subject area and can spot a copied sentence without a pause! Never look at one after the first 4 weeks of class or you will be tempted and the temptation will probably result in a much worse grade than you would have otherwise gotten--and if you plagarize, even unconsciously, it can get you an instant F, getting tossed out of school, etc. Don't do that.

Why are you going to school anyway?

With all the pressure on grades, etc. it is difficult to realize that going to school is to get an education as an end in itself. The goal is for you to learn to think, and to learn to think about the subject matter you are studying. The goal is not to learn the various facts that are used to teach you to think--after you've been out of school a while, you'll find that a lot of those were wrong or have been altered in significant ways. Examples: when my mother went to college, there were things called "unfilterable viruses." Conceptually they knew there were viruses out there. They just could not "isolate" them. I took biology before DNA... But the thinking skills I learned enabled me to read about "The Double Helix" in The Saturday Review of Literature (defunct publication) and make sense of it....

While "education" is necessary to get a job, etc. the goal of high school/college is not "job training." A certain level of education (and the degree to "prove" it) may be a necessary condition, but it is not a sufficient condition to get a specific job.... When you are young, it is difficult to understand this. But if you actually focus on the education, rather than on what you think it will enable you to "get" from it, in the long run you will be much better off and will find the education far more valuable.

One of the things that "education" does (or should do) is teaches you to learn and it becomes a habit. I've actually ended up with 4 different "careers" and a good basic education has enabled me to make the transitions without a lot of pain. I've had to learn a lot of stuff along the way that none of my teachers ever thought of.

In order to really learn from your education, you need to learn to do your own thinking, make your own mistakes--and learn to correct them (eventually you learn to recognize the mistakes and correct them on the fly), and gain competence and the self-confidence that goes with competence. And we all learn different subjects, etc. at different rates--but if you are young (and even if you are not so young), you need to learn to learn because when you stop learning you start dying....

To this end, learning good study habits is perhaps one of the most important things you need to learn because with good study habits you can learn to learn on your own. I hope that you are able to learn from the question about reading that the problem is probably that you need to pace your reading better (or perhaps learn to read faster) and work on general study skills and study habits, etc. Good study habits translate into good work habits (whether you work for someone else, for yourself--or even for work you do in and around your home, etc.).

[wx247]

Thank you all for your tips and suggestions. I make very good grades, but was just curious as to if anyone had suggestions on how to help aid the learning process. Everyone's suggestions helped a lot. Thank you!

[Janice]

My husband always stresses not to just memorize... learn it. Just read and study everything so you know it.

[MSRobi911]

You know these are all excellent tips and I am going to print them out and give a copy to my daughter and son who are both in college. I know Aimee makes note cards and that is how she studies, she writes down the key phrases etc and then looks over each card before her test. But of course, both of them say, I don't ever remember going over some of the material on the test, that is why they need to not only attend class every time but read the dang book!

Mary